See How Much the “Perfect” Female Body Has Changed in 100 Years

By Maria Hart

There’s a reason magazine covers include lines like “5 Moves for Michelle Obama Arms” or “The Secret for a Booty Like Beyoncé.” But if you’ve ever found yourself wishing for this actress’s waist or that singer’s legs, remember this: The media’s concept of the ideal woman’s body isn’t static. Whoever People magazine deems “most beautiful” this year is just a representation of what has bubbled up in the cauldron of pop culture. That silhouette of the “ideal woman” has been put through a series of fun house mirrors (fashion, movies, pop music, politics). It also changes year over year, so the physical qualities we embrace today are often at odds with those from previous generations.

To prove our point, we’re taking a closer look at body ideals over the last 100 years—which shows that, as they say on Project Runway, “In fashion, one day you’re in, and the next day you’re out.”

Meet the “it girl” of the era: the Gibson Girl. Illustrator Charles Gibson was to the early 1900s what trend-setting fashion photographers are today. His dream girl, broadcast on the pages of LIFE magazine, Collier’s, and Harper’s quickly became the Beyoncé of her era. Women raced to copy the signature look: A showstopping feminine body like a looping figure-8, thanks to a super-cinched corset. (Don’t try this at home!) Linda M. Scott writes in Fresh Lipstick: Redressing Fashion and Feminism, “The Gibson Girl was not dainty… she was dark, regal in bearing, [and] quite tall.”

But Gibson’s model and O.G.G. (original Gibson Girl) Camille Clifford was critical of the ideal. She sang in her vaudeville show, “Wear a blank expression/and a monumental curl/And walk with a bend in your back/Then they will call you a Gibson Girl.”

Say bye-bye to monumental curves, statuesque height, fussy updos, and all that jazz—and hello to the flapper. Unlike the frozen beauty of the decade before, the flapper is constantly in motion. The exaggerated curves of Gibson are gone and replaced with small bust and hips.

In fashion, the waistline moves several inches below the navel, making narrow hips a necessity. But don’t be fooled, the flapper doesn’t lack sex appeal; the focus has simply shifted downward to the legs, where a shorter knee-length hemline could expose the flash of a garter while doing a “shimmy.” Margaret Gorman, crowned as the first Miss America in 1921, was the era’s ideal. Her 5-foot-1, 108-pound frame was a full 180 from the Gibson era.

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