The Ideal Woman

Photograph by geishaboy500 via Flickr

I came across this certain picture of a Miss America from the 1920s which started circulating again on the internet. You may or may not have seen it, so I’ll leave a link here. I like looking at vintage pictures because they always have great stories to tell but I was unaware why this picture was so famous on a pop culture website with so many shares on social media. She had been described as ‘The Ideal Woman’ during her tenure as Miss America with her measurements printed on the issue. The first thing that I noticed was that these are my exact same measurements and height. I was slightly proud of myself because 1920s is my favourite fashion period. Then it hit me, I don’t really have a mailbox of full of requests asking me to join a pageant. Never will, until we have a 20’s comeback. I always imagined those were for Victoria’s Secret Angels. People today might not really find her alluring. Someone might just go out and call her slightly out of shape for the runway. To see someone like myself in a magazine, a normal, medium sized  person walking the runway and also winning the title of Miss America was a great discovery.

The next realization in the process was why did I have to wait for this picture to show up on my timeline, till I could appreciate my body? Women have a tendency to be unsatisfied with their bodies quite often but what inspires them to work towards it are magazine covers and fashion pageants. I wish we had more inspirations like Miss America in the present day to tell us that beautiful comes in all shapes and sizes. I find it quite sad that fat women who can laugh at themselves are considered a good sport by the society. I think accepting yourself instead of believing you are some form of entertainment to people is the first step to opening up people’s eyes to the situation. I don’t support obesity but I’m talking about a general group of people who are naturally healthy and not a size zero but deem themselves as fat. It has almost become a fashion trend in the last couple of years. You keep seeing the hot beach bod on every subscription you have, on social media, on newspapers and you want one too. You want to try it for yourself, you want to blend in. However our bodies are actually like the classic trend, they come in different sizes and they never go out of style. Having a certain body type shouldn’t stop you from wearing certain types of clothing.

For example, I’ve never been very fond of my arms. They are rather chubby compared to the rest of my body and I have practically no control over it. I have bigger bones perhaps because working out has toned them but not reduced them to any ‘desirable’ size. I love wearing sleeveless tops but this particular issue has caused me to back down from buying a lot of things in the past. Now, I just go ahead and buy it and there have been times I’ve got compliments about them. Not arms, my tops which mean they don't look completely ridiculous on me. They just look a little different from what it would look on you, or you. The ability to be fine with that is a big step towards self-confidence. Before I started blogging, I always hesitated because I thought fashion blogs were only for a certain category of people with a certain kind of body. I don’t mean that in a derogatory sense but that was a common misconception I had. Not until I started getting a little more involved in the community that I realized that there are bloggers of all shapes, sizes, ethnicity who are equally successful and that was one of the biggest inspirations I have even today. I know there will be some people who come across this post(or my blog in general)  who will be rolling their eyes or reading this with a cheeky grin on their face but I don’t mind it anymore. This makes me happy and I’ll do it as long as it continues to make me happy.

That’s all for today’s ramble. Hope you have a marvelous day!