The Art of Shaping0

Huzzah! FINALLY a top women’s brassiere boutique is embracing the idea that all women are beautiful in their campaign. True, it’s on the other side of the world in Australia, but it’s certainly a start.

The Art of Shaping is a competition and campaign being held by Triumph boutique, and is based on The Shaping Report by Footprints Market Research in Nov. 2010. The statistics are astounding:

• 70% of women are not happy with their body
• 79% of women say their partners are happy with their body

This backs up exactly what I’ve found. If you’re man is truly happy with who you are and what you look like, shouldn’t that be evidence that there is nothing wrong? Yes we compare ourselves to other women, and wish we were like them, but one of the core reasons we want to look good is to feel sexy and attractive for our partner or future partners, so this is proof that the issue is within ourselves and not with how we actually look.

• 48% of women are size 14 or above, yet 57% of women would like to be no more than a size 10.

I’m pleased to see that the aspirations of these women isn’t to be what the fashion world parades as perfection. I’m all in support of women who want to lose a bit of weight for health reasons, so long as it’s done in a healthy manner!

The rest of the research was aimed more at the advertisement of Triumph’s shape wear, but it was encouraging. I’m all for shape wear, I do use it myself on bloated days and I think it helps more psychologically then in actual appearance. But confidence does increase, so I’m fully behind this campaign.

Anyway, they’ve sectioned the shapes of women into six categories:

• Da Vinci – Small hips, small waist, small bust (Straight)
• Rubens – Hips, waist, bust (Curvy)
• Botticelli – Small bust, small waist, hips (Pear)
• Raphael –  Small waist, small hips, bust (Straight)
• Matisse – Small hips, waist, bust (Curvy)
• Rembrandt – Small waist, bust, hips (Hour Glass)

Refreshing to not just see two categories: fat + thin. Each were given advice on how to best accentuate the good features of this body type, as well as hide the bits you don’t like. Not one was seen as better than the other. Each just as good and bad as the other. My dream is for this to be solidified in all women’s minds. After all, every person is unique, so why shouldn’t their body reflect that? Am thinking that perhaps statistics like this would really help the cause, for real women to hear what other real women are saying; as opposed to ONLY having the media’s set of images being the only ones we see. All I want is a world where we can walk down the street and not be bombarded by posters of unhealthily thin women which says “Being thin is great, being thin is the best, you want to be thin don’t you? Well buy our clothes and you’ll look like this”. Fallacy.

To have a look at this report yourself and see the wonderful competition that Triumph are holding, visit http://theartofshaping.com.au