Unattainable Standards of Beauty: Temporal Trends of Victoria’s Secret Models from 1995 to 2018

Extract

From ancient Greek Venus de Milo to today’s fashion models, the task of quantifying female body attractiveness remains complex. Perceived attractiveness is influenced by physical and nonphysical traits and is further influenced by media exposure and sociocultural standards of the time. One of the more established parameters to evaluate female body attractiveness is the waist-to hip ratio (WHR), which is a sexually dimorphic trait that measures body fat distribution.¹ The first Victoria’s Secret runway show debuted 23 years ago and since then has been viewed by millions yearly, making it the most watched fashion show worldwide. In this study, we evaluated temporal trends of physical body attributes among Victoria’s Secret models from 1995 to 2018.

METHODS

Employing The Fashion Model Directory (www.fashionmodeldirectory.com), a credited professional source of fashion information, the following information were extracted from all Victoria’s Secret models (n = 239): hair color, eye color, height, bust, waist, hips, dress size, race, and age at time of first runway show. All models who walked in the Victoria’s Secret fashion show from January 1995 to December 2018 were included in this study. Data were stratified into groups of 4 years. To examine differences in characteristics between the oldest and most contemporary time points, we compared data from the January 1995 to December 1998 stratum with data from the January 2015 to December 2018 stratum. Results were reported as counts and percentages (nominal data) or means (continuous data). Differences between nominal variables were assessed through chi-square tests, and differences between continuous variables were assessed through unpaired 2-tailed t test. Statistical significance was defined as P < 0.05. Institutional review board approval was waived by The University of Colorado Denver Institutional Review Board because no patients were involved in this study and informed consent was not required.