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Can we stop making our bodies follow trends?

by Neave Natalia


Goodbye BBL’s, welcome back heroin chic. The pale, slender silhouettes that dominated the 1990s fashion scene are in Vogue once again. 

Popularised in the early 1990s, the heroin chic trend was a result of the de-stigmatisation and glamourisation of drug use after the 1980s health epidemic. Kate Moss was the poster girl for the heroin chic trend, featuring in campaigns for designers such as Calvin Klein. 


As with all trends, heroin chic became the body type to aspire to, and it is pretty self-explanatory as to why it was so inherently damaging and how we still reap the consequences to this day. The skeletal, unhealthy frames glamourised drug use and eating disorders, with some women going to extremely unhealthy means to achieve the look of their idols. The harmful unrealistic beauty standards quickly followed into the 00s, which is widely known for being one of the most fatphobic eras yet, matched with an equally toxic diet culture which people are still recovering from today. 


So, is heroin chic coming back? The short and not-so-sweet answer is, yes. 


The Kardashian’s have already had their famous BBLs removed and have been seen sporting slimmer frames. It’s truly saddening to see that after the last decade of newfound body positivity and acceptance, women's bodies are still being treated as and seen as trends that come around in cycles.


Heroin chic making a return is problematic for many reasons. It promotes drug use, undereating and smoking and an overall unhealthy lifestyle just to achieve the thin ideal. Millennials who experienced the toxicity in the 90s and 00s are not happy at all, with one Twitter user quoting; ‘Did not realise how much it affected me and my body image until it came back so hard the past few months.’


A recent resurgence for the heroin chic ‘trend’  is thanks to Gwenyth Paltrow and her ‘bone broth’ which has been circling social media. Paltrow has been criticised and accused of ‘glamourising starving herself’ and borderline promoting eating disorders to impressionable younger people. The problem doesn’t lie within the bone broth itself or Gwenyth, it’s the idea that women constantly have to harm themselves even through their eating habits in the name of wellness when in reality it's just disordered eating. It seems that the progressive decade we were having with body neutrality and body positivity is on the decline once more. 


Our bodies aren’t built to be forced to change. They reflect our journeys and shouldn’t have to adhere to trends.  


Edited by Emily Duff

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