Fashion

This Is What a Real "Perfect" Body Looks Like

by Erin Mayer

The perpetual fight for diversity in advertising wages onward. If, like me, you were super frustrated by Victoria Secret's tasteless "Perfect Body" ad campaign, you'll be happy to learn that not all lingerie brands expect our bodies to fit any sort of mold. Lingerie Fashion Week, which took place in New York City the weekend before Halloween, showcased bodies of all shapes and sizes on the runways. And I mean all shapes and sizes — pregnant models, plus-size models, petite models, even models who had survived breast cancer.

Lauren Rich, founder of Lingerie Fashion Week, wrote in a press release, "From the beginning we envisioned Lingerie Fashion Week® as a platform to embrace and celebrate a wide range of intimate apparel brands, and hence body types, from petite to full bust to full figure to maternity. Lingerie is not one-size-fits-all, and neither are the women who wear it — on, and off, the runway."

Over the course of the weekend, labels such as Tia Lyn, Harlow & Fox, Kocolala, and Secrets in Lace featured curvy models on their runways; maternity brand You! Lingerie used models at various stages of pregnancy; and Affinitas & Parfait, in partnership with the PinkChoseMe Foundation, gave breast cancer survivors and those currently living with the disease a moment to shine.

By featuring a wide spectrum of body types, the folks behind Lingerie Fashion Week did an effective job of promoting body positivity for all, without fat shaming or skinny shaming. This is such an important step for brands to be taking, and I hope to see this kind of body acceptance become more mainstream in the near future (lookin' at you, VS).

Why? Because every body is a "perfect" body. Take a look at some photos from LFW below.

Images: Courtesy Lingerie Fashion Week