Neatorama points to this article on Diet Blog about the changing shape of women’s bodies through the twentieth century. There’s an iconic photo of a, uh, iconic woman from each decade to illustrate:
The 1920s and 1960s both bucked the trend of the curvaceous woman. Ann Bolin, an anthropologist at Elon College suggests that “during periods of liberation, like the 1920s, when women had just gotten the vote, and the 1960s, when the Pill became available, the ideal shape for women deemphasized their reproductive characteristics–the nourishing breasts, the wide, childbearing hips.”
The comments after the post are striking to me, in how much the commenters seem to know about the physical dimensions of historical figures.
DarrenBarefoot.com 