In a new campaign, lingerie company Triumph is doing away with the old fruit designations for body shapes: “apple,” “pear,” “banana,” “pineapple,” etc. and encouraging women to think of their body types in the celebratory terms of famous artists.
The new shapes are:
- Da Vinci: Classic lines, straight up and down, an elegant form
- Rubens: Well-proportioned and weight around the midsection
- Botticelli: Bottom heavy, bigger around the hips and bottom than the bust region
- Raphael: Bigger up top with broad shoulders and/or buxom bust and a comparatively smaller waist and hips
- Matisse: Narrow shoulders and hips, a wider midriff and some weight in the legs
- Rembrandt: A smaller waist with a fuller bust and bottom.
By the company’s description, I’m somewhere between a Rubens and an Rembrandt (Rubrandt?).
While I appreciate efforts to use positive language to talk about bodies, and the women painted by those artists are unarguably beautiful, I’m frustrated at this campaign. Because as soon as you click on your new, artistic body type, Triumph goes to great length to tell you how to use undergarments and clothing to obscure your body’s natural features and create the classic hourglass appearance. You were a Matisse? Not for long!
Granted, Triumph is in the business of underwear and body shapers, so they have a vested interest in encouraging you to alter your appearance. But wouldn’t it have been amazing if the new artistic body types was the foundation for a campaign on celebrating and accepting the female form just as it is, instead of another way to get us to buy girdles?
And what does it mean that I really wish I was a Klee?
Paul Klee's Angelus Novus
What do you think of this campaign? Do you see your own body shape in the options listed? Does having a comparison to the women in famous paintings make you feel better about your body shape?
I’m totally a Jackson Pollock.
Ha! Perfect.
Many a morning I feel like a Picasso.
I like the names better. Suddenly I’m glamourous rather than a fruit salad. But I agree, what’s the point of being glamourous if the point is to really squish yourself into a sausage casing so that we’ll all look the Marilyn Monroe… Maybe it’s just a slow step in the right direction and someday in the distant future every woman and girl will be able to feel like they are beautiful and appreciated no matter their shape.
I’m a Botticelli with Raphael shoulders (Raphacelli?). And while the names are better I don’t appreciate it being another excuse to try to get me to morph my body type into something “better.” Being a Raphacelli is just fine with me. And my world dominating hips.
Interesting…. my body never really fits into any of these categories. I do get frustrated by the constant messages that women need to hide, disguise or transform themselves in order to be considered attractive. Outside of a well fitting bra, I’m not much of a fan of shapewear
ME TOO. By some descriptions I’m sort of appley, sort of pear-y, and sort of straight up and down. There is no sense to this! Even well-fitting bras are weirdly elusive
Considering the vast array of breast shapes in the world, it’s sort of amazing that anyone’s EVER found a single bra that fit.
My inner teacher is bothered at seeing great artists’ work reduced to a marketing gimmick. How many women will know more about lingerie than art history? How many of us will see the name Botticelli and think “Oh right, those push-up bras!”
I would be a Bottibrandt, and Triumph would probably doom me to a life in padded bras and spandex bike shorts, maybe with a waist cincher. Blecchh.
As an art student when studying these artists I did get excited about the way that some the women were painted because I could see the beauty in a realistic womens shape like my own. I am Ruebens and I knew it from the first slide I saw in that lecture hall. And it can be a positive thing BUT I disagree with their intentions. I believe womens bodies should be celebrated for what they really are. Not what someone else thinks they should look like. We hear it enough the way it is. I want my curves flattered not squished.
I admit that I prefer to associate myself with famous artists than with fruit, ripe or otherwise. But they’re still all male artists and, as you said, they system is still about dress, not love and appreciation. While I may refer to myself as one of these artists shapes in the future, it’ll be more to be funny and less because I need another system for classifying myself. And yeah, what if I wanted to be a Picasso or a Pollock? I quite dig the choice of Klee.
I never fit into any of the categories, fruit or artistic or otherwise. I have a body that I’ve grown to love and accept and not compare to others, just as I learn to love and accept the many parts of myself. All of these silhouettes are gorgeous. I also don’t engage in shapewear. I need my bits and pieces to be free.
You’ve hit it right there – “all of these silhouettes are gorgeous.” They are.
Hm, I would be a Picasso–coming at you from several angles.
Probably I would be more impressed if they hadn’t done the same stunt (complete with models wandering the streets in underwear and heels) a year ago with animal names . . .
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3163301.htm
Animal names, eh? I wonder what I would be. Koala? Centipede? Oh! Banana slug!