Skinny is in, just in case you missed the memo and somehow also missed being whacked over the head with the skinny mallet by every single media outlet. But it is no longer enough to just be thin. You must be skeletal. Lumpy thin, a la Kirsten Dunst, is so nineties. Anyone can starve, darlings. But not everyone can make their bones pop just so.
Consider the evidence:
Last year was all about the clavicle. Many thin women have protruding collar bones at the base of their neck. But only the really good ones can make it pop all the way to a visible knob at the top of each shoulder. In fact, this look – dubbed The Kiera for its most famous practitioner – is so popular that it has inspired its own brand of plastic surgery: shoulder lipo.
But before you go running to your neighborhood plastic surgeon, be warned: “This procedure is for people who are usually already in great shape and are very trim. They maybe go to the gym three or five days a week but there are a few areas that the gym can’t reach, such as their shoulders, knees and ankles. It is not a procedure I perform on obese women.” And now I’m picturing obese women with sinewy clavicle-popping shoulders… Somewhere Da Vinci is rolling in his grave.
This year’s trend gets even more anatomical, if you will. Lady Victoria Hervey shows that chest bones are the new collar bones. If you can’t count a woman’s ribs all the way to her navel then she is obviously too fond of the food. Or survival. Or shirts.
What’s next for a social climbing starlet with too much money and too few brains? Chest lipo? Whoops, there go your breasts! And everyone knows you need those to get ahead (must… not… make… perverted… pun). Thank heavens Dr. 90210, despite not being board-certified and a general all-around cretin, invented silicone! I mean, he did, right??
Honestly, I’m not sure where this is going next. We’ve already got hip bones so prominent you could lose an eye. Cheek bones so hollow you could sip the special Kool-Aid out of the them. Chins so razor sharp they could spear fish (that one’s for you, Leslie!) But don’t worry, the media won’t leave us hanging. After all, I hear that Angelina is spitting distance from her pre-pregnancy weight of 105 lbs. Girl is 5′ 7″ according to IMDb, which gives her a BMI of 16.
Wait – has anyone told Rachel Zoe and Co. that our brains our 60% FAT?!? I feel a trend coming. Brace yourselves, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
I wonder if any of them can even do a push-up?
If only RZ’s ONLY problem where her ever increasingly showing BONES, huh? 🙂
Id noticed this as well and it is plain ole sad. So many celebs ‘claimed’ that they ‘just look like that’ when clavs were all the rage.
PERHAPS.
CHEST BONES SHOWING? Methinks not…
M.
Dang. I was in on the clavicle popping trend, but I suppose I needed that shoulder lipo to get them to pop as well as Keira. Now I feel like a clavicle-popless-non-chestbones loser!
On a serious note – I really do wonder what the next thing will be. How much skinnier can a person get before collapsing in the middle of the red carpet?
Shoulder lipo??? What?
We are getting further and further away from beautiful, I am not sure what this “my gosh, quick call 911, she needs a samwich” trend is all about.
All I know, is that I don’t like it and I don’t find it attractive. I want to see fit! Not “hey I just finished a round of chemo” thin. YUCK!!
They just all look so OLD. Free bus-pass and bingo sort of old.
I can understand the thin-is-beautiful concept (although I wouldn’t condone it as a lifestyle choice) but how can looking like your grandma be sexy?
TA x
They do look gross…and old. I keep hoping celebrities will come to their senses before my daughter is old enough to be affected by it!
I guess that is too much to ask.
ha! I like Erin’s comment about pushups – visible chestbones just say “weak” to me. But to be honest, I have a slim upper body and small boobs and while I don’t have visible chest bones (thank god!) I do have a fairly razor sharp clavicle. And I can do pushups. (pre-injury, I mean. Now I’m working on just building up my plank to 20 seconds. Boo.) It is totally just another sign of women getting crazy-thin (or having ginormous implants inserted – I feel like that leads to chest-bone showage, too.)
PS How annoying is it that Rachel Zoe is trying to make the phrase “You look bananas” stick?
Erin – excellent point. Magic 8 ball says… no.
MizFit – I love it when celebs say that. You know that if chubsters were to suddenly be “in” they’d all gain weight overnight and be like, “Whaaa? I’m naturally this way!”
Gena – I thought collapsing on the red carpet WAS the goal! Isn’t that like awesome publicity??
Alice – “I just finished a round of chemo thin”!! Love it!
Tokaiangel – good call on the OLD.
Robin – some days I’m thankful I don’t have daughters. Course the trick will be teaching my sons to love women for who they are…
WeightingGame – Yay for pushups!! You’ll be back in butt-kickin’ form in no time!
As a small person, I have a bit of the clavicle action but the chest bones … ewwww.
I’m more of a fan of strength and food is a priority for me so I’m afraid I’ll have to give up on matching the celebs on this one.
I like the fact that I managed over 50 pushups yesterday!
Having fixed too many broken bones, I must admit an intimacy with them! However, we do need a reasonable protective layer over dem bones for optimum health, function, and beauty!
I don’t have popping clavicles, though I do have a pretty crazy looking hole between them when I breathe in deeply.
I could deal with the popping clavicle thing on some stars who still looked healthy, because I just know that some people have clavicles that do that (and I’m talking real, non-anorexic people here). But popping chest bones? Seriously? Ugh.
Angelina looked so much more attractive in Tomb Raider when she had some muscle and weight on her bones (but by no means hefty, I just mean normal-thin, not scary-thin). She’s nearly past scary-thin now, especially in that pic.
You just prompted me to look in the mirror and examine my clavicle. I don’t think I’ve ever done that before. It’s somewhat prominent, but I’m just bony like that.
Actually, just a few days ago, I noticed that my shoulders aren’t bony anymore. When I was younger (like 15) and would be asked what I didn’t like about my body, I would say my shoulders. They were so bony and jutted out. I wasn’t anorexic thin, just thin and NOT muscular at all.
My husband commented recently about how beautiful Angelina looked while pregnant (which stung just a little because I look like crap when I am pregnant). She does look much better with some meat on her bones.
Good Lord.
Interesting points about how they look old- its true. They look haggard and washed out. And I imagine I would too if I had no meat on my bones, either. It seems as though we can never go extreme enough!
Gemfit – 50 pushups??? You’re a rockstar! I lvoe it!!
Dr. J – love your skin-peeled-back perspective;)
Lethological – totally agree with you about Angelina during her Lara Croft days. HOT.
Judy – yeah, my clavicle is pretty prominent too but the only times I’ve ever been able to see chest bones was when I was too skinny.
Sagan – we seem to live in an extreme society, ’tis true.
Oh, you know what’s totally not hot whatsoever?
A woman whose ribs are visible on her chest and has huge implants on top of that sorry chest. It screams of anorexic and plastic surgery.
So yeah.
And as you guys pointed out they do look old. I think if you deplete yourself enough, you age prematurely.
I used to be able to see my clavicle easily…
bones seasons and episodes
I know this is super old – really really super old – but to be fair, I weigh 90kg (almost 200 pounds, shock horror), and my collarbones protrude as clear as day. I don't even have a smaller top half – I'm well proportioned with a big everything. So, y'know. Kiera is totally skinny, but there's also a chance that she's just got skinny shoulders like me.
Not that that excuses people getting clavical lipo. That's just silly.
i have a great collarbone without being anerexic
hmm.. bookmarked thread..
I have quite protruding collarbones/clavicle, always have. I'm not anorexically thin or even skinny but I keep in good shape.
I think I have inherited this from my mum, she has also always had clearly visible collarbones. Maybe it's just genetic?
Unless you go for the surgery induced look, shoulder lipo. Seriously? I mean, what a silly concept haha.
Keira's collarbone protrudes as it does because she's so skinny. I don't understand why people say things like "she's naturally like that" or "she's always been like that", she's definitely had a much healthier, fuller figure in the past.
At the same time, you don't need to be skinny to have a prominent collar bone; I've been putting on weight recently due to exam stress and they're still as obvious as ever. I find it can be embarrassing as well; some pics of myself which just include my head and shoulders make me look anorexic because my bones sometimes stick out too much.
To me, visible chest bones in a woman are not attractive. If these were African refugees instead of celebrities, I would feel sorry for them.
Wow, I didn't know visable chestbones were actually something some women want. I have that look and I HATE it. I am healthy, 5'7, 135 pounds, but I cannot for the life of me beef up these chest bones. I was actually surfing the web for something to do about them! Pushups? Planks? I'll do lots more.
I found this page because I have a protruding clavical like Kiera & I hate it! alas, there is nothing that I can do. I am 122 lbs. and I think I look great… besides the clavical that I cannot get rid of.
I looked up this crazy collar bone fad and found this website. Judy: you said you looked in the mirror. So did I. I have really sharp clavicles, actually, and I never realized before. If I reach up, I can actually put my finger inside the hole between my clavicle and my shoulder muscle! Is this normal? I do it when I'm under scrutiny or am stressed. I can do push-ups: up to 35 good ones on good days and can hold a good plank for 1 minute and 30 seconds. I'm fit. What do I do? I'm more of the muscle-ey type, so why my bones are sticking out so disgustingly is beyond me. HELP!
While I am saddened by the phenomenon of eating disorders, I just wanted to bring your attention to the fact that some of us are just naturally thin. I have a prominent braided chest, and no amount of eating I do will fix that. All natural bodies are beautiful, not just the curvy ones.
I don’t like the look of visible chest bones but I have them.
As a healthy woman in my 30’s
with a small upper body, my chest bones are there. I am conscious of them, when my top is covered, I look great, when I wear a singlet (I live in a tropical climate), I look skinny.
Such is life, with age comes loss of fat from the face and I have found – from my chest. Of course it may be slipping into my bum & thighs lol
My point is – if people have surgery to look like this that is sad but if it’s how you were made – don’t judge those people!
I thought this article was a big joke. Like not in the sense that you were sarcastic the whole time, but that it didn’t make any sense.
A lot of the commenters are tearing apart women with visible bones. How is that different from criticizing women with too many rolls. You didn’t even mention in your article once that this is directed completely at people who are aiming for jutted bones…it’s just bones showing in general is horrible and ugly. So now on top of all the other things women can feel horrible about they now have to feel self conscious for a completely natural, healthy, uncontrollable aspect of their bodies. I have collar bones and an entire set of ribs visible. I actually like seeing my ribs so I suppose my body suits me. But you can see them from top to bottom. And I’m not a small woman in any sense. I am a size 8. 5″8 155 lbs. I just have a naturally small upper body and larger lower body.
You know, what I find the most interesting about this page is the fact that everything that was said is still relevant eight years after it was originally published. It’s honestly terrifying that after nearly a decade people are still pushing themselves in unhealthy ways to achieve this standard. I’m genuinely surprised that this “beauty fad” hasn’t changed into something else yet. I wish people wouldn’t impose these kinds of expectations onto people. Women have to be extremely thin, whether they were “lucky enough” to be born that way or “just push themselves a little” to get there. Men have to be these super muscular beefcakes with rock hard six pack abs. It’s so.. pointless. And what’s even worse is that we all still feel the need to conform to this stuff. Humanity has been here quite a while, you’d think we’d have learned to just take care of ourselves properly and look the way we do. No matter what.