Kim Kardashian’s Instagram posts signal a ‘concerning’ shift
It’s the cosmetic procedure that’s defined beauty culture over the last decade more than any other – but Kim Kardashian’s recent photos could signal it’s about to end.
Cosmetic Surgery
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It’s the cosmetic procedure that’s defined beauty culture over the last decade more than any other.
But if the recent social media posts of Kim Kardashian are anything to go by, the era of the Brazilian Butt Lift could be coming to an end.
Since Vogue (questionably) declared in 2014 we were “officially in the era of the big booty”, the BBL – which involves fat being removed from the stomach, lower back or thighs and then strategically injected into the buttocks – has steadily become a widespread cultural phenomenon.
Between 2015 and 2019, the number of procedures in the US increased by 90.3 per cent; according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, surgeons performed 40,000 BBLs (also known as butt augmentation procedures) in 2020, bringing in $US140 million worth of revenue.
Worldwide, a survey that same year from the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery found the number performed globally had risen by 77.6 per cent since 2014.
“The big booty has officially become ubiquitous,” Patricia Garcia wrote for Vogue.
“In music videos, in Instagram photos, and on today’s most popular celebrities, the measure of sex appeal is inextricably linked to the prominence of a woman’s behind.”
Yet in recent months, as the beauty standard moves away from a hyper-visible, hyper-exaggerated aesthetic (see TikTok’s#cleangirl makeup trend) and low-rise jeans and Miu Miu mini skirts worm their way into our wardrobes, speculation has mounted that the BBL’s days as the fastest growing cosmetic surgery in the world (albeit the deadliest) could be numbered.
One only needs to look at Kardashian – whose bare derrière broke the internet eight years ago when it appeared on the cover of Paper magazine – to wonder if it’s true.
Over the past six months, both Kardashian and her sister Khloe, who fans have long suspected underwent BBLs to achieve their famed hourglass figures, have flaunted a slimmer physique with a more proportionate waist-to-butt ratio – sparking rumours they’ve have had their alleged procedures reversed.
A July article from Dazed pondered whether the sisters’ supposed move is a sign that “white people are ‘retiring’ from Blackness”, “after years of profiting from and appropriating Black women’s beauty, bodies and culture”.
It’s a sentiment that was echoed by Ellen Atlanta in a piece for The Face last week, who suggested that “with her divorce from Kanye West, her increasing involvement in US politics and her legal training, Kim Kardashian is leaning away from a hypersexualised aesthetic and towards a more conservative, middle class beauty image”.
“This is significant because so much of the Kardashian’s beauty paradigm was colonised – it was an aesthetic stolen from minorities,” Atlanta added.
“The commodification of a body type that many Black women naturally possesses – as well as the distortion of what that looks like – reinforces the phenomenon of appropriation, especially as these features are most highly celebrated on white or light skinned women.
“The dropping of the overt BBL in favour of a ‘Country Club’ alternative, therefore, has coded racist messaging – are the bodies we typically attribute to Black and Latinx women not ‘conservative’ enough to be appropriate for middle class spaces?
“With women’s bodies (and particularly minority women’s bodies) being increasingly controlled, commodified and desexualised across America, it’s no coincidence that the move towards a more conservative beauty aesthetic runs in parallel with an increasingly polarised political landscape, the overturning of Roe v Wade and heightened racial tension.”
Founders of UK plastic surgery clinic Harley Street Skin, Lesley Reynolds and Dr Aamer Khan, told The Face that while the procedure isn’t “disappearing anytime soon, we are beginning to see a slowdown of people looking to get a BBL”.
“Requests for procedure reversals are on the rise, despite not being something we commonly need to perform previously,” the pair said.
“The primary cause is people maybe not liking the result as much when matched with the current beauty landscape.”
While a 2017 study placed the worldwide BBL mortality rate at a staggering one in 3000, a reversal or reduction is far less dangerous than the original procedure – with liposuction and fat grafts used to remove the fat from the desired areas and reduce the patient’s overall silhouette.
What’s “concerning”, Ms Reynolds and Dr Khan noted, is that “there are those who know these surgeries are reversible and therefore can be more light-minded about whether to undergo the procedure to test it out”.
The American Society for Plastic Surgeons’ Dr Alan Matarasso agreed, telling The Face that “while we can’t be certain yet whether or not the BBL has maintained its popularity this year, we have seen people coming in and saying they’re disappointed with the look and want to change it”.
“I find that many people who are considering a BBL now don’t want the extremes we’ve been seeing,” he added.
“People get excited initially because it’s a relatively new concept, and then we see where it fits in. Both surgeons and patients are becoming more conservative in their approach.”
Like most other cosmetic procedures, the overt BBL look will inevitably die down, becoming increasingly commonplace and undetectable.
“It’s less likely now for someone to want to obviously look like they’ve had a BBL than it was even last year,” Ms Reynolds and Dr Khan said.
“We’re seeing an uptick on the trend of looking like you’re from the early 2000s, with a trim, straight look.”
There are also fears that the end of the BBL era – which created, as Atlanta put it, “an illusion of acceptance for curvier women” – could herald the return of the 90s heroin chic and subsequent “pro-ana” movements, the aesthetics of which are once again gaining momentum across social media.
“Harmful fashion trends, particularly during the 2000s, are often ingrained in diet culture and encourage an infatuation with weight loss,” director of external affairs at UK eating disorder charity Beat, Tom Quinn, told Dazed earlier this year.
“If a glorification of this era were to become prevalent in the mainstream media again, it would be very harmful for somebody who is susceptible to an eating disorder and could contribute to an eating disorder developing.”
Originally published as Kim Kardashian’s Instagram posts signal a ‘concerning’ shift
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