Contorted Closet

Originally Written for Atlas Magazine's Fall 2025 Issue "Contortion."

If beauty is the art of transformation, my body is the canvas. When I was younger, I would look in the mirror and see my reflection as an opportunity, a chance for expression. But as I grew older, I started to view myself through a camera lens. I push and pull my skin, trying to mold my body into a different shape every day. I cinch my waist, pad my chest, and flatten my stomach. A closet full of clothes turned into a collection of shapewear, with shape taking precedence over style. As shapewear and fitted undergarments have exploded in popularity, the female body has become the most prominent yet inconsistent trend in modern fashion. And young women like myself have been turned into both the biggest victims and supporters of the movement.

My first experience with shapewear was in fifth grade when I started wearing bras. I remember anxiously pacing through the aisles of my local Justice, overwhelmed by the options. There were bras meant to suppress the chest, push up bras to enhance the chest, even bras solely meant to prepare and “train” young girls to wear more bras in the future. When a worker came to help us, she mentioned that the push-up style was their most popular offering. As I tried the bra on, I grew estranged with my reflection. The body I saw in the mirror was not the one I grew up in. It was an entirely different shape, one that didn’t feel like it could ever truly be mine. I was disgusted. I was confused. Yet, most importantly, I was intrigued. Clothes didn’t just sit on my body anymore. They changed it. And the change seemed to make all the difference. The next day as I was changing in the locker room before my physical education class, a friend came up to me. She said I looked different that day. When I asked her what she meant, she simply replied, “You look good,” and walked off. In that moment I internalized my feelings as a fact: to change my body is to look good. There is something wrong with what is naturally there.

I started wearing shapewear during my sophomore year of high school, spending almost all of my birthday money on it. I ordered a push-up bra and mid-waist shorts from SKIMS to widen my chest and slim my waist down. Putting these items on was like having three different bodies all at once: the large curvy chest, stick-thin torso and legs, and the ugly skin that laid underneath. It was a sensation like no other. In particular, I was obsessed with the shorts, to the point where I couldn’t bear to look at myself without them. I wore shapewear no matter what, even to bed. Some mornings I would wake up with marks or bruises on my waist. It hurt, both emotionally and physically. But I ignored my pain, prioritizing other people’s perception over my own self-worth. Once I started college, comments on my body came from everywhere. My friends would often tell me how great they thought I looked. In those moments, I felt beautiful. But once I was left alone with my reflection, I realized the body they were complementing was not mine. They were admiring the contortion of it.

SKIMS and their products heavily affected the way I viewed myself. On their website, the brand says their mission is to “set new standards by providing solutions for every body… and consistently innovate on the past and advance our industry for the future.” The key words in this statement are “solutions” and “innovate.” Both of these words imply the existence of a problem. In context, the problem is the body. And the only way to “fix” this problem is by buying from the brand. At the time of writing this, the brand sells fifty-three different forms of shapewear and nine styles of push-up bras. Each style is meant to “fix” a part of your body, from padding the hips to accentuate one’s curves or pushing against the stomach to flatten it. Whatever insecurity you have, SKIMS sells the “solution.” Insecurity has become its own industry, with SKIMS at the forefront of the business. The brand was estimated to have a value of four billion dollars in 2023, which has only grown in recent years. Many other brands have also found success recently, including Spanx, Honeylove, Leonisa, and more. None of these companies sell clothing, they sell the idea of a perfect body. Girls can change their style by changing their bodies. The body itself is the sexiest thing a woman can wear.

The most important and damaging aspect of shapewear is that it is undetectable. With people being able to change the shape of their bodies on a whim, the image of the female body has become an intricate puzzle that loses pieces by the day. Under this lens, I saw my body as an object. Rather than follow modern trends, I choose to follow my own personal style. Now when I look in the mirror, I recognize what I see. I understand that my body is a part of me, not a product of or for anyone else.