Despite the disturbing new cult of 00 anorexia, the beautiful woman celebrates rather than starves her body.
Last year, a new phrase entered the collective consciousness. The term “size 0” or, still worse, “00” was on everybody’s lips, from canny tabloid editors, via ladies who (theoretically) lunch, to teenagers looking to endorse being “ana” (anorexic). A 0 translates as a UK size 4, the still more radically etiolated 00 a British size 2. Few adult women are this size naturally. For the majority, it is a look of aggressive malnourishment, an enforced return to pubescence that throws the body into crisis.
Like so many of the zeitgeist’s more dubious manifestations, the look originated in America, specifically La La Land. Here the ladyboy physique in vogue in the 90s (outsize, frequently silicone-enhanced breasts on a boyish, snake-hipped frame) was gradually supplanted by a more consistently skeletal guise courtesy of the entertainment industry’s “lollipop ladies” (so-called because of their disproportionate heads). The ostensible excuse: that the camera puts pounds on its subject, so she better not lay claim to any. The rest of the world was not slow to catch up. Top Shop began stocking size 4, the world’s fashion industry was rocked by high-profile fatalities, while a series of British celebrities flirted with this most extreme aesthetic.
Women’s bodies have always been susceptible to what one might refer to as “cultural fluctuation”. There have even been other epochs where gauntness and sickness have been considered synonymous with beauty, be it consumptive Victorian heroines, or 90s heroin chic. However, never before has thinness to the point of illness been deemed so socially acceptable or, indeed, professionally necessary. While the majority of the Western population ambles toward obesity, so an elite is distinguishing itself by merit of an equally perilous, yet somehow desirable, emaciation. This is not the time-honoured starlet trajectory of zero to hero, but zero as hero; as a woman, to be something in this culture one must be nothing.
While the world’s beautiful people may be the proponents of this trend, there is, emphatically, nothing beautiful about it. To artificially attain the size of an 8 year-old child is extremely difficult for an adult to achieve without propelling herself into a state of physical and mental illness. Her periods cease, her skin collapses, her hair suffers. The 00 woman looks ill because ill is what she is.
Better, saner then to love the skin one is in, and aspire to be rather more than mere skin and bone. Every woman will have her favoured means of celebrating her body. For some it will be exercise, for others the finest quality food. Sex is an intoxicating means of making oneself feel fabulous, while some women feel even more lovely after childbirth because of the exhilarating achievement that their body has just pulled off. For many, channelling the body beautiful simply requires a little retail-based foot fetishism.
Beauty rituals naturally play their part, whether one is a size 6 or 20. The unrivalled array of services and expertise available at Urban Retreat make it the ultimate haven for cherishing and indulging one’s physique. Massage, for instance, is a time-honoured means of achieving physical and psychological robustness, and whether it is a decadent hot stone approach, or the more vigorous G5 Gyratory technique, the Retreat boasts a massage to appeal to everyone.
Not only do its body treatments incorporate cutting edge discoveries from the likes of Thalgo, Dr Murad and Natura Bissé, they encompass traditional beautifying methods such as its famous paraffin wax bath. Therapist Mitzi Scheiderer has been perfecting her craft for 30 years, and is particularly adept at alleviating the effects of illness, be it a persistent cold or some more serious ailment. Muscles are soothed, skin rendered voluptuously silken.
The paraffin bath is one of the options recommended under Urban Retreat’s Nurture Card scheme, developed in association with Vicki Ullah’s Wig Boudoir. Clients consulting Ullah while undergoing treatments such as chemotherapy will be issued with a card qualifying them for a complimentary (and utterly transporting) Crème de la Mer facial, plus a range of discounted services such as semi-permanent eyebrow make up or reflexology. Intuitive Katie Winterbourne will be on hand to provide spiritual guidance, and has secured a reputation as the serene (and exquisitely beautiful) face of contemporary clairvoyance.
At times, body confidence may involve nothing more elaborate than having one’s face touched. One of the most contented couple of hours of my life was spent enjoying a facial. I arrived a ball of stress and self-hatred and emerged a tranquil, functional, considerably better-looking human being, more beautiful in inward and outward aspects.
The morale-boosting effects of being impeccably groomed should not be underestimated. A girlfriend counters what she refers to as her “fugly days” with strenuous mani / pedi action. Leighton Denny manicures are the business, and sufficiently lasting to be considered three weeks’ worth of bolstering. There is no individual I would trust more than Daniel Sandler to oversee an esteem-boosting makeover (he once managed to make me look gorgeous when I was drugged up to the eyeballs and suffering from acute pneumonia so this is no idle claim).
Once, when a friend was consumed by body loathing (a miscarriage, alas, no mere “fat day”), I brought her into my trusted salon and the simple act of securing a decent haircut was sufficient to alleviate all miss-directed venom.
Urban Retreat’s collaboration with Boots, the new U.R Beautiful salon concept, means that this level of expertise will be accessible to more British women than ever. Moreover, its British Beauty Experts capsule collections mean that, for the first time, such brilliance comes bottled. Henceforth, should one feel oneself in the grip of 00 neurosis, one can reach for Joanne King’s sumptuously uplifting Body Oil Exfoliating System or Anastasia Achilleos’s restorative Inhalessence. To see off this hysterical early 21st Century cult, we need still more initiatives that encourage women to love not fear their bodies.
BODY ESSENTIALS
Natura Bisse Oxygen Body Cream
Especially good for smokers, frequent flyers, outdoor runners or anyone that frequently puts their body under stress.
Double Scrubble Body Treatment at U.RBeautiful
The ultimate scrub treatment with full body brushing followed by body buffing with either dry oil exfoliating system or creamy scrub and hydration with oil, cream or tan.
MamaMio Boob Tube
help prevent stretch marks across the breasts and provide a cooling relief for sore itchy pregnancy boobs. After pregnancy continue to use help your skin stay firm, feel softer and more toned.