Get ready to step back in time.
The 90-year-old mogul behind Playboy Magazine and its global brand explosion, Hugh Hefner, has been offering a swathe of retro flashback photos of how the ‘ideal woman’ used to look. And it couldn’t be more different to now.
Image via Hugh Hefner Instagram.
Initially, I was transfixed by the images, finding the old world glamour mystifying and hypnotic.
With over 500 posts to the account, it's easy to fall into a scrolling wormhole that let's Hefner take you on a trip back to a time of Charlie's Angels and terry towelling.
But looking at the women in these images and comparing them to the Hefner's girls of late is a truly staggering exercise.
Image via Hugh Hefner Instagram.
Today, we associate Hefner's all-white female lineup of women with fake blonde hair, fake eyelashes, fake lips, fake boobs, fake tans and teeny-tiny, form fitting clothing.
Back then, the women were natural. Yes, they were incredibly skinny and possessing otherworldly proportions, but they were still natural.
They wore floating gowns and go-go boots, they had different hairstyles and breast sizes. They were racially diverse and engagingly different. You could actually tell them apart.
Listen: The Mamamia Out Loud team discuss the time Playboy decided to stop all its nudes. Post continues after audio.
One golden-skinned, make-up free woman can be seen standing on a boat with perfect posture and a sensible wide brim hat smiling as her natural, soft tummy and womanly thighs remain untouched.
And maybe it's just the sepia tone from years gone by, but you get the impression that these women of yore actually have something to say.
Their faces are expressive, their eyes and foreheads dynamic and full of character.
Hugh Hefner's Instagram throwbacks
Following the release of her tell-all autobiography, Down the Rabbit Hole, former playmate Holly Madison said Hefner's requests for his live in girlfriends to undergo boob jobs, nose jobs and liposuction were standard.
Back when most of these images were taken, though, the intrusive requests simply could not be made. And it shows.
The one constant throughout the years though, is age. While Hefner keeps getting older throughout the photographic timeline, his girlfriends have consistently stayed the same.
Image via Hugh Hefner Instagram.
Between snaps of women, Hef also shares images taken with his many famous friends.
Men like Roman Polanski and Woody Allen sit alongside recent snaps of Hefner and his current wife Crystal dressing up as Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke for Halloween.
Image via Hugh Hefner Instagram.
Half an hour into my scroll fest I found myself feeling sad.
How did we let this happen?
How did we let voyeuristic men take control and dictate unrealistic and standards to us?
Why did so many people go out and get Playboy Bunny tattoos in the early 2000s? (A question that may possibly never have an answer...)
While the photos say a lot about the social changes in beauty standards, they also say a lot about Hefner himself.
They show a man that's impressed by little else outside of fame, beauty, and shiny things. And when you think about it, at 90 years old, that's not really much of a legacy.
Top Comments
Slightly off topic - being born in the 70's I really think 2016 is more conservative than the 60's 70's 80's and 90's, having lived it. Sure things have improved slightly for women and the conversation around women's rights is heading in the right direction but the same attitudes towards women that discriminate women are as prevalent now as they were then. Not that much has changed.
Growing up I never felt bad, for example, if I wore a mini dress, my go to style in the 90's was a tiny tight black mini skirt and cowboy boots - no one even batted an eyelid. If a young woman wore that now people would call her a slut. I wasn't a slut, not that there is anything bad about being a slut. Women were just allowed to wear whatever they wanted without judgement and to be honest it was really cool. Now women are judged more than ever, not only about the clothing they wear but about every single thing that they do. Women/girls can't even dislike another girl ( which is perfectly normal) without being called a mean girl.
Also and very oddly, it was common knowledge and never analysed by men that men committed most crime, especially violent crime, when I was young. It was just what it was and the conversation around safety was very gendered, as kids we looked out for strange men, we never spoke to men we didn't know. We knew as children of both sexes we needed to be weary of men. It was never women. The only thing I wish I was told back then that is better known about now, is that children also need to be as weary of men they do know.
I agree about the differences between now and 1970, 80's. My daughters now have pressure to have hair extensions, fake nails, full make up, fake eyelashes, new handbag every day, designer digs and all the while they cannot be natural or wear what they want. The young women today have IMO a much harder time and less freedom than my teenage, early adult years. I think in so many ways we have gone backwards. There is also the extreme pressure to be a certain body shape and visible signs of fitness (like toned butt, tight abs, muscley guns). In the 1970/80's a few different bodies were accepted, nowadays we only accept fit/thin with breast implants. My memories from that time also include lots of minis, most comments were about gee look how short the skirts are, not comments about the woman wearing them. The 1960's gave us the freedom to be different, decades later we are slipping back into conformity and some stereotypes.
This was an interesting read however I was disappointed to read 'soft tummy and womanly thighs'. It's one thing to ask how we let men dictate the standards. But please be careful to not do the same thing, beginning with the subtle but clear reminder that one type of thighs are womanly. It's very clear what is being said here. If a person identities as a woman, and has thighs, they have womanly thighs. It's as simple as that. People will be quick to tell me that it's a harmless comment. But I've continually had my womanhood erased by other women, simply because I am a size 6 with A cup boobs and no curves to be seen. If we want to make real change, we need to begin with setting our own examples. Language is a very powerful thing, and we as women need to recognise that we commit sexist micro-aggressions against other women every single day.