This Hollywood awards season, size 00 fits all.
Celebrities like Emma Stone, Demi Moore and Jenna Ortega shocked viewers on the acting and Golden Globes red carpets, swinging the pendulum from Kardashian-like curves and sculpted Pilates physiques to ultra-slim silhouettes.
No wonder actress Jameela Jamil, who has spoken openly about her own battle with an eating disorder, slammed women who were “horribly thin” at last month’s BAFTAs, writing on Instagram: “Everyone looks like they’re going to break. It’s the particularly vulnerable type of skinny.”
The pursuit of thinness is nothing new in Hollywood or the fashion industry, but see Kate Moss’s infamous quote, “Nothing tastes better than feeling thin.” We have entered new territory.
Sources told Page Six that even already thin stars are now taking so-called microdosing, or “baby” doses of Ozempic and other weight-loss “jabs” that are smaller than FDA-approved therapeutic doses. (Typically, patients start with a 0.25 ml injection for the first month and increase from there.)
“Nowadays, there’s a stigma no matter what your weight is,” one stylist and former Vogue editor told Page Six.
The top Hollywood dermatologist added: “My female clients have been microdosing GLP 1 for a long time. From the moment GLP started flooding the market, the body’s positive response was increasing. Microdosing costs less, is better tolerated by the body, and can still feed itself.”
Although probably not enough.
Celebrity nutritionist Jess Baker recently told Page Six that she had “noticed visible signs of muscle weakness in some celebrities that weren’t there before.”
“In clinical practice, changes like this from baseline are alarming. They can indicate malnutrition, meaning your body isn’t getting enough of what it needs to function,” Baker said.
One A-list stylist told Page Six that those who dress stars are currently in an awkward position. They want their clients to look their best, but they also want them to be healthy. And they worry that some celebrities don’t realize they’re painfully thin.
“You can’t tell these actresses that they’re too skinny,” the A-list stylist said. “People will say this, but[other actresses]are smaller than me!”
In fact, another celebrity stylist said there’s real pressure for stars to keep up with each other, too. “When one actress sees another actress getting smaller, another actress becomes even smaller.”
But as much as actresses try to show off their prominent collarbones, some dressers are finding creative ways to hide them.
“To compensate for that, I’ll wear a jacket so it doesn’t reveal too much,” an in-house stylist for a major fashion designer told Page Six. “Sometimes I’ll make a strapless dress. I’ll layer a shirt underneath it. I’ll wear a coat or a little jacket.”
Meanwhile, the owner of a Hollywood showroom, which is especially popular at this time of year, said seamstresses are busier than ever because even size 2 designer samples are too big for celebrities.
“We actually brought in some of the great tailors and cutters we know and set them up in our back room to create an atelier for them to fit the gowns that were coming right off the runway from Europe, almost all of which needed to be shot this awards season,” said the showroom owner.
As it turns out, it’s not just weight loss drugs that are fueling the new super skinny trend.
“They compensate for[the weight loss]with facial surgery,” the former Vogue editor told Page Six. “Even people in their 20s are undergoing surgery to remove the fat pad above their jawbone and hollow out their cheeks.”
Chrissy Teigen has admitted to having surgery, but there are countless threads on Reddit speculating about other celebrities who may have had the procedure.
But insiders warn that weight loss as we age can lead to problems with excess skin sagging.
“Once you reach a certain age, you have to worry about your skin. You’re not a rubber band (that bounces back),” says stylist Joza Rodriguez, who has worked with SZA, Gwen Stefani, and Becky G.
He points out that actresses don’t just achieve fame and fortune on screen. Lucky deals with fashion houses and beauty brands are very popular in Hollywood.
“When it comes to signing brands,[designers]are very selective. Lizzo is the type of person people want to work with,” he said, noting that even Lizzo has lost 60 pounds. “They only give that (curvy) platform to one or two people at a time.
“No one wants to look like J. Lo anymore. We don’t need a big butt. It’s all about skinny 2001 fashion,” Rodriguez said.
And the movie industry also needs these brand deals to keep its promotion and advertising machine running.
“…The reality is that brands are holding the purse strings right now,” Kate Young, a stylist who works with A-listers like Margot Robbie, Dakota Johnson and Rose Byrne, recently told Vanity Fair. “When I started this job, film companies would give me money. I’d do press tours and make money, but now I’m getting paid less for the same job than I was 15 years ago. And now production companies are really relying on movie stars who have brand deals to subsidize this.”
Rodriguez, for one, believes the fashion world is excited that the body-positive, size-focused movement is being reevaluated and thinness is back in style.
“Fashion houses are trying to turn this around. People are tired of this woke situation,” he said. “They’ve gone over the edge. They’ve gone too far.[Fashion]houses are doing what they want to do.”
The former Vogue editor and stylist told Page Six that she was worried that the blurry lines were too thin.
“There’s so much pressure on them to be thin. Where do you stop? When is too thin? Fashion and Hollywood are always chasing the too young, too old, too short, too tall, too blonde. It creates an environment where it’s never enough,” she said.
“Once you lose weight, the pursuit doesn’t stop. You keep wondering what else you can improve.”
Additional reporting by Merle Ginsberg
