Can your menobelly break a 100-year-old beauty standard?

One of the things I hear most from women who have hit perimenopause is ‘I don’t know how to dress my menobelly’.

While our hormones are busy throwing a party we’re not invited to, a shift in body composition occurs. Completely out of nowhere.

Our weight gets redistributed to our midsection. It’s like we leave the house for the day and come home to find all the furniture has been rearranged.

Hello, menobelly.

Add weight gain and bloating to the party, and getting dressed becomes a serious struggle. Your wardrobe suddenly feels like it belongs to someone else. Someone you used to know.

Women agonising over the shape and size of their stomach is nothing new. We have been told to suck it in, flatten it out and tone it up since we were young. Having a rounded stomach is viewed as some kind of disease we must treat.

I have styled countless women in fashion retail, and without a doubt, this is the number one criticism of their body.

Regardless of its size or shape, women feel ashamed of their stomach.

Over the past 100 years, the female ideal has changed countless times. The straight, androgynous flapper. The hourglass curves of Marilyn Monroe. The lean, athletic bodies of the 80s. The extreme thinness of the 90s. The ‘slim thick’ look of the 2010s. But through it all, the standard of the flat stomach hasn’t shifted. It’s the most painful and enduring of them all.

A flat stomach is a beauty standard. A beauty standard is a marketing campaign.

It is not a universal truth.

What would happen if we started our own marketing campaign? Could we change the way women feel about their stomachs?

A couple of months ago I was feeling down because my favourite skirt no longer fit. I was annoyed, angry even. I was resisting the change in my body. Then it occurred to me that I could change the elastic in the waistband to fit my new size. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it earlier, but I was elated that I’d solved the problem.

I altered the skirt, it fit beautifully and I felt happy again.

In that moment, it occurred to me that the angst I felt wasn’t necessarily because my size and shape had changed, but that my much loved wardrobe no longer fit. Having a skirt I loved that fit and felt good made me feel good.

What if having clothes we love that fit our new bodies became our new marketing campaign?

Coming to terms with physical changes takes time. Saying goodbye to your old body is painful. It brings up feelings of sadness, guilt, shame and fear.

A lifetime of conditioning by beauty culture makes the transition even harder. But the alternative is worse. Staying trapped in the false belief that your body is a problem to be solved is hell.

Our stomachs are just stomachs. Nothing more, nothing less.

During perimenopause they need more freedom and more space. They no longer wish to be strapped in, compressed, cinched, squeezed or flattened. They wish to be free.

Having clothes in your wardrobe that allow this to happen is really important. Having clothes you love that manage to do this is even better.

The Embodied Style Practice

This week I want you to allow your stomach to exist. You don’t have to force yourself to ‘love it’, just experiment with letting it be. Exhale. Say hello to it. Introduce yourself! Ask it what it needs. Your ‘menobelly’ is a new part of you. It may stay a while, it may not. Either way, practice allowing it to be.

Being at war with our own body is extremely painful. Wanting it to stay the same is futile.

Midlife demands change.

Change to our bodies, our senses, our preferences, our values and our priorities.

Change can feel hard, but it also opens up a great opportunity. The chance to meet a new version of yourself. A woman with power, wisdom and experience. A woman who is letting go of the rules and standards that seek to keep her and her belly down.

I can’t wait to see what she’s wearing.

Julie x