Fashion’s Food Fetish

This week, Bruna writes about how weight loss drugs and food waste is effecting the fashion industry. Read it here!

In recent years, Ozempic and other GLP-1 drugs like Wegovy have reshaped body image culture by making rapid weight loss more accessible. Originally intended for treating type 2 diabetes, these medications are now widely used off-label for weight loss — especially among celebrities and elites — and the effects are being felt across industries, particularly fashion. The resurgence of the "heroin chic" aesthetic, marked by ultra-thin bodies, has aligned suspiciously with the rise of these medications. Yet, at the same time, fashion brands are visually indulging in food more than ever — not just featuring it, but wasting it, using it as a playful, ironic prop. This duality reflects a deeper shift in the aesthetic language of luxury, one that embraces contradiction.

Ozempic’s growing popularity has normalized extreme weight loss, influencing both cultural norms and fashion’s ideal body image. According to Newsweek, this shift is threatening the plus-size fashion market, as demand for larger sizes decreases among consumers using GLP-1s. At the Fall/Winter 2024-2025 fashion weeks, Vogue Business reported that less than 1% of runway looks featured plus-size models — a steep drop after years of progress in body inclusivity (Vogue Business).

Ironically, as body standards trend thinner, fashion campaigns have begun to embrace food — not as sustenance, but as aesthetic. Take the recent Jacquemus campaign, where butter bars are stacked like sculptures, paired with golden croissant-shaped earrings (see first image). There’s no intent to eat — instead, food is presented as absurd, excessive, and ultimately disposable. In a world of Ozempic-thin bodies, only the image of indulgence remains.

This trend is even more explicit in Kim Kardashian’s SKIMS campaign, which features her surrounded by towering stacks of waffles, pouring syrup into a beige bodysuit that matches the pancakes. It's sensory overload but meant to seduce visually, not gastronomically. It’s not about hunger — it’s about performance. According to a campaign breakdown, brands like Burberry, Rhode, and Henry Holland Studio are all tapping into the "food meets fashion" aesthetic to create memorable, viral content.

In the traditional luxury world, excess was shown through rare fabrics or limited-edition handbags. Now, it’s shown through abundance without consequence. Piles of butter and uneaten pancakes act as aesthetic symbols of privilege: a visual language that suggests, “I don’t eat this, but I can afford to waste it.” In this way, food becomes the new fur — not worn but flaunted.

These images embody a new era of fashion marketing that mirrors Ozempic’s influence: consumption without consequence, indulgence without intake. It’s a strange cultural contradiction — one that’s both seductive and unsettling.