The Untold Truth About Being A Pin-Up Model

From their scarlet lips to their wasp waists, pin-up girls have long been purveyors of the American dream girl (via History by Day). For men in the trenches of World War I or bomber planes of World War II, pin-ups represented symbols of what they fought for. According to pin-up art expert Louis K. Meisel, in an interview with Collectors Weekly, "These were the girls that the boys who fought in World War II and the Korean War came back to marry." It's no coincidence that the most successful pin-up girls learned to walk the line between innocence, grace, and sensuality with ease.

But pin-up culture hasn't remained locked in a time capsule, and the study of this genre represents a "burgeoning field," according to the Journal of Popular Culture. Although men once devoured images of wholesome, innocent, and naïve women who incited lust without acknowledging it, today's crowd is attracted to a different vision of femininity. Today's pin-ups are resourceful, tough, and intelligent, like Gina Carano, Milla Jovovich, Kate Beckinsale, and Angelina Jolie, per Jezebel.

Although perhaps counterintuitive, many pin-up models report that modeling has helped them overcome body image struggles. Today's standards of beauty prove more inclusive, with women of every shape and size represented. The same goes for those boasting tattoos and piercings. Naomi Elster writes in Medium, "Older women and plus-size women are proudly displayed beside younger, skinnier versions of beauty, and seeing women so obviously feeling confident and happy in their photographs is incredibly heartening."

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