How ‘pilates body’ became most toxic aspirational physique

Ellie Muir, The Independent

It’s easy to spot a pilates princess from afar. I bet you can picture the woman I’m talking about. Her eternally youthful complexion is dusted with minimal yet glamorous makeup. She attends her thrice-weekly reformer pilates classes wearing matching pastel-coloured luxury athleisure sets. Her hair is neatly swept back into a glossy ponytail. Her carefully curated workout routine subtly dictates her schedule, as does posting pictures of her Instagrammable diet. Her occupation is unknown, but she unfailingly exudes affluence.

This is the version of young womanhood that leads the pack today. On social media, where aesthetics, self-discipline and control are all admired, she is everywhere; snapping herself while out for brunch, attending an overpriced fitness class or performing her multistep nighttime skincare routine.

On first glance, her togetherness might be the reason for the appeal. But if you put aside the Lululemon unitards, Rhode phone cases and shiny hairdos, it is not her lifestyle that’s most aspirational: it’s the slim, toned and straight “pilates body” that’s underneath. The latter term has — depressingly — become a newly celebrated physique category in recent months, where subtly ripped wellness influencers, once committed to Romanian deadlifting their way to the Kim Kardashian hourglass figure, are now promoting 28-day weight loss pilates programmes to achieve a more slimmed-down, minimalist physique. In one clip that constantly haunts my Instagram algorithm, an influencer claims to have lost several kilograms from just 28 days of reformer pilates using at-home equipment.

On TikTok, another influencer simply writes “Pilates body > Gym body” alongside a mirror selfie of her sculpted stomach. The hashtag #pilatesbody on TikTok is littered with dozens of “before and after” shots of those who have supposedly invested in these workout routines. If, on 31 December, we all reflected on body types that defined 2025, I’d wager that the “pilates body” would take top spot. In this new beauty standard or subculture, everything is coded. “Pilates arms” (toned but not too muscly), “pilates abs” (a subtle but defined four-pack), and being a “pilates princess” (the complete embodiment of this beauty standard) are all actual accepted terms being used online in a normalised way. While the pilates princess has existed under different identities — for example, in the late 2010s, the explosion of barre workouts had a similar cultural impact — the “pilates body” is, to me, the most noticeable pivot from the cola-bottle shaped Kardashians-style body trend. It’s one that dominated popular psyche for a good decade, prompting the mass pursuit of bulky-body building workout plans. Those women are now searching for something slimmer and — as they would probably put it — refined. Another day, another unattainable standard of beauty.

What’s more interesting, though, is that the toxic nature of the body has gone widely unacknowledged. In the post-Body Positivity era, plenty of faddish trends receive backlash online, but the pilates body has arrived under the guise of wellness with little critique. It all began, really, with a harmless interest in reformer pilates among young women, which led to a quite sudden demand. It has been big business: almost every UK city is now home to a reformer pilates studio, London is swarmed with them and the amount will only grow: Californian company Club Pilates has announced it will open up to 75 new branches across the UK in the coming years.

While regular pilates — a practice founded 100 years ago by Joseph Pilates — involves smooth, slow-paced exercises on a mat, reformer happens on a medieval-looking bed, complete with straps, a moving carriage and springs, for an added layer of resistance. Lower body exercises involve lying on your back, attaching the straps to your ankles and tracing infinity signs with your feet. As someone who has tried and tested plenty of reformer classes, I can attest to it helping improve my core strength, balance and general mind-body connection. But it is also an expensive hobby: in London, classes average £30, but memberships can be much higher (one Kensington hotspot, Karve, offers 100 classes per year for £2,450).

While it’s difficult to pinpoint when a genuine buzz surrounding reformer pilates turned into a newfound beauty ideal, we know the sheeny pages of Instagram and TikTok have played a part. Dr Kat Schneider, a research fellow studying changing body image trends at UWE’s Centre for Appearance Research, tells me how she’s witnessed a “noticeable shift away from the curvy hourglass aesthetic” popularised by celebrity figures in the mid-2010s, towards the “pilates body”. “Social media is a key driver behind this minimalist, polished, wellness-oriented aesthetic, which is dominating visual culture,” says Schneider. She says that the aesthetic — very much rooted in ideals of thinness — is tied up in other recent lifestyle movements, such as the clean girl aesthetic (which entails displaying an effortless and polished existence) or the quiet luxury movement (all about elegance and refined consumption). “It’s essentially where control, discipline and pristineness are prioritised,” says Schneider. “This ‘pilates body’ aligns with this cultural narrative of restraint, minimalism and wellness.”

Above all, no matter the trend, the cult of thinness is on the rise, despite the failed attempts of the 21st century’s body positivity movement.