For this project I started to explore the feminine ideal of beauty during the Renaissance and the relationship between the social situation and status and how much it affected the concept of beauty. It is something that is still relevant today, but now we have a very different idea of beauty. I discovered that people in the past would show their wealth through the food they could afford to eat and as a consequence larger sizes were accepted as 'beautiful'. In contrast today, women often manipulate their body image through surgery that can only be afforded by the wealthy. The research has led me to style and photograph a collection of imagery for a fashion magazine that represents the main themes of my work.