This article does not condemn Pilates as a form of exercise; rather, it critiques the culture surrounding it. Specifically challenging the damaging myths championed by the consumerist, lifestyle and social dimensions that have become almost synonymous with Pilates. Mina Le’s YouTube video ‘the myth of the “Pilates body” has been incredibly formative for this article.
The mythology of the ‘ideal body’ is shamelessly perpetuated through Pilates rhetoric, obscuring the reality that health cannot be reduced to appearance. After decades of surmounted repression, many women are choosing to take up Pilates in pursuit of the ‘long’ and ‘lean’ body. Pirkko Markkula writes about this in her article ‘Affecting Bodies and Performative Pedagogy of Pilates’ asserting that the fitness industry reproduces the thin and toned feminine body. A product of ideas more regressive than we may wish to admit. This comes from the fear that has permeated women’s fitness conversations for centuries: the fear of becoming ‘fat’ or ‘bulky’. I am not discrediting the positive influence that fitness could potentially provide for inactive and active women or dismiss the genuine benefits pilates may offer; for many, it is a meaningful practice.However, it’s not the exercise itself that’s contemptible but instead the culture that surrounds it. The same exclusionary culture that charges women a premium to look like they work out, but not too much.
However, Pilates was not intended to mutate into a culture wrapped up in elitism, consumerism and misogyny. Instead, the Pilates method of body conditioning was developed by former boxer and German circus performer Joseph Pilates during the first world war as something accessible for everyone, even the sick or injured. Pilates – the man, not the culture or exercise – lived in England at the time of World War one and was sent to internment camp under the label of ‘enemy alien.’ While in prison Pilates developed exercise classes that he led for other German expatriates. In 1915 Pilates transferred to the Isle of Mans Knockaloe, the biggest internment camp for German expatriates. Here he found an unlikely muse: cats. Pilates observed local stray cats that populated the Isle, developing his exercise technique to mimic the fluid motions natural to cats. This experience on the Isle of Man was formative for Pilates, laying the groundwork for his development of his exercise apparatus – similar to the reformer’s machines used today.
Pilates names this practice ‘Contrology’ and in his book ‘Returns to Life’ describes the exercise to ‘develop the body uniformly, correct wrong posture, restore physical vitality, invigorate the mind, and elevate the spirit.’ Pilates definition reflects a holistic philosophy extending beyond the aesthetics that have been weaponised in contemporary mythology to discipline the female body.
Disciplining the female body is not a new concept, as Journalist Danielle Friedman puts it, prior to the fitness frenzy of the 1970s, women were supposed to act like women, which meant performing weakness for men. Women were forbidden from being physical equals to their male counterparts, with physicians such as Dudley A asking, ‘are athletics making girls masculine.’ Loaded questions like this fed into the anti-strength rhetoric regarding women that were rooted in moral panics concerning women overpowering men. As women’s health professional Dr. Elizabeth Comen writes ‘the teenage girl is sexually corruptedby cycling; the woman suffering from a terrifying condition known as “bicycle face”: these patients never walked through the door of any doctor’s office. They were phantoms, boogeymen, conjured by a medical establishment and a society that were deeply alarmed by a woman developing physical strength, stamina or God forbid, muscles.
Charmingly, British physician Arthur Shadwell provides with a description of this terrible ailment of ‘bicycle face’: ‘the peculiar strained, set look so often associated with this pastime.’ Lest they overtax their bodies and become masculine. Due to this strong aversion to strong women, exercise culture gradually steered toward movement that did not pose threat to traditional constructs of femininity. Paradoxically Pilates is a physically rigorous practice but its promotions as a method that enhanced posture, control and overall aesthetic emphasis allowed for the practice to become almost synonymous with femininity.
There has been an overt correlation between fitness and consumerism. A 1983 Harper’s Bazaar article subtly titled ‘from fat to Fabulous in one week’ reads ‘your whole attitude toward exercise gets a lift from great looking clothes. This night’s wisteria blue unitard is an easy, energising choice.’ This suggestion that athleisure has its own unique alchemy that motivates you to go from ‘fat to fabulous’ is completely absurd, capitalising off women’s insecurities. This same behaviour can be seen all over social media, through the identity of the ‘Pink Pilates Princess’ born in late 2023. This mutation represents another calculated lure within the industry, compelling people to consume so they feel part of this larger fitness lifestyle. Mina Le asserts that ‘the pink Pilates princess likes matching pastel sets from Alo or lululemon, she drinks iced matcha lattes, she probably has a morning skincare routine akin to Sydney Sweeney’s character in Euphoria.’ Content creators who associate themselves with this aesthetic/ lifestyle also attend classes for Pilates that cost anywhere from £30-£40 multiple times a week and can be seen at gyms, such as Equinox, that also demand large sums of money for usage of their facilities. Buying these wellness accessories to fit in with this aesthetic would cost upwards of £500, not including the pricing for actual classes. Therefore, due to the common associations with this figure of The Pink Pilates Princess and Pilates, a culture of exclusivity is attached to Pilates as this only becomes accessible to the leisure class. Rather than liberating women from historical repressions regarding physical strength, contemporary Pilates culture risks repackaging this oppression in pastel tones and dowsing it in iced Matcha Lattes.