As examined by Gill, the continuous use of midriff branding across media platforms in the 1990s and 2000s contributed to constructing a midriff figure: a new branded, idealised representation of the female consumer.
She is a young, attractive, heterosexual woman who knowingly and deliberately plays with her sexual power and is always ‘up for’ sex.
Rather than passive, desired objects, the midriff figure promotes a representation of women as individualised, pro-sexual, agentic, desiring subjects.