What Is
Beauty?
W hy ? W ho ? What is Beauty?
Tracey Kemp
Fashion Communication and Promotion • N0441475
‘a
Defined in the English Dictionary as
combination of qualities, such as shape,
colour, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially the sight’1
– ‘Beauty’ is just another word so simplistically detailed, lacking its true deserved empathy and meaning. In our work we developed further into the ideologies of ‘What is Beauty’, moving away from its stereotypical forms and interpretations.
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Most frequently beauty is associated with femininity, ‘a very attractive and well-formed girl or woman’2 being the first example of beauty in the English dictionary. It is said our culture determines gender roles and what is masculine and feminine3, thus being feminine as a gender can relate to any sex. This is the subjectivist definition of gender; it is up to either sex’s arbitrary choice if they are feminine, masculine or both. The current cultural mantra is that these two, gender and sex, are unrelated to each other.4 Consequently, in our photo-shoot we decided to come away from our strongest reference point with beauty, being linked predominantly to the female sex. From researching into male beauty we found interestingly controversial yet intriguing forms. In fashion photography we discovered men in corsets, veils, lace, pops of colour and make-up; Mary Antoinette style dresses, skirts, flowers and jewellery - all fantastically combined with men. This gender clash motif, although incredibly quirky and enlightening, was still such a diverse form of beauty uncommonly recognised in fashion media. Further research brought us inspiration from the photographic oeuvre of Claude Cahun and Cindy Sherman. Both of the female artists adapt to different characters in their photography with theatrical flair. Claude Cahun was the male persona created by the female artist, her roles commonly slipping from one gender to another. She believed that gender was fluid with no distinct boundaries between sex and therefore was constantly changing her identity in this way. Cindy Sherman also plays with different identities in her work, playing on stereotypes in society through role transformation in a contemporary style. In some of Claude Cahun’s photography she represented herself “relatively unambiguously as a male subject”5, a young sailor, a moustached man or just her hair shaven. Whereas these examples she masquerades as a man, in other pieces they seem closer to the category of Androgyny. Similar to some work of Cindy Sherman’s androgynous photography, this interesting and original style of working upon androgyny and sexual identity inspired us in our own photography.
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Consequently, the work and style of these iconic female artists who explore gender, class and contemporary identity we found can also be recognized in society today. In a lecture with LSN Global it was stated by Erin Ralph: “People are stepping outside of their
roles of being male or female, and just
being human with a beating heart is a beautiful thing.”6
– this
Henceforward, this quote further indicates that every human being is individual and unique. It doesn’t matter if this human being is either male or female, being either feminine or masculine, whatever race, age, class, shape or sexuality – we all have a beating heart and that it beautiful. It denotes that in society today we are ‘stepping away’ from conventional forms of beauty and appreciating other forms as equally beautiful. Thus, the male model we found for our shoot was perfect following on from this idea. Adam is a student who feels extremely confident when wearing females clothing, accessories and make-up in his everyday lifestyle. This may not be deemed as the male ‘norm’ in today’s society, yet we wanted to highlight Adams confidence in his particular form of beauty and personal style. Furthermore, as a group we interpreted that postmodern society today is gradually becoming more accepting of change and variance. Stereotypical gender roles are fragmenting throughout all institutions. People have choice of who they want to be and what they want to do, without restrictions because of their sex. The traditional values of a women being beautiful, performing the three C’s (cooking, cleaning, childcare) and a man being masculine, the providers and the protectors - are all becoming fragmented and diversified, individually adapting to each persons postmodern lifestyle. Similarly, this can also relate to the world of beauty today. Women are not the only sex who may portray feminine qualities: men also can choose to wear makeup and females clothing. 6
On the other hand, some women may also like to portray masculinity in their personal style - in both cases these androgynous traits, showing characteristics of both sexes, is becoming increasingly exposed and accepted. As a group we recognized that society is accepting individuals, such as our male model Adam, in dressing how he feels. Although there are influences on his choices in life such as ideologies from the media, family, education, religion and the workplace – he has the freedom and choice to consume whatever identity he pleases. This is typical of our postmodern, consumer society where the idea of ‘pick ‘n’ mix’ shopping for each person’s identity is accepted. We as consumers can buy each part of our identity - the hair colour we desire, the body shape, such as boob or nose job, or even a person’s sex can be changed. Where in some ways, this availability to create the identity we desire has created individuals to gradually look very similar. For example, most young girls are socialized into the desire to look like ‘Barbie’ dolls and celebrities: big bouncy hair and a tiny frame. Photography and media is also highly edited which in consequence blurs the viewer’s recognition of beauty. It was declared in the Dove advertising campaign ‘Evolution’ “No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted.”7 The sentence was shown at the end of the commercial which previously showed the process of a model and her substantial change in beauty and appearance from makeup and editing (as shown in figure 4), for largescale outdoor advertisements. It brings forward the idea of how much beauty is fabricated and furthermore how these distorted perceptions give society improbable expectations and aspirations of beauty.
(Figure 4: Dove “Evolution” Campaign 2006)
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(Figure 5: Own Image ‘Inverted Identity’ 2013)
Nevertheless, our visualization of beauty was to be shown through highlighting our models true self; similar to the aims of the Dove campaign for ‘Real Beauty’. We wanted to challenge false perceptions of conventional male beauty, predominantly in reference to gender and sexuality. Moreover, this true self we also wanted to be closely contrasted with a natural yet stereotypical male portrait. This of which we used Adam again, yet taken away from his eccentric feminine style - a state he isn’t most comfortable in. As shown in figure 5, you can see we did this with two parallel images on either side of the centre shot. These outer portraits convey the way society wants Adam to be, homogenous to the stereotypical male and a social ‘norm’ of conventional male beauty. In post production we blurred the edges of the combined images to connote a ‘blurring of the lines’ between was is feminine and what is masculine. The outer images of the ‘masculine’ male portraits, were set to face inwards on each side to create the illusion of them looking in on Adam’s true self: styled in his own jewellery, some female clothing and a full face of makeup. We directed this to portray metaphorically the ‘eyes of society’ looking upon him in judgement. The use of repetition in using Adam instead of other male models as the outer portraits was to further evoke his own personal judgement of who he should be, according to the ‘norms’ and ‘values’ of society he has been socialised into. We wanted this to promote further that deviating from the ‘norm’ could be liberating to others who may also want to break free from the restraints of what society says we should be. The ideologies can encourage people to break away from the humanistic homogenous nature to be the same. We are creatures of habit, where mirror neurons in our genetics create us to mirror what we see through other people. We came up with the belief that if more people showed their true identities and ‘imperfections’ to the world, this could further promote diversity more so in print and social media: this would mirror onto the wider society to show their true beauty. Our aim for society is to move away from the stereotypical beliefs of ‘What is Beauty’, to the tendencies of being a skinnier, taller, ‘more beautiful’ version of themselves.
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In addition, the publication believed most suited for our image ‘Inverted Identity’, was AnOther magazine. We went with this publication from before the shoot, having used inspiration from AnOther magazines online ‘Exclusives’ post - “13 Beautiful Faces”8. The post firstly highlighted beauty in the male form, which is was brought us to the short film. It was based on 13 international male models chosen by the Another Man fashion team from the shows they had styled. The models weren’t talking in the film, but they had a voice over detailing their names, nationalities and favourite bands. It was brought to our attention from the film which features and type of male are declared as ‘beautiful’. By placing the conventionally ‘beautiful’ form of Adam adjacent to his unique, true self in our own work, we wanted to show that diverse forms could be just as creatively interesting in pieces comparable to this AnOther man post. Nonetheless we took inspiration from the style of the video produced by filmmaker Timothy Elias Wright. We thought the lighting and shadowing created, the neutral facial expressions, monochrome tones and camera angles of the piece were ideal for the atmosphere we wanted to create in our own photo-shoot. The transparency and layering between shots was similar to the style of Claude Cahun in her self portrait 1928 (shown on the right second picture down). The diaphanous layering and gender blurredstaging inspired us in our similarly designed photography. Furthermore, AnOther magazine is not only based on fashion - but also lifestyle, culture, art, and film. This was another feature that well suited our concept, with cultural issues on gender, sexuality and androgynous acceptance raised. Art inspiration from key controversial and contemporary artists such as Cindy Sherman have also been commonly posted about in AnOther magazine, similarly showing the interest of the readership in the concept matched to our idea. The fact that the interest in the female artist has been repetitively commented upon in the magazines exclusives, current and ‘loves’ posts over twenty times in the past three years shows that these gender-bending topics, art and photography are a popular read.
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In conclusion, from exploration into gender phenomena, ‘beauty’ has been shown to be a complex and ever-growing matter. Our male model Adam described a beautiful male as “somebody who doesn’t necessarily realise that they are beautiful, or doesn’t fit into the typical stereotype of attractiveness. Yet they have an aura about them that makes them stand out from the crowd, they appreciate their own body and make the most of what they have.”9 This quote further gave meaning to the underpinned ideologies in our imagery. We set out to promote self-esteem and self-acceptance into individuals and to find their real inner beauty and ‘true self’. It is said that ‘Beauty is only skin deep’ and thus we further promoted this phrase in terms of diversity; moving away stereotypical and superficial forms of ‘beauty’ in society today as actively creative and exhilarating. We also related this to the social construct of gender, showing that diverse forms are as equally beautiful. Beauty is something that is shown from within, self-accepting and having confidence in your true self is a beautiful thing.
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References & Bibliography
1. A definition from The Oxford Dictionary http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/ definition/english/beauty?q=beauty 2. As above 3. Website post ‘Gender and Gender Identity’ http://www.plannedparenthood.org/ health-topics/sexual-orientation-gender/ gender-gender-identity-26530.htm 4. ‘The Roots of Gender: Defining Feminitity and Masculinity’ by Amber Pawlik http://www.amberpawlik.com/Gender. html 5. ‘Intverted Odysseys’ edited by Shelley Rice on “The Equivocal “I”: Claude Cahun as Lesbian Subject page 117 6. Erin Ralph LSN Global lecture 2013 7. Dove advertising campaign “Evolution” launched by Unilever in 2006 as part of its Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, to promote the newly created Dove Self-Esteem Fund. 8. AnOther magazine ‘Exclusives’ online, “13 Beautiful Faces” 2013 produced and filmed by Timothy Elias Wright h t t p : / / w w w. a n o t h e r m a g . c o m / exclusives/13-beautiful-faces-louisvuitton 9. Quoted from our own interview with Adam Thomson in 2013
‘Inverted Odysseys’ Edited by Shelley Rice ‘Decoding Advertisements: Ideaology and Meaning in Advertising’ By Judith Williamson ‘Ways of Seeing’ By John Berger ‘Cindy Sherman (October Files)’ By Johnanna Burton Figure Front Cover: Own Photography 2013 Figure 1: http://www.wmw.com.tw/en/ news_detail.php?Inews_id=65 Figure 2: http://www.pinterest.com/ gyps76/photoshoot-ideasmakeup/ Figure 3: http://blog.trendstop. com/2012/02/cindy-sherman-moma/ Figure 4: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Evolution_(advertisement) Figure 5: Own Photography 2013 Figure 6: http://www.anothermag.com/ exclusives/13-beautiful-faces-louisvuitton Figure 7: http://camarademocratica. blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/claude-cahunlucy-renee-mathilde-schwob.html Figure 8: Own Photography 2013 Figure 9: http://www.anothermag.com/ exclusives/13-beautiful-faces-louisvuitton
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Appendix
Word Count: 1886 Communication and Message FASH20031
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