Is there Beauty in the Ordinary?
Zoe Jones Investigative Study BA (Hons) Fashion Design and Technology January 2015
Abstract
This writing explores the 21st Century contemporary debate relating to the contentious issues of ‘what is Beauty’?
Contents Abstract
List of Figure
Introduction .................................................................................................... p. 1
Chapter One .................................................................................................. p. 3
Chapter Two ................................................................................................ p. 11
Conclusion ................................................................................................... p. 19
Figures ......................................................................................................... p. 22
Bibliography .................................................................................................. p.41
List of Figures
Figure 1: Ewers, A. Into the Wild Fashion Spread. (2014). W. pp.150-151. Figure 2: Patrik Ervell Advertisement. (2014). Wonderland. Issue. September/October. p.48. Figure 3: Lancôme Advertisement. (2014). Wonderland. Issue. February/March. p.225. Figure 4: Thousandunsaidwords.tumblr.com. Buzzfeed. (2014). [online image] Available from: http://www.buzzfeed.co.uk/elliewoodward/kim-kardashian-and-paper-stillhavent-confirmed-exactly-what [Accessed Date 21 November 2014] Figure 5: Bri-ternity.tumblr.com. Buzzfeed. (2014). [online image] Available from: http://www.buzzfeed.co.uk/elliewoodward/kim-kardashian-and-paper-stillhavent-confirmed-exactly-what [Accessed Date 21 November 2014] Figure 6: Katie before and after her latest surgery. Splash. Mirror. (2014). [online image] Available from: http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/katieprice-reduced-breasts-first-4763571 [Accessed date 23 December 2014] Figure 7: Shears, W. So you agree, you think you’re really pretty? Fashion Spread. (2014). Wonderland. Issue. September/October. p.241. Figure 8: 4 Real Fashion Spread. (2014). Wonderland. Issue. Summer. pp.154-155. Figure 9: Trans Dior Fashion Spread. (2014). Wonderland. Issue. February/March. p.68. Figure 10: Fashion Spread. (2014). Wonderland. Issue. February/March. p.52. Figure 11: Celine Advert. (2014). the gentlewoman. Issue no. 10. pp. 16-17.
Figure 12: Marc Jacobs Advertisement. (2014). Wonderland. Issue. September/October. pp. 19-20. Figure 13: Chanel Advertisement. (2014). Wonderland. Issue. February/March. pp.7-8. Figure 14: Chloe Howl Fashion Spread. (2014). Wonderland. Issue. February/March. p.123. Figure 15: Chloe Howl Fashion Spread. (2014.) Wonderland. Issue. February/March. p.120. Figure 16: Fashion Spread for ‘Real Style’ Issue. (2014). 10 Men. Issue no. 39. p.110. Figure 17: Fashion Spread for ‘Real Style’ Issue. (2014). 10 Men. Issue no. 39. p.111. Figure 18: Erichsen, B, F. VOGUE. January Cover. (2015). [online image] Available from: http://www.vogue.co.uk/magazine/archive/issue/2015/January/View/Cover [Accessed date 2 January 2015]
Introduction
Beauty is subjective and is in constant cycle through time, justified by society, culture and the demands of the fashion public. A daily necessity of current culture is to assess and almost condemn the rich glamourous celebrity, with rumours of diets, beauty treatments through surgical or non-surgical means. The appearance of Renee Zellweger at Elle’s 21st Annual Women in Hollywood Awards in California caused debate through print and digital formats alike, with newspapers, magazines and online sites proclaiming her ‘…almost unrecognisable with her super line-free forehead, altered brow and suspiciously puffy face’ (Davidson, 2014). Modern day perceptions of beauty show youth aiming to look older and the aged fighting time trying to turn back the clock, with the use of anti-wrinkle creams, make-up or even Botox. When I was a young girl, I was terribly upset because my hair wouldn’t curl. I used to put rollers in every night and have an excruciating night’s sleep. Suddenly I realised it really didn’t matter if my hair didn’t curl. Women have to come to terms with who they are. (Tilberis, 1997, p.93) Beauty trends show consumers going against their natural body clock and the natural coding to their bodies. Applying make-up to skin to cover any imperfection, blemish or flaw. On one side of the argument publications and magazines are producing and showing unrealistic imagery tampering with them in Photoshop, the end result being to promote and sell products. Nevertheless, a new popular style of fashion spread has been emerging. Publications such as Pop, Wonderland, AnOther and Dazed and Confused represent an ‘Indie’ market which is becoming more mainstream, portraying a beauty and fashion style of au-naturel and playing on the extraordinary models becoming ordinary and representing
the everyday person. Other more established magazines such as W are following the trend with bare faced models with naturally frizzy hair to contrast the usual sleek, straight and perfected appearance (Figure 1). Publications and brands now experiment within their fashion spreads and advertisements, with the model’s look, for example featuring a model with a more mature look or experimenting via the pose and position of the model such as the Patrik Ervell advert in Wonderland magazine (Figure 2).
The aim of this writing is to define the opposing views of beauty and to question what beauty is in the 21st Century.
Chapter One will explore the cosmetic surgery industry looking into the sociocultural factors, including the pressure on celebrities and the general public striving after beauty, examining the alteration of our human physical attributes such as hair, skin and facial features.
Chapter Two examines the fashionable ordinary, looking at beauty within a fashion context, comparing fashion spreads and further discusses if the ordinary has truly become beautiful.
Chapter One: The Exaggerated Beauty
A pursuit so ardent, so passionate, so risk-filled, so unquenchable reflects the workings of basic instinct, to tell people not to take pleasure in beauty is like telling them to stop enjoying food or sex or love… (Etcoff, 1997, p.40) In youth our skin is resilient, the ‘…elastic dermis resists permanent wrinkle formation’ (Langdon, 2004, p.18), an attribute which is sought after when we begin to age. In What is Beauty? Dorothy Schefer, an article by Linda Wells (1997, p.13) states how studies show that babies are biologically made to look adorable to seduce the parents into looking after their young. The article further states that as human beings grow older and lose this innocence there is always an attempt to try to gain it back through make-up, for instance blushed cheeks and rosy lips which came naturally as babies. The look of youth is made desirable and therefore beautiful, even as adults, society wants to perceive our personality through beauty. Beauty and the way we look is not necessarily who a person is or determines a person but it is how they want to be perceived and represented. Almost like our clothing in fashion is how we want to be identified, even if our character is the complete opposite of this outside image.
Skin is the largest organ to the body, it can regenerate and ‘…be made young again’ (Langdon, 2004, p.x) unlike any other organ in the human body. The skin is often the primary area which is altered through the beauty and cosmetic surgery industry. A key ideal stated in Surgery Junkies: Wellness and Pathology in Cosmetic Culture, ‘…Perhaps we want to possess the body which we don’t have to begin with’ (Pitts-Taylor, 2007, p.75). Or is it society’s intense need to look like a celebrity ‘…little by little, we are all becoming movie stars –
internally framed by a camera eye’ (Blum, 2003 cited in Jones, 2008, p.3). It’s not only adults who aspire to look like movie stars, children from a young age are indoctrinated into the ideals which we hold these beautiful figures in society too. With girls and boys, Barbie’s and Action Man display the embodiment of femininity and masculinity, these dolls are characters which have become in a sense of the phrase: role models, yet they are presented ‘…bleached, waxed, tinted’ (Walter, 2010, p.2) Teenagers are increasingly demanding anti-ageing injections to mirror the "plastic" look of TV stars, but do not realise it could "stunt their emotional development", said Helena Collier, an aesthetic nurse practitioner in Musselburgh, near Edinburgh. (Smyth, 2014.)
An advert for Lancôme in the February/March issue of Wonderland this year (2014) (Figure 3) portrayed a beauty advertisement with pristine make-up. The model featured seemed static and not moving with a thick coating of heavy make-up including eighties style solid lip colour with an unnatural shine to it. The hair and eyebrows were also groomed to perfection without a hair out of place. Taking into consideration the likely possibility of airbrushing, this model shared similar attributes to that of a doll again ‘…bleached, waxed, tinted’ (Walter, 2010, p.2) into a static character no longer an achievable beauty standard that the public can keep up with.
*To read more of this chapter or writing please contact z.r.jones@hotmail.com
Chapter Two: The Fashionable Ordinary Clothing may be a ‘dwelling’ for the body, necessitated by climate and moral imperative. But fashion as constituted by perpetual transformations in style- is architecture for the skin. (Spector, 2001, p.2) What becomes normal and on trend soon becomes passé in today’s society where information moves rapidly. With the fashion industry trying to cope with fast fashion demands and quick production turn around, our image is under scrutiny in a way which has not existed before. With a short life span and low quality, we renew our clothing at an extraordinary rate which ecological brands and organisations try to combat on a daily basis. This fashion cycle will not last forever and this trend itself is similar to our image, trends and styles which we try to conform or individualise ourselves which show that ‘…every new fashion is a refusal to inherit, a subversion against the oppression of the preceding fashion’ (Barthes, 2001, p.1).
To argue the previous chapter The Exaggerated Beauty, imagery within fashion spreads is becoming subverted. From the pristine fashion spreads without a hair out of place, celebrity endorsements and cosmetic surgeries to gain the ideal body which a person can long for. A new trend of ordinary people with what would before have been perceived as odd facial features and a strange non-commercial look are now heading up campaigns and starring in fashion spreads.
A recent example this year (2014) shows Georgia May Jagger endorsing a mascara for Rimmel. Georgia May Jagger has the look of a model, but supports
the now seen normal although once was a beauty flaw, gap between her two front teeth. This trend has in previous years caused models to purposefully surgically create this gap. Models endorsing products with what was a normal human feature or flaw is now fashionable and trendy. A quote from What is Beauty? specifically from an article by Ingrid Sischy (1997, p.97) says ‘…There is nothing more inspiring than beauty when its chains are taken off.’ This applies well to this concept of taking the ‘chains’ off trying to create a perfect, Photoshop and airbrushed look which cannot realistically exist.
Another popular past trend which saw the ‘chains taken off’ beauty was the punk trend, a rebellious era defined by clothing that had never been worn by the public before. In the words of Ingrid Sischy, she states that punk was liberating because ‘…It said screw the formula’ (Sischy, 1997, p.97). The same can be said for the transition we are seeing in fashion spreads now. A feature in Wonderland (September/October 2014) of Wyatt Shears with identical twin Fletcher Shears (Figure 7) shows inspiration taken from the seventies/eighties punk trend. A thought-provoking statement over the image says ‘…So you agree you think you’re really pretty?’ a quote taken from the film Mean Girls (2004) just as Wonderland celebrated the ten year anniversary with this issue. The image contradicts the quote in a stereotypical way, but as the image itself is not conforming to regular airbrushed beauty, it uses this punk ideal of saying ‘screw the formula’, and relates to this idea of ordinary beauty in a radical styling choice.
*To read more of this chapter or writing please contact z.r.jones@hotmail.com
Conclusion A key thought to this research by Victoria Pitts-Taylor explains: ‘Perhaps we want to possess the body which we don’t have to begin with’ (Pitts-Taylor, 2007, p.75). Both beauty trends discussed in this writing opposes the other, with ideals in complete separation. Although this is true each consumer is looking for an aspired level of beauty which they want others to perceive through their image, also reflected within their fashion choices.
Our attitudes towards beauty are ever changing. As previously mentioned in Chapter One ‘…Cosmetic surgery is increasingly widespread, available, desirable and normalised’ (Jones, 2008, p.3) a now normal part of culture we fascinate ourselves with. Although the option is still perceived as somewhat radical it can change a lifelong troubled issue, increasing the cosmetic surgery patient’s quality of life. Although the general public is now normalising themselves with this concept, with discussion on many formats alike, the ‘antitrend’ now promotes au-natural especially to the ‘Indie’ magazine market but also beginning to show itself within the mass publication markets. An example being the first issue for VOGUE (UK) in 2015 is entitled ‘the new natural’ (Figure 18), with online images showing fashion and beauty working cohesively together on the model Freja Beha Erichsen. As the backlash towards the perfectionised image of beauty predominantly displayed in the media reaches an all-time high, celebrities are increasingly promoting the anti-trend – a natural look. (Cornford, Mintel, 2013) As science and technology improves and more surgical procedures become available there will always be an icon, celebrity or public figure to receive these
procedures. That will not change. Nevertheless there will also be a subversion of these ideals. Even if the mass markets reject natural trends the more independent brands and publications keep this stylisation to differentiate and identify themselves in the fashion and beauty market.
These brand advertisements and fashion spreads have made way for a new style of fashion model, with out-of-the-ordinary facial attributes. Also making way for a larger spectrum of poses, locations and collaborations. The industry specific sized model will still live but in a new form, opening up a very critique lead industry, bringing acceptance and new innovations with creative imagery.
Whether our personalities conform to The Fashionable Ordinary, The Exaggerated Beauty or somewhere in-between, industry figures show time and time again that ‘…Women need to have more confidence in their natural skin’ (Cornford, Mintel, 2013) especially if they choose to ‘embrace the natural look’ (Cornford, Mintel, 2013). These ideas and figures are also slowly beginning to include men, particularly as male cosmetic surgery is on the rise.
Fashion and beauty are very much coupled together. A fashion is a guide to aesthetic choices which offers some kind of guarantee that others will endorse them. And it permits people to play with appearances, to send recognizable messages to the society of strangers, and to be at one with their own appearance in a world where appearances count. (Scruton, 2009, p.93) The words of Roger Scruton describe that we aim to be at one with our appearance. Although this is partially true, like the fashion industries trends and cycles, we too are never at one with our appearance. We simply solve a
temporary issue in ‘…a constant cycle of aspiration and obsolescence’ (Koda, 2001, p.8).
Figures
Figure 1: Ewers, A. Into the Wild Fashion Spread. (2014). W. pp.150-151.
Figure 2: Patrik Ervell Advertisement. (2014). Wonderland. Issue. September/October. p.48.
Figure 3: Lanc么me Advertisement. (2014). Wonderland. Issue. February/March. p.225.
Figure 7: Shears, W. So you agree, you think you’re really pretty? Fashion Spread. (2014). Wonderland. Issue. September/October. p.241.
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