Intelligent life on planet Beauty.

What do famous models over 35 look like without make-up? In this refreshing pictorial from Harper’s Bazaar, we get to see. Shalom Harlow is looking especially stunning.

What might have been even more interesting though, would be to see them sans make-up and photoshop.

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Christy Turlington is featured in the August issue of Vogue.

In the article, Turlington shows her self-reflective, honest, down-to-earth side. She says that her busy life has left little time to do yoga and speaks candidly about her relationship with her sisters. She is completing a Master’s degree in Public Health at Columbia in New York. I already knew of her role with the World Health Organization, but completing such a degree is a whole different ball game.

Grad school, huh? I start an MSc in Health Studies this fall. It’s practically like Christy and I are twins. Except for the whole supermodel thing. And the World Health Organization phones her. Never mind.

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If today’s Master’s degree is yesterday’s Bachelor’s degree, then perhaps tomorrow’s Botox injection is squeezing out today’s education altogether.

The American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery reports that in 2006, 11 million Americans received cosmetic procedures of some sort or another. In the same year, approximately 1.8 million American were awarded bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees (yes, that’s 11 million cosmetic procedures compared to 1.8 million degrees). Almost 85% as many Americans underwent liposuction (403,684) as earned master’s degrees (481,118). And an incredible 660% as many American opted for Botox injections (3,181,592) over master’s degrees. Let’s hope people are spending on either one or the other, not both. I would hate to see an Elective Surgery category on a Curriculum Vitae.

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But just as you don’t need cosmetic surgery to look pretty, you needn’t be a student to look preppy. The preppy, private school look is a big trend this fall, especially (but not only) if you are headed back to school.  The Star reports on prep style and Anna Sui’s new Gossip Girl-inspired fashions.

Harvard is in on this trend, too. The school is licensing their name to a clothing company for a new menswear line, Harvard Yard. There are bills to be paid at Harvard, I guess.

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And lastly, if you are among the stylish and smart crowd that I know you are, FASHION will help make sure you don’t mispronounce anything important. Remember how unfortunate the models on CNTM looked in Episode 4 this season when they butchered some of the top names in fashion during one of their challenges? I’d rather not remember it either, but it is an important lesson. Don’t let it happen to you.

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Lipstick Feminism is a type of feminism which considers it acceptable, even favourable, to both support female empowerment and indulge in beauty and fashion to enhance one’s appearance. In fact, lipstick feminists support the notion that things like wearing high heels and make-up actually empower women.

Traditional feminists disagree with lipstick feminism because they feel something like wearing lipstick is objectifying, not empowering.

Examples of those who support lipstick feminism include authors Theresa Riordan (Inventing Beauty) and Linda M Scott (Fresh Lipstick).

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“Beauty is how you feel inside, and it reflects in your eyes. It is not something physical.” - Sohpia Loren

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Model Naomi Sims, often considered to be the first black supermodel, died on August 1st, 2009 of cancer. She was 61.

Eric Wilson of the New York Times has a nice article about her life and career online today. One cannot help but admire her determination, entrepreneurial spirit, intelligence, and beauty. The modelling industry was lucky to have her.

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Naomi Wolf has a girl-crush on Angelina Jolie, and in her essay printed in Harper’s Bazaar July 2009 issue, she argues that the rest of us do, too.

Wolf, perhaps most famous for her book The Beauty Myth, argues in this article that Jolie brings together every aspect of female empowerment and liberation.

This is the first piece I’ve read by Wolf in quite some time and found it quite interesting, especially contrasting it to her beliefs articulated in The Beauty Myth. In fact, if you still have the July issue of Harper’s Bazaar kicking around, or wish to check it out online, it is well worth a good look. Not only is there the Angelina Jolie essay, but the whole issue has a chic, female empowerment vibe to it:

The editorial spread, Fashion Takes Flight, is Amelia Earhart-inpsired. There is an excellent piece on Ovarian Cancer. And the fashion editorial, Mr. Big Gets Downsized, shows model Milla Jovovich as a stylish, successful bread-winner and actor Chris Noth as a frazzled stay-at-home Dad.

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In psychology and the academic study of aesthetics, the contrast effect refers to the phenomenon by which the presence of attractiveness stimuli affects a person’s ratings of other attractiveness stimuli.

In other words, if you are looking at a person and someone even more attractive walks into the room, you will rate the first person you were looking at as less attractive than you previously had. Similarly, if you are looking at a person and someone less attractive walks into the room, you will rate the first person you were looking at as even more attractive than you previously had. In both cases, the first person’s looks did not actually change, of course, but the contrast of another person’s appearance impacts how you rate the original person’s looks.

Psychology research suggests that men are more likely to be influenced by the contrast effect than women. In fact, men indicate they are less willing to date an average-looking woman after staring at photographs of very attractive female faces.

This phenomenon accounts for why women frequently dislike their partners gazing at other women (especially in advertisements and pornography) and why beautiful women have more difficulty keeping female friends. As Nancy Etcoff writes in her book, Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty, “we try to control our social environment to make ourselves look good, or at least better than the other choices, and no one wants her own light dimmed by having a beacon next to her.”

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Beautiful book worms, take note.

I recently came across three soon-to-be-released books that you might be interested in:

The Aesthetics Economy of Fashion: Markets and Value in Clothing and Modelling by Joanne Entwistle

Available August 2009.

Fashion is bound up with promoting the “new,” concerned with constantly changing aesthetics. The favored styles or looks of a season arise out of the work of a vast range of different actors who collectively produce, select, distribute and promote the new ideals, before moving on next season. If fashion is defined, in part, by the incessant requirement to be “new,” this requirement means aesthetic qualities are always in motion and, therefore, unstable. How, then, are fashionable commodities stabilized long enough for them to be calculated–i.e., selected, distributed and sold–by those critically placed inside the fashion system? Since there are few studies that actually examine the work that goes on inside the world of fashion we know little about these processes. Fashion and the Cultural Economy addresses this gap in our knowledge by examining how aesthetic products are defined, distributed and valued. It focuses attention on the work of some of the market agents, in particular model agents or ” bookers” and fashion buyers, shaping the aesthetics inside their markets. In analyzing their work, Entwistle develops a theoretical framework for understanding the distinctive features of aesthetic marketplaces and the aesthetic calculations within them.

Joanne Entwistle is a senior research fellow at the London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London.
 

Imagining Beauty: The History of the Global Beauty Business by Geoffrey Jones

Available February 2010.

The global beauty business permeates our lives, influencing how we perceive ourselves and what it is to be beautiful. The brands and firms that have dominated this industry, such as L’Oreal, Unilever, Rimmel, and Chanel, have re-imagined beauty for us. This book provides the first authoritative history of the global beauty industry from its emergence in the nineteenth century to the present day, exploring how today’s global giants grew. It shows how industry has shaped perceptions of beauty worldwide as beauty ideals were imagined by successive generations of entrepreneurs. These men and women built brands which interpreted prevailing societal norms, as well as the business organizations needed to sell them. They democratized access to beauty products, once the privilege of elites, but they also imagined the gender and ethnic borders of beauty, and its association with a handful of cities, notably Paris and later New York. The result was an extraordinary homogenization of beauty ideals throughout the world. However, over the last two decades globalization has worked in a more complex fashion, both encouraging further homogenization as global beauty brands entered China, Russia and India, but also encouraging heterogeneity through hyper-segmentation strategies and providing consumers with far greater choices. In the early twenty first century, beauty is in the process of being re-imagined again, with profound consequences for today’s managers and consumers.

Geoffrey Jones is a business professor at Harvard.
 

Because Your Worth It: The Ugly Face of the Beauty Business by Ruth Brandon

Available January 2011.

Book description not yet available.

Ruth Brandon is a biographer, historian, and novelist.

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Welcome to Spotted!, a new feature I’m trying out here on Belle IQ, which will share a photo and brief profile of someone who embodies brains and beauty. The Sartorialist-inspired idea came to me when I was on Facebook this week and spotted a talented and beautiful friend’s profile picture.

I first met Emily when she was in a class I was teaching at Sutherland Models. She stood out to me as a calm, confident, and honest young woman who is true to herself. She has a keen eye for snapping great photographs that convey a mood and tell a story, which is rare for someone so young. Emily kindly agreed to be the first person I profile for this feature.

Name: Emily Santi

Occuption: student

Interests: art, fashion, photography, music, and clothing

Beauty is…what we make it and how we look at it. How we decide what is beautiful to us may not be the same to others. The beauty of an individual should always be defined by his or her character and nothing else. To me, beauty is an elusive mystery and it is up to each of us to define it for ourselves.

I feel beautiful when…I make someone smile, laugh, or feel accepted. I love to nurture and care for people. When I am able to do these things for others, I feel a sense of accomplishment and pride. And ultimately, I feel beautiful.

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