Cultures - ideal beauty

Japan

In the Far East, in Japan, a century old tradition offers an original beauty recipe treatment: nightingale droppings. These are transformed into a powder, mixed with soap and used as a face wash. The facial is supposed to make the face look young.

Kayan Tribe

The female members of the Kayan tribe (situated on the border between Burma and Thailand) have another ideal of beauty. Also known as “long necks”, they measure a woman’s beauty according to the brass rings wore around the neck. As they grow older they increase the number of rings which gives them an elongated neck appearance. They start this ritual as early as the age of 5 and their neck is absolutely transformed by the heavy rings. The elongated neck is a result of the pressure the rings put on their shoulders, clavicles and chest. The shoulders are being pushed down, that’s how the elongated neck appearance is achieved.

Indian

In India the long hair, the jewellery worn excessively especially at weddings, the coloured saris and the home made remedies take beauty to another level.

Africa

Ethiopia - Karo tribe

In Africa the idea of beauty varies from one side of the continent to the other. In Ethiopia, the women of the Karo tribe wear scars on their stomachs meant to attract a husband. The scarring process starts in childhood and once finished it means that the woman can get married and have children.

Mauritania

In Mauritania being skinny is definitely not a sign of beauty. Here a beautiful woman is a woman with curves…big curves. Nowadays forbidden, the gavage is in many cases the way of achieving a true, Mauritanian beauty. Through gavage young girls are being force fed in order to fatten them up. A “heavy” lady is more likely to be desirable and get a husband.

 

 

Middle East

In the Middle East beauty is sometimes not connected with what ones sees, but with one does not see, or with what one smells or catches a glimpse of. From the head to toe black covers women wear (called abaya) that sometimes reveal only the eyes, to the dark eye kohl pencil, henna tattoos, oud and coloured fabrics, scarves and jewellery. 

 

Polynasian

The Polynesian women are considered to be beautiful if they wear traditional tattoos on their lips and on their chins.

Western World

In the Western World the standards are different; the means of achieving beauty are sometimes extreme as well. From plastic surgery, implants, hair extensions, hair colour to fitness, diet and cosmetics, the beauty has a different meaning. What ever nature has not given, the knife can solve. The Western ideal of beauty is a skinny, tall, good looking lady (90-60-90 if possible) with perfect teeth, perfect hair and perfect fashion. A 24 hour working lady if possible, who never complaints, who is up to date with the latest fashion trends, is a fighter, considers herself a “Superwoman” because she can achieve whatever she desires, all by herself.

I don’t know which woman is more beautiful. I don’t know which one of the beauty rituals work and I definitely don’t know how one could compare the different types of beauty. One thing is certain: beauty is dictated by the places we live in, cultures we are a part of, traditions we are following.

All I’m saying is that diversity is beautiful and beauty is an individual, subjective concept.

Dove - Onslaught

Dove - Mothers and Daughters

Dove Ad:The Evolution of Beauty

Custody battle rages over 'Toddlers and Tiaras' tot

Introduction to my Project

For our Unit 3 body of work we were allowed to chose our own projects to work upon, whether this was am artists style we admire, a particular campaign or charity we would wish to work for or just a concern that we feel passionate about. I chose to work on the world of beauty and the extent people go for it. I mainly gained an interest for the world of beauty when I went to an exhibition to see the work of Zed Nelson who did a project on the global obsession with beauty and youth. Also with personally feeling like I am a more 'natural' person I find the world of plastic surgery, lyposuction and botox rather too extreme and no matter how bad i felt I personally would never result to the stuff. I even find the concept of dying my hair a bit extreme as i would like to stay as natural as possible, therefore by being this sort of person the world of beauty has always fascinated me and I have always been intruiged to why do people go to such great extents for it?
When I started looking into this project my main inspiration was the photographer Zed Nelson to which a particular project he worked on that I favoured for was called ‘Love Me’. His ‘Love Me’ project was based around reflecting on the cultural and commercial forces that drive the global obsession with youth and beauty; he took images of cosmetic surgeons, beauty queens across the world and beauty operations. Some of my other inspiration for this project would be Douglas Alves and Helen Lyon. IO chose Helen Lyon as her work evolves around the view of the woman, she created a modelling piece of a very thin model with the caption "no cigarrette, no tits, no talent" which to me shows the harshness of the beauty industry, i want to look into her work to gain inspiration through how women are percieved in society and behind the emotional falls that women have to fight through for beauty. With the work of Douglas Alves however it is not what message his work is trying to give, but more his style of work Douglasd Alves has an illustrative feel to his work which makes me think along the lines of advertisement and camplaigns, i want to look into douglas Alves because i want to be inspired by his technique and style of his work.with my project I want to explore how the commercial forces drive the beauty obsession today compared to the past and what did people in history thought was beautiful and what did they use to become beautiful (e.g corsets) as well as looking at how the difference in cultures can effect peoples visions on what beauty is but I don’t want to just look into the difference between Western and Eastern culture I would like to go into depth about particular cultures and possibly link this in with the research of the history of beauty and look at if there was any difference between different cultures in the past as well as different cultures in the present and possibly future. I want to explore different media being able to combine both photography, art work and photoshopped together to experiment with the field of beauty as well to look into the world of video.  
 

Douglas Alves

Another beautiful mixed media illustrator/graphic designer, Brazilian born and Los Angeles based Douglas Alves have some stunning images in his portfolio, a 26 years old self-taught graphic designer who worked already for some prestigious company like Coca-cola, Mtv, Microsoft and Honda amongst others…  I like a lot the fact that he’s showcasing his work in large format – You should definitely check his nice flash website: www.nacionale.net and his Balance.

“I was born in I Sao (squiggly line over a) Paulo, Brazil and im 26years old. As a self –taught i started my career in 2000 working in agencies and interactive shops . After 5 years i decided to become a freelancer and i started to do illustrations. I’ve had a pleasure to with great brand names and some of these”