4.7 The Enigma of Beauty

What is beauty? Beauty is subjective and based on one's own cultural standards, norms and ideals. Some believe that beauty is functional because it emanates perceived signs of fertility. Plato said what is beautiful is good, John Keats wrote that beauty is truth, truth is beauty. But some reject the notion that we are created equal because some are perceived as more beautiful than others. But is the idea of how your culture influences your thoughts about beauty entirely true? A study done with six month old babies may challenge the idea that beauty is a learned behavior. The study showed that babies looked at pictures longer of people with symmetrical faces, which is a common standard for beauty.

With plastic surgery so readily available, people have the option to transform themselves into what they want to be or look like.  In the chase for beauty and perfection, the desire to alter one's body can become dangerous. Certain illnesses such as, bulimia
and anorexia to obsession over plastic surgery may be injurious. For example, in 2007 Kanye West's mother, Donda West died from complications due to plastic surgery. One doctor refused surgery because he felt she was not healthy enough to withstand such a medical procedure so she found a surgeon who was willing to perform the desired surgeries. To the former point, we are familiar with models dying from anorexia. Have we become so obsessed with our looks that its worth our lives?

Beauty practices around the world:

• Brazilian women want to be known for a guitar shape, one that usually includes a breast reduction to emphasize larger hips and derrieres.
• In Mauritania, West Africa, adolescent girls are force fed in order to attract a husband. Some girls are sent to "fat camps" and forced to consume 15,000 calories daily.
• Many women of Latin descent view blond hair as a sign of youth.
• Teeth chiseling in Indonesia where women have there teeth sharpened into narrow points.

The chapter also speaks to ethnocentricity, the notion that one's ideals are better than others. If you put it all into perspective no one's standard of beauty is any better or worse from anyone else's. We may find some of the above actions as strange but it's no different than putting holes in the ears, lips or brows to wear jewelry or adding silicone for breast implants.

With so many variations on the standard of beauty, maybe it is just better to be yourself. One year, thick brows are in, the next year big eyes are in. I know that this is easier said than done because we are so inundated with what beautiful is, but it definitely takes confidence and self-esteem to be who you are intended to be. Celebrate yourself.

Beauty is Pain: Louboutins Truth

Christian Louboutin is one of the hottest shoe designers in the fashion industry currently, and what makes his shoes so enticing? The fact that they have a simple, but indistinguishable red sole? Or the idea of how they are designed to endow a women's figure by making her stand straight enhancing her assets. Louboutin admits to beauty is pain in one of his interviews addressing his shoes and how he wants them to make women feel. 

“I hate the whole concept of comfort! It’s like when people say, ‘Well, we’re not really in love, but we’re in a comfortable relationship.’ You’re abandoning a lot of ideas when you are too into comfort. ‘Comfy’—that’s one of the worst words! I just picture a woman feeling bad, with a big bottle of alcohol, really puffy. It’s really depressing, but she likes her life because she has comfortable clogs.”

Famous celebrities and tastemakers have been wearing Louboutins for quite some time now, and when seeing Louboutins worn, one can see the wearer's feet and the amount of wear/damage the feet endure from these shoes. 

Tom Ford, another major player, states that he too does not care about comfort when related to fashion, and will pay the price to look great.

"I recently made a gown for a friend to wear at an awards ceremony. She e-mailed me to say she loved it because it was so comfortable, and I thought 'Who cares if it was comfortable?' Comfort for me is knowing I look great, and if I have to suffer in a corset for four hours to look amazing, than that's comfort," Ford commented. 

Ford believes that clothes should be alluring and beautiful, and to be the model of this clothing, one must pay the price of comfort to look good.