Our obsession with beauty isn’t quite the 21st-century phenomenon we might think. Defining who and what is “beautiful” has plagued philosophers, mathematicians, scientists and mere mortals for centuries. Our current beauty standards are the culmination of age-old beliefs that date back to prehistory, and can then be seen in ancient rituals such as the Egyptian use of kohl as a spiritual tool to ward off “the evil eye”.
The Cult of Beauty, a fascinating new exhibition at the Wellcome Collection in London, explores the concept in all its glorious and insidious guises, examining cultures and eras through a colossal 200 objects, installations and artworks that show how beauty connects with our everyday lives.
“The trope of a woman looking at herself in the mirror in pursuit of physical, philosophical and cultural beauty ideals is fascinating to me,” says curator Janice Li, for whom the exhibition has been a labour of love. “We worked hard to find the only existing example of 18th-century ‘beauty patches’ in this country. These ‘mouches’, as they were known, were worn by men and women to strategically cover smallpox or syphilis scars. They later evolved to become elite fashion accessories, worn to enhance the radiance and whiteness of skin. Sex workers wore them to attract clientele.”
They may sound like a curious relic from bygone times, but consider this: “spot stickers” have become a common sight in beauty product aisles – and are essentially a novel incarnation of mouches. The exhibition has plenty of similarly relatable links between present and past. “During my research, I found a book from 1562,” says Jill Burke, a historian and professor who worked on the show’s Beauty Sensorium section. “It mentions how women can improve every single part of their bodies, from their heads to their toes.”
Burke, also the author of How To Be a Renaissance Woman: The Untold History of Beauty and Female Creativity, continues: “This 1562 book explains how to make your knees look nicer, tells you what your cheekbones should look like, and dictates what to do if you don’t have a double chin – it was a very desirable feature back then. I thought, ‘Wow, how exhausting, but also how familiar.’ Darker still is that almost every beauty book from the period had makeup recipes for hiding bruises on the face, because women were being beaten up all the time.”
As somebody who writes about the highs and lows of beauty culture, I think the timing of this exhibition is crucial. It could be a much-needed circuit-breaker. Our lives have become enmeshed with beauty standards. Celebrities now launch beauty brands to the same sort of fanfare that accompanies their latest film or record. Reality TV stars have become modern-day beauty icons, with an identikit appeal that comes courtesy of a surgeon’s deft touch. Our social media use beauty-based algorithms to predict what we might like to look at, and to digitally “rank” us when we post. We may not be aware of it, but we are still likely to be engaging with it.
It’s no coincidence that the beauty industry has boomed in the last decade. In 2017, according to one study, it was valued globally at $532bn – and it’s expected to reach $806bn (£662bn) by the end of this year. That comes with some benefits of course: a decade ago, I couldn’t walk into a high street shop and be guaranteed to find makeup to match my skintone in the way I can now. But there is always a flipside to progress, and the casualties include those affected by our unrelenting modern-day beauty standards; the societal requirement to look young and be filter-perfect at all times. “The timing of this exhibition is serendipitous,” says Li. “There is a lot of attention around beauty, its huge economic potential and the influence of the industry.”
But there has also been a shift of late suggesting that we’re inching towards a “post-beauty” era. Celebrities such as Ariana Grande and Bella Hadid have spoken about how they regret the cosmetic procedures they underwent (lip filler and Botox for Grande; nose job at 14 for Hadid). And a recent study examining the effects of lip filler signposted potential links with body dysmorphia and “tweakment” addictions, positing repeated exposure to unrealistic beauty standards on social media as the likely cause of women’s dissatisfaction with their appearance.
With Pamela Anderson’s decision to not wear makeup at last month’s Paris fashion week proving enough to make global headlines, it’s no surprise that research from the Mental Health Foundation concluded that over a third of adults in the UK felt anxious or depressed about their body image. It looks like we’re finally starting to clock that, amid this beauty boom, we’re not always being made to feel better. Maybe it’s time to ask why.
“The pressures are only increasing,” says Emma Dabiri, author of Disobedient Bodies: Reclaim Your Unruly Beauty. “I think selfies and digital communication have given us this forensic knowledge of our faces, which reduces us to two-dimensional avatars of ourselves. That isn’t healthy.”
During the pandemic, there was a rise in facial dissatisfaction – or so-called “Zoom face” – as a result of staring at ourselves at such length on screens, which led to a spike in cosmetic surgery and other procedures. Such self-examination, which in some cases became obsessive, is documented in the Wellcome show by photographer Juno Calypso, who explores our quest for perfection through her dystopian self-portraits and her alter ego Joyce.
“I remember reading Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth at the beginning of my career and it was the start of a revolution in me,” says Calypso. “It shifted my focus. I realised I didn’t want to take pictures of other people or models because that felt like pushing beauty standards on others. So I started photographing myself. I started collecting old beauty props like the Linda Evans Facial Rejuvenating System, an electric face mask from the 90s. It’s fascinating that beauty devices often look like horror and sci-fi props. They’re ready-made surrealism.”
The exhibition also explores incredible untold stories. “Beauty,” explains Burke, “is often seen as trite or ‘women’s stuff’. But it’s proper science and, throughout history, has involved a really impressive knowledge of processes, chemistry and materials. There’s an installation in the exhibition of makeup recipes I found, many of which originated from Islamic medicine, or via Jewish refugees who were expelled from Spain in the 1490s, which is fascinating.”
Other works explore Black queer visibility in British history, including the film and portrait project Permissible Beauty. This work, which features new portraits of six Black queer Britons, is based on paintings of ladies at the 17th-century court of Charles II who were celebrated for their appearance and elegance. “The film is set in stately homes,” explains Li. “It’s interwoven with grand manifestos, intimate interviews and fictional scenes exploring why some forms of beauty are more acceptable and highly valued than others.”
No less intriguing is Shirin Fathi’s The Disobedient Nose, which uses photography and sculpture to investigate the beauty ideals imposed on women in Iran, her native country, which is a world leader in terms of nose job numbers. The work concerns “a nose that doesn’t want to be tamed”, with London-based Fathi using her own face to examine women who defy the pressures placed on them by society. And it’s not just Iran: one portrait references an early Indian technique of skin-grafting to encourage growth on nose.
If this all sounds a little intense, there are plenty of jovial moments. “One of the pleasures of having a body,” says Dabiri, “is being able to adorn it and indulge in sensory pleasures like oils and scents.” One thing that still holds true across the ages is that beauty can be sociable. “Women of the renaissance were prevented from education beyond the basics, and had little freedom,” says Burke, “so beauty was a way they expressed identity and friendship. They would spend time together having their eyebrows done for example. Beauty was also an income for women who were widowed or had been dumped by their husbands, so it offered an underground economy. There was a lot of enjoyment too. It was a safe space.”
Many of the show’s narratives, says Li, centre on our relationship with ourselves. “Coincidentally,” she adds, “I stopped having any mirrors at home around the same time I took on this project – and the relationship I have with my appearance has gradually transformed. I still enjoy dressing up, but I now have a compassionate self-acceptance and I treat myself well regardless of how I fit into definitions of beauty.”
Honestly, who doesn’t need that in their life?
• The Cult of Beauty is at the Wellcome Collection, London, 26 October to 28 April; free to visit. Anita Bhagwandas is the author of Ugly: Giving Us Back Our Beauty Standards
