Vintage Black Glamour: an underexplored avenue of 20th century beauty and style.
posted by hermitosis on Oct 28, 2011 - 16 comments

"I remember going to a totally boring party for the magazine one night and thinking nobody is dancing because their heels are too high. Nobody is eating because in order to look like the women in the magazine, you have to eat next to nothing. And no one is actually drinking the cocktail in their hand because those are fattening, too. Nobody was really even talking to each other because they were too self conscious and painfully busy standing in the corner trying to look beautiful and important. It was not long after that party that I decided to try and resurrect my soul and work for a magazine that focused on something other than beauty and fashion. " [Linda Wells Would Be Horrified] (via)
posted by vidur on Jun 27, 2011 - 54 comments

The miniskirts, hotpants, bellbottoms, boots, sunglasses, and hairdos of the Sixties Seventies as worn by the famous and anonymous beauties of the time. (some images NSFW)
posted by Joe Beese on Jan 2, 2011 - 60 comments

Weird yet beautiful. The links on the page are good too, especially paper art.
posted by maiamaia on Nov 25, 2010 - 6 comments

MODEL-MORPHOSIS A close-up of the makeup looks from this and past Fashion Weeks. A nifty slide bar lets you compare the face before and after.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero on Sep 16, 2010 - 53 comments

There is very little intrinsic value in Coco Rocha's physique that would set her apart from any number of other similarly-built teens. 'When dealing with symbolic goods like “beauty” and “fashionability,” we would be hard pressed to identify objective measures of worth inherent in the good itself.' 'The social world of fashion markets reveals how market actors think collectively to make decisions in the face of uncertainty. And this social side of markets, it turns out, is key to understanding how investors could trade securities backed with “toxic” subprime mortgage assets leading us into the 2009 financial crisis.' 'In 2002, a tall and skinny 14-year old girl competed in a dance contest in Vancouver, Canada. There she encountered a modeling agent, who asked her to consider going out for modeling jobs. Today, the 22-year-old Coco Rocha is celebrated as a “supermodel”'. [more inside]
posted by VikingSword on Jul 16, 2010 - 60 comments

Vogue Italia relaunched their website last week (in Italian and English / pictures on the site may be NSFW,) with three new subsites catering to specific fashion industry demographics: Vogue Curvy (focusing on plus-sized models, actresses and celebrities,) Vogue Black (men and women of color,) and Vogue Talents (veteran and up-and-coming designers. "Talents" also encourages hopeful designers to submit their work for review.) "Curvy" and "Black" in particular have received some positive and negative attention and some wonder whether separating those two fashion categories is truly inclusive. Vogue responds.
posted by zarq on Mar 1, 2010 - 31 comments

"60% of men trim their pubes. What, really?"
posted by Artw on Sep 15, 2008 - 192 comments

Positive Exposure is a beautiful photographic portrayal (pdf)of people with genetic disorders. via [more inside]
posted by hortense on Apr 25, 2008 - 7 comments