Beauty: Female aesthetics through the years

While paging through old issues of Azusa Pacific’s student newspaper, The Clause, I found an article titled Beauty Uncovered: The price women pay to look good. The piece — which doesn’t appear to be available in the paper’s archives — talks about the changing idea of the feminine ideal through the years. It includes this timeline:

1700s: The pear
• Necessity of field work makes a large, muscular physique ideal.
• Eyebrows are shaven and replaced with press-on mouse-skin brows.
• The average woman is a mother of eight; large hips are sign of fertility.

Early 1800s: The rectangle
• “Corset Mecaniques” make corsets more user-friendly.
• Indoor lifestyle makes women pale and frail.
• Small feet and rosebud lips accompany prim and reserved personality.

Mid 1800s: The bell
• Ideal woman is curvy with big hips.
• Corset becomes controversial because of restrictiveness.
• Clothing sizes are developed.

Late 1800s: The hourglass
• Beauty culture develops in the U.S.; first notions of mass-produced beauty.
• Through early 1900s women have small waists and large updos.

Early 1900′s: The thin rectangle
• The average woman is 5′ 2″ tall and weighs 129 pounds.
• The brassiere is patented in 1913.
• In the 1920s women bind their breasts to gain more boyish figure.
• “Flappers” show skin and women become more self-conscious.
• Shaven armpits become popular.
• Comfort and freedom are priorities; bobbed hairstyle popular.
• First Miss America pageant is held in 1921.

Mid 1900s: The hourglass
• Marilyn Monroe embodies the ideal figure.
• Pin-up girls make large breasts popular.
• Large hips come back in style with the baby boom of the 1950s.
• Shaven legs become popular, sometimes by use of sandpaper.
• First official weight-loss drug approved by FDA in 1959.
• The ideal thins out again in the 1970s, repeating trend of the 1920s.

1980s: Muscular and toned
• Death of Karen Carpenter raises awareness of eating disorders.
• Excercise tapes become the new trend.
• Muscular woman is prominent but boyish figure is popular and voluptuous curves gain popularity.

The article was written by Jennifer Miller.