Eye of the beholder

Eye of the beholder

Kupluthai Pungkanon

The Nation

Tribal paint, powdered wigs, Siamese topknots: What is this thing called beauty?

There's a Thai proverb that says beauty resides in the heart, not in our outward appearance. That's hard to reconcile with our slimming, skinwhitening, facelifting times, but if there's one lesson to be learned from L'Oreal's "100,000 Years of Beauty" project, it's that concepts of beauty do change.L'Oreal Thailand welcomed the recent publication of its parent company's book of that title by hosting a forum at which experts weighed notions of prettiness across the ages.

The elaborately illustrated fivevolume book traces shifting concepts of beauty since the prehistoric era and speculates about future trends.

"Beauty shouldn't be defined only in reference to your own culture, but according to each culture's preferences," said Paritta Chalermpow Koanantakool, director of the Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre.

Aesthetics can pack a profound emotional thrill, she added, drawing a comparison to religious people believing they can attain God's grace through passionate singing.

"Beauty is a blissful feeling," Dr Paritta said, but you have to refrain from measuring it "with your own ruler".

"Members of some American Indian tribes painted themselves black. The paint would only last five days, and then they'd apply more paint.

"Why bother? One researcher suggested it was a way of expressing affection, because they needed someone else to paint them."

Beauticians have been around at least since the age of the pharaohs, Paritta noted.

"In civilised societies there was plenty of leisure time to spend on adornments, so it could signify wealth. The better dressed they were, the higher their status. And power is also related to beauty.

Scholars in Renaissance Europe found beauty in mathematics, Paritta pointed out, citing as an example the golden ratio, 1.618, which was regarded as nature's "miracle number" and guided Leonardo da Vinci's drawings of the human form.

Historian Paothong Thongchua noted a distinction found in Thai beauty in the past -between that of royalty and commoners.

Hair in particular has always been important here, he said.

"No matter how poor the people were, the hair had to be conditioned using sandalwood mixed with ointment and aromatic flowers.

"Young children hated being groomed this way because their mother could be quite rough with the comb, straightening it ready to pull into a topknot.

"The belief behind this ritual is that a guardian spirit lives in the baby's fontanel, and at birth a ceremony is performed to welcome the guardian, using fragrant flowers."

Paothong noted that during the early Rattanakosin Era, women usually kept their hair quite short, except for long "sideburns" to which they could tie champak or pikul blossoms.

Kullawit Laosuksri, editorinchief of Elle magazine's Thai edition, gazed into beauty's crystal ball to find new medical and biotechnological breakthroughs.

"Beauty in the past was about ageing gracefully and an ideal inner beauty," he said. "At present it's about remaining forever young, about individual and integrated beauty - body and mind - and power and success."

What the evermoreefficient future holds, he said, is an increasing range of advanced formulas, affordable products and noninvasive treatments, all designed to boost our selfimage and get us better jobs.

"Skincare," Kullawit predicted, "will involve ingredients that make the consumer feel better, bringing psychological benefits by acting on the neurotransmitters to enhance their mood.

"Hair products will be infused with a cocktail of vitamins, and there'll be lasers for restoring hair."

But he too stressed that beauty comes down to perception, "not just injecting products".

Paothong offered an even bolder vision of the future: He'd like to see technology give people the momenttomoment choice of looking any age they wish.

"Today I want to look my age, in my 20s, but tomorrow I might want to have the face of a 35yearold!"

Beauty through the ages

The socalled Willendorf Venus was 'pleasing¬ly plump' 25,000 years ago - and painted red. Prehistoric chubby figurines like this have been found all over the world.

In China a millennium ago, Tang princesses wore widesleeved gowns in floral patterns, elaborate hairstyles and slippers with upturned toes. They used vivid red paint for the lips, and some shaved their eyebrows, replacing them with a single painted brow in the centre of the forehead.

Hair became political when 18thcentury French queen Marie Antoinette's metretall wigs required more flour to keep them white than her starving subjects had to make bread. Note, too, the compression of her whalebonereinforced corset. 

'Bombshells' were added to US Air Force bombers during World War II. Marilyn Monroe would soon embody feminine sexuality with pouting lips, halfclosed 'bedroom' eyes and wavy, platinum hair.

The future? Italian artist Vanessa Beecroft's installation is one notion of where we're heading. These are 'bioascetics', obsessed with lofty aesthetic and hygiene standards to the point of narcissism.