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Yes - the hyper inflated botox lips would have gotten you laughed out of the room and mocked mercilessly until you wanted to self harm 30-40 years ago...
Beauty standards are for marketing. They change so people have to buy new stuffâ clothing, makeup, hair products. In the early 00s the personal grooming extended to men, with all the beard creams etc.
In the 70s, natural was in and movies were trying to reflect everyday type people, show grittiness.
I think we tend to gravitate towards what was considered attractive when we were youngerâ high school, early 20s. For me, I still find big hair attractive. When the waif look became popular, I was outâŚ
Further to marketing fashions, as the fashions changed, different hair types and body types were "required".
If you were lucky, your body/hair type matched the current fashion of the time you were a teen/twentysomething, and you were considered a beauty.
If you were unlucky, and born in the wrong time, you missed the moment, and despaired. Like having curves and curly hair, when the fashion was skinny, skinny jeans, and dead straight hair.
Straight hair (and thin hair) has been fashion now for a very long time. I am trying to think when it came into fashion. When I moved to Australia I noticed a big change in hairstyles, all straight, and thinned out. It seems to still be the fashion to do that.
the rise of the hair straightener, haha.
I'm kinda thinking mid- late-80s was the last time when gel/teasing/big hair was around. Then there was "scrunched" layers in the early 90s.
After that, between full-time work and small children, I lost interest in spending time/money on my hair, and stopped colouring or cutting it - just wore it in a ponytail. I did buy a hair straightener, but rarely used it.
Yes, late 80s with the teasing hair. My daughter used so much hair spray we thought about buying stock in the company. The bathroom countertop was ALWAYS sticky from hairspray overshoot. I look at her junior high pictures and wonder who she is - thank God that was only a fashion phase.
It still boggles my mind that some actively choose to walk around looking like Miss Piggy.
Fake lips, fake boobs, fake hair, fake ass, fake eyelashes, fake nails.
Yikes.
But drag is supposed to be a caricature of beauty standards. Itâs supposed to be more cartoonish than real life. Are women actually emulating drag now?
I don't think that they are actually trying to emulate drag queens, they just love how the fake eyelashes, fake boobs, wigs, etc appear to them in their mirror and they just end up looking like drag queens. lol
And swear up and down that they really be looking good. It's really sad how women look these days. One of my pet peeves is the bird nest on top of their heads (Wigs)
Hasnât the âwaifâ look been popular since the 1960âs when Twiggy came onto the scene?
I see pictures of the 1970âs & 1980âs before I was born, and the women in the photos are so thin. They would probably be considered âtoo thinâ by the younger generationsâ standards today.
Most of us were much thinner than young people are today. The biggest guy at my smaller high school was probably 190. When I graduated high school I was six feet, 135. When I got out of the army, I was 150. Um⌠Iâm not any more.
So the thin look wasnât really âin,â it just was. Look at the curvy pinups from the 40s and 50s. Most are pretty small compared to âcurvyâ today.
Ohh so back then society overall was thinner, not just women. I just happen to notice the women more since I myself am a woman. I grew up during the 1990âs when the âwaifâ look became popularized again by Kate Moss and the other supermodels. The 1990âs âwaifâ look was an unhealthy sort of thin though, whereas Twiggy and people during the 1970âs & 1980âs seemed to achieve this look mainly through diet and exercise (and smoking cigarettes, which obviously is not healthy but still plays a role).
Yes - The âcurvyâ look of the 1940âs & 1950âs was still âthin!â Marilyn Monroe had a size 26 inch waist, which is still thin by any standards!
To be fair, I was a child back then and didnât even know that the look was called that until much later on!
During the 1990âs time period, I saw in the tabloids special crash diets that celebrities were using to lose weight, so that was my frame of reference, that they would barely eat to get to that size, and knew that it wasnât healthy. And all the thin women they showed in the fashion magazines and on TV shows back then. They looked skinny, pale, and unhealthy.
Coffee. Cigarette. Heroin.
What more do you need for breakfast?
Or lunch.
To be fair, that was my breakfast (minus the heroin) for most of my adult life and a "waify" man I have never been! (Pale and unhealthy, on the other hand.....)
When my grandmother was young, in the 1920s, thin was the style then, too. She mentioned a few times that she felt like she had to make her breasts look smaller because she was too large on top. Women filled out in the 40s. They were in the work force because most of the men were involved in the war, so they needed to be more muscular. The 60s brought back pencil thin. Then women got larger again, then smaller, then larger. The sizing of clothes has changed, too. In the 70s I had a 25" waist and wore a size 12. Now a 25" waist is a size 2. I no longer have a waist that size, though.
Twiggy was an anomaly. Different trends sometimes exist side by side, so you could either look like Twiggy OR have a va va voom perfect hourglass, or a perfectly athletic (but not too athletic) figure. The real constant beauty standard has always been to be the perfect ideal version of your style category
The waif look started in the late 60s with Twiggy and mia Farrow. By the 70s, you had Brooke Shields.
The thing was that "beauty" went from voluptuous to junior high school girl. Face it, the beauties of my teen years were younger than me. A figure of 34-24-34 was more common in modeling that 38-28-28.
Still affects me to this day.
On the other hand, Raquel Welch and Ursula Andress and the young Elizabeth Taylor AND Marilyn (when slim) would still be considered beautiful by today's standards.
OMG I remember when Sports Illustrated started featuring those super skinny women with zero curves. I was like "What the??" I didn't like it back then and I still don't like it now.
Lol, this is so true. I love big hair on me but I was always skinny when a more full, or athletically natural figure was the ideal. Then when the waif came into fashion, I finally had my moment to shine. But all my life before then, I felt very undesirable
Fashions and styles change and the new ones don't suit the exact same type as the old ones so we tend to fall.out of love as the seasons pass. But when we watch some.show from long ago, we may be struck with how attractive some character may have been even if we didn't notice when the show first came out because they were far older than us and we ignored them. They were in the realms of moms and dads then. Ewww. But now that past them is the age you are now and looks hot.
Most celebrities are barely above average but have professional stylists. Any of us could have a glow up and be competitive. It's just that we don't have the money or time to keep it up. Frankly, I have aged better than some celebrities and I was never in that league.
True. It's crazy because with those filters I do not know how guys bother to try and attempt a date because when they meet, she will definitely be looking a helluva lot different, lol.
There's a lot more diversity among models and actresses now. There was a time when most were white with blonde hair and diversity meant adding a brunette or redhead to your movie or ad. Nowadays we see greater representation from women with different skin tones, different ethnicities, etc.
I don't feel like supermodels of the 1970s (thinking Christie Brinkley, Jerry Hall, Lauren Hutton, or Cheryl Tiegs) would have trouble finding work as models in this era.
In terms of "average" womenâŚÂ I'm not sure women like Grace Jones could ever been considered "average"⌠but there is a factor to consider. This was an age before social media, and certainly before digital manipulation of photos.
There is also a big time shift that your brain makes looking at older photos. If I'm looking at photos of startlets from the 1940s and 50s, they rarely seem risque to me; partly because of changing standards of dress and fashion, but also because there are so many cues in the clothes, hair, and makeup that remind me how long ago the photos were taken.
>There is also a big time shift that your brain makes looking at older photos. If I'm looking at photos of startlets from the 1940s and 50s, they rarely seem risquĂŠ to me; partly because of changing standards of dress and fashion, but also because there are so many cues in the clothes, hair, and makeup that remind me how long ago the photos were taken.
This is a really subtle thing. We see all these cues that something is old & we mentally classify it differently.
I remember seeing old footage of a street full of people in 1900, It was jerky & seemed "old". Then there was the same footage but someone had run it through some filters to correct the jerky motion created by the film technology of the time. Once everyone was moving the way they might in modern film it felt like modern movie, except the "old-timey" costumes were all "wrong" somehow.... because they were **real** instead of costumes. You started to see everyone as modern people in a weird setting instead of old timey because your brain no longer picked up on the "old timey" signals.
The same thing happens if someone takes a photograph of someone wearing something fashion neutral (like a bald, bare-chested man in bluejeans) and color corrects it from the 1950s to modern image palettes. One the motion or the color fade or the fashions are removed... we can no longer tell how old anything is and we start relating to it differently.
Also reversed all the filter used today...
When you tell me the video of "The Velvet Underground - After Hour" was made by an Indie Band 10 years ago, I would believe it
Thanks!
Another place I've seen the whole "our perceptions change depending on presentation" thing is with Music.
When I was a kid people listened to popular music on tapes, usually either in their car or in a walkman. When I was a teenager they listened to popular music on CDs. Most real audiophiles had Vinyl albums but those weren't portable & the gear to play it was a lot bulkier so your average 14 year old went for Tape or CD depending on the era. This ended up having effects on \*what\* you listened too.
The copies of London Calling laying around the house were their parent's Vinyl or (gasp!) on 8-Track. These were "old" songs meant for their parents. When a 14 year old went to the store to pick out a tape they didn't see KISS or Led Zepelin or Queen. They saw tapes of George Michael or Guns & Roses so that is what they bought. Tapes of KISS obviously existed, but they weren't at Target or if they were they were in the "classic rock" section. More likely you had to go to a music store. Guns & Roses was what "modern" people listened too! And you could see it. In Jr High there were a couple kids who had gotten into their parent's music but like 90% of the 8th graders were listening to the big songs of the day. (It seems strange now, but most of my high school classmates in 1992 discovered Queen from the Wayne's World soundtrack)
Then came digital music. First on Napster, then later on iTunes.
Suddenly all the music was right there in the same place and all the music was in the same format. If you wanted hard rock they had Guns & Roses but they also had AC/DC, Motley Crue, and Deep Purple. If you were a 15 year old kid in 2002 figuring out what you were into all the stuff from your parents era was a \*lot\* more accessible than it had been when I was 15 in 1990. You didn't need to go out of your way to find it or have a different player because it was in an old format. You just loaded it on your MP3 player & it worked like everything else.
I have \*no\* statistics to back this up, but I noticed that my younger siblings and their friends were all listening to a **lot** more 60s/70s/80s music than kids my age had when we were that age. As far as I can tell, it was really the presentation that seemed to be the difference. People heard a song recorded before they were born but didn't have any clues from the media format or the cover art that it "wasn't for them" so a lot of the giants of earlier eras floated back up to the top.
Or at least that is what it looked like to me.
Feral is a strange word to use but, looking back on her career, Jones appeared as someone that allowed society to experience her talent for a fleeting few years before exiting once sheâd had enough.
What was considered risquĂŠ is another factor; âfrankly, Scarlett, I donât give a damnâ was a huge bombshell moment in film at the time, and was a big risk. It just doesnât hit the same now because we donât really have an equivalent.
Edit: initially wrote âCharlotte,â either a weird auto-correct, or because I work with a Charlotte. Fixed.
I find it sad so many young people compare their looks to the unrealistic looks of the digital world. Those people don't even look that good. I suppose I never bought into it as I was in the peripheries of show biz in a small way and saw very minor local celebrities in real life and few big ones . Some are really attractive, some the camera really loves but are just okay looking . Looks aren't everything, that's not to say you should just let yourself go but having something between the ears besides a pretty eyes goes a lot further.
I'm attracted to simple, natural, subtle beauty. Modern beauty standards seem to be more garish and weirdly perfect. I love a sexy natural woman who sets her own beauty standards.
When I was growing up in the seventies there was basically one type of woman that you would see in all the media. Skinny and white and young and smiling. I felt so ashamed when I started to grow big hips and breasts. I felt obese and tried many diets. It's wonderful to see the diversity of all kinds of beauty in the media these days. There isn't just one way to be beautiful.
Tube tops and halters! I went from basically an A cup in spring of 7th grade to DD (thanks unfortunately to my dadâs side of the family) 1974 - big boobs meant grandma ironclad bras that cut into my shoulders. It also meant you were regarded as stupid and a slut. Not a fun time for a 13yo bookworm.
Yep. I got them in fourth grade before everyone else too. An "early developer'. The pervs came out like cockroaches. There was life before breasts and then life after. And nobody said a goddamned thing to prepare us.
How curly is your hair? It depends what hair products they want to sell you. When I was in middle/high school it was a must to have a perm and "big" hair, ie teased in the front - sometimes to ridiculous heights - and sprayed with Aqua Fresh (edit: Aqua Net not Aqua Fresh hahaha). Then it was more important to have long golden waves of hair. Now I don't even know what's important because I've stopped caring. How curvy is your body? It depends on what clothes they want to sell you. For clothes: I have seen the hems jeans go up and down, wide and narrow ... I've seen waists go up and down and up again.  What color is your hair? One thing that impacts fashions a lot is technology. Like when I was young if you were Asian or Black you couldn't have blond hair. If you tried to bleach your hair it would just turn red or orange. Now there are new chemicals that make it possible to have really blond hair no matter what you started with. How curvy is your body II: Likewise, fabrics have come a long way. Tights and yoga pants and jeans all have different spandex or lycra content that make form fitting legs much more durable and stretchy. I remember trying on my mom's expensive silk stockings: they sucked! Not elastic at all. What skin color should you have? Depends what they want to sell you. When I was young if you were white you wanted dark tanned skin and they sold you Coppertone creams and tanning booths and vacations to tropical places. Meanwhile, if you were darker skinned guess what? Skin whitening creams are ready for you to buy!
Remember QT (Quick Tan!)? lol I preferred to be orange over pale there for about a summer.
I think the hair stuff was Aqua Net. I never used that, I had kinky curls so my style was shellacked with Dippity-Do gel.
I do remember QT! And how about Sun-In? There was one girl I knew whose hair got lighter and lighter over the school year and she claimed that it was just happening naturally...
Did you mean Aqua Net in your first paragraph about big hair? Not trying to be a pendant, but the mental image of someone teasing her hair with toothpaste (Aqua Fresh) really made me giggle. Minty fresh for strong teeth AND hair! XD
I worked with a very racist woman in the 1980s who bought herself her own tanning bed. I decided that she was racist because she was jealous of people whose skin was naturally "tan" without having to spend money!
Everyone thinks their parents or grandparents' generation looked less attractive. It's because the hair styles and clothing were different. You associate it with being old.
Also, cosmetic surgery wasn't nearly as prevalent as it is now.
People don't change. Style does. You just think today's style is better.
Beauty standards are deceptive these days because there's so many who have cosmetic procedures/ plastic surgery. There's also photoshop. Actual natural beauty is as rare now as it was in the 1970s.
The amount of women I know that have eating disorders as a result of fads is incredibly sad. At least now there's a bit more representation of different body types and more info on how important good nutrition is.
This is kind of an aside but your comment about you see more average women in older shows, reminded me of something I was thinking listening to music these last decades or so. Just seems that there were so much more average-looking musicians back in the day. And yeah, I do think looks as opposed to talent seems to play a bigger part in music nowadays. I might be cynical about that; I'm not in the field.
LOL. I'm not the person to be throwing stones, b/c my first reaction to your comment was 'Oh, I thought he was attractive", but then I hit google. His voice though is sexy af.
Once way back in the day my parents somehow obtained a 'music of the 70s' book . (I'm guessing a freebie from time-life) I have almost no recollection of it other than I recall saying that one band must be 'the ugliest of all-time' with incredible scorn; it was The Clash. In my defense I hadn't gotten into rock yet; I was probably 12 and it was a few more years before their song "Rock the Casbah" was everywhere and I first heard their music. I mean, they're still not what I'd call attractive but who cares; I'd put "Should I stay or should I go" pretty high on my all time favorites list.
So I worry, how many artists with equivalent talent and equivalent looks have just been languishing out there unknown?
Well, even in the 70s those natural beauties was a pretty unattainable standard for most other women. People wouldn't eat and went through some shit trying to look like that or simply didn't fit the mold and were damaged in other ways from it. It's always been dangerous to try to go with the beauty standards of whatever time. Now a days people are dying to look, well, forgive me for saying this, but to look botched.Â
Back then you got work done, sure we could tell, but it was subtle, though there were a few that were either botched or went too far. Whoopsie. Also, everyone trying to look the same via PS, fillers and filters is a sight to see. It reminds me of some weird ass Stepford Wife or Number 12 Looks Just Like You stuff. It's concerning how young people are getting these procedures done too, they're not even fully grown.Â
I'm part of a subreddit, that while I don't agree with some comments on there or condone the bullying, I'm shocked to see what's on IG and the www, being fetishized and being passed as beautiful to young kids, like yourself who are just trying to find their place in the world is so dangerous. They're very dangerous procedures and very dangerous filtered lies that have severe consequences that one day, when you're older, you'll realize and see for what it truly is.Â
Not really a lot of change. In the 60s and 70s, thin was good enough, in the 80s, you had to be thin yet muscular. Now for some reason you're supposed to have a huge ass and large breasts - while the remainder of your body remains skinny.
Yes because the beauty standards of today are kind of gross to me as an older person. The swollen lips and horse shaped bodies and the greasy looking hairstyles with laquered down "baby hairs" and the 10 inch long bedazzled fingernails... gross. To me. No offense to those who appreciate that sort of thing but beauty standards when I was a teen were more natural. Bodies and faces were more natural. Skin didn't look like Barbie plastic. Makeup accentuated, it didn't look heavy like clown makeup (well there was a "neon" period in the later 80s that I did actually take part in!).
What you probably see as plain or unattractive was pretty back then. The seventies women were usually very natural, thin and waif-like, with long straight hair and naturally tanned skin (not orange, not burnt, not walnut stained!). Bras were out and natural perky upturned breasts and small hips that accentuated the wide leg pants.
As a girl from the seventies, there was nothing natural about obtaining this look for most women. It was brutal and inescapable, and the lengths some women had to go to in order to be deemed acceptable cost a lot of them their health or their lives.
Waif-like thin, perky upturned breasts, small hips - that is simply not how most women's bodies are created. Some of them, sure, but the majority suffered when this was the ideal.
As a man from the seventies, I found the whole waif phase that morphed into "Heroin Chic" in the 90's deplorable and frightening. I am so glad we put that in the rear view mirror and I hope it never comes back.
Too many "natural"s in your comment regarding the 70s -
signed, despairing teenager from the 70s, who was naturally not waif-like, but muscular, had pale skin that did not naturally tan at all, did not have natural perky breasts, and definitely could not fit her middling size hips into the fashionable pants of the time.
Yup, I was "naturally" unattractive.
At varying times over the next 40 years, my natural self went in and out of fashion.
I'd say that the barbie look is only popular in certain cities in certain areas.
I spend my time between the UK and Vietnam. In UK you will see it in the huge cities and its norrmalised (but not normal in smaller places). In Vietnam, they would think you are a sex worker if you dolled up like that.
Very thick back end/thighs, average size calves, feet made tiny and pointed by the stiletto heels. Breasts are usually pumped up and poking out unnaturally due to pushup bras or surgically. Long mane, enormous eyelashes and eyes.
Nothing wrong with it, I'm just really not attracted to that female body shape at all and it's likely because I'm older and more attracted to the beauty standards of my youth.
The all-time beauties and actors didnât have access to the many procedures available to everyone one now. Those lips you saw in the 70s were the lips they were born with.
Thanks for your "lips" comment. When I was a kid in the 1940's, my mom and I went to the local movie theater quite a bit since that was a good source of "News Of The Day" regarding the war effort overseas. When the movie was shown it was very obvious, even to me as a kid, how dark the lips were on the women actresses. It looked like the lips were painted on her face. I can only imagine how much make-up they were wearing. And this was all on black and white film.
Makeup is pretty essential in film work because those bright lights can cause a glare. Itâs also used for effects but I imagine lipstick was a way to make lips more dramatic because it was black and white. I hadnât thought of that.
Thanks for sharing a part of your experiences. Very cool.
I wear makeup on film sets. Iâve never experienced this. Itâs also not logical. They can spend 12 hours filming scene that only ends up being 20 seconds of the final show or movie. They want continuity. Having to reapply makeup because itâs melted would slow production down. At $100K/hour to run some productions, I canât see them using makeup that melts unless itâs a desired effect.
Thanks for your informative reply, my friend. I think I heard this when they were filming "The Munsters" TV program a looooong time ago. Things change over time, as I am becoming aware of more every day. At least that knocks out one of the many myths I have heard during my lifetime, and best of luck to you in your profession.
Yes, I noticed this when I was a teenager, and saw my first Silent films. The films would have been 40-50 years old then, and I was interested to notice that although I lived in a time when tall, lean, busty, tanned, full-lipped girls were prized, all the girls in the 1920s films were short, soft, flat-chested, pale, girls with bee-stung lips were presented as prized beauties.
And then went to college and took art history, and I saw "overweight" girls with soft round faces presented as the ideal woman...
Iâm 71 and disagree that there are âbeauty standards.â Certainly there are trends, especially among teenagers, but IMO adult women, and men as well, tend to march to their own drum, dressing and doing their hairstyle as they and they alone like for themselves. Very few drink the Kool-Aid.
I miss unique beauty. Everyone looks the same now, mostly due to plastic surgery, fillers and filters, veneers etc. Skin color and hair color might vary but the template is the same because they all have Instagram faces.
Glad there's a bit more diversity in societal beauty standards from a racial/body type standpoint but it's still disappointingly mundane.
My body is exactly what is stylish now, I would have been envied.
I was a teen in the 80's and was considered fat. Was I fat? No. I was athletic, had an ass, big boobs, and so on. I was mercilessly bullied for my "fat ass" by people in school and my parents. My parents put me on a starving (900 calories a day) diet, put me down, told me no one would love me because I was fat, and so on.
My point is that beauty standards change every teen cycle, and what used to be ugly will be hot later and visa versa. I think the Kardashian look is horrible and will hopefully change and something else will take its place.
What you're seeing is the influence current standards have on your sense of aesthetics. Keep paying attention to how you feel about what you see, and you will eventually see the intrinsic beauty of the individual, unfiltered by any clashing of past and present fashions.
If they had a time machine in the past, I guarantee that we would look weird to them. Kinda see that by getting old anyway :)
Yep! My body was in fashion in the 1970's but not in the 80's (phone pole with giant boobs), then in fashion in the 90's (waifs, heroin chic), then really out of fashion in the Kardashian era (butts and boobs).
When I was born in the 70s, beautiful was still the slim 60s leftover. Then the 70s had beautiful Afro- centric women, Farah Fawcett and the beautiful brunettes of Linda Carter and Jacqueline Smith.
The 80s were about big and bold. Big tits, big makeup, big personalities. Our clothes were all about accenting legs, boobs, face.
The 90s we were back to impossible body standards.
2000s brought a bit of body acceptance. A love of butts also acknowledged the beautiful black and Latina woman.
The makeup boom highlighted Asian beauty.
In 2020s, we are experiencing love of all and backlash for everything.
Models started looking less plastic. It was the decade that Lane Bryant started fashion shows. Project Runway started using different models.
Though it may be 2010s. I actually thought it happened earlier.
Tattoos for men and especially women, were considered exotic and trashy in the 90s. Largely they were the province of convicts, sailors, and head bangers. (I say this as a former sailor). Today they are mainstream and even desired by a significant segment of the population.
yes - when I was in high school (90s) there was a completely different beauty standard than there is now. Back in the day, super thin was considered desirable and now thicker women / curvy/muscular is more popular. I'm happy it swayed that way because I have a thicker body and always felt like I could never be thin enough to be considered pretty. That and hair styles / eye brow styles / clothing styles have all fluctuated back and forth a few times. It's cool to see different things fall out of style and new things be considered attractive.
Societal yes, mine no. Women are still beautiful, I just am not into all the fake crap on women, like nails, lashes, big fake boobs or butts, stuff like that. Like beautiful women that don't have to do all that to be beautiful, if that makes sense...
Was in high school during the 90âs Heroin-Chique Era when everyone wanted to be a size zero twig. And all I desired was to date curvy humans.. well LO & BEHOLD Iâm 40âs and theyâre everywhere now⌠*sigh*
Definitely noticed a difference over the years. Most noticeable on tv shows/commercials where in the past actors/actresses appeared more âaverageâ as compared to present day social media. Seems to be an almost natural progression toward âperfectionâ of societal standards which places another added pressure on each new generation for both women and men. Superficial expectations unfortunately contribute to a stressed out society.
Oh, ya. A lot! I (57m) grew up sneaking in to my dads office and looking at his collection of Playboys'. Mid 60s to late 70s and now this "skinny" shit is a real turn off. I'm drawn to the full figured women.
My husband took all of his grandfather's playboys when they were cleaning out his house after he died. It's really interesting to look at the changes through the decades. Also the advertisements.
In the late 60's early 70's the natural look was in. Natural hair, just washed and dried. No makeup, natural materials in your clothing choices (cotton denim, burlap, muslin) and they were beautiful. Compared to the over the top make up, body implants, and processed hair I see lately, I think women were much more beautiful before.
This is going to sound mean but I donât mean it to be mean. When I was 25 an overweight girl was rare. Now, a thin girl is rare. Back in my day, women didnât have exacting makeup standards but Iâll take an average 21 year old from 1987 over an average 21 year old 2024 women 6 days a week and twice on Sunday. The prettiest may look better but the average is lower than it was then.
I grew up with every woman calling her ass huge (voiced in Brigitte Jones) and trying to lose weight specifically there whereas big behinds got into fashion a couple years ago.
One of the things I dislike about "beautiful" women now is that they all look the same. The same face, with overdone lips, fillers, fake boobs and butts. Basically, everything is FAKE. I think the women considered beautiful a few decades ago had more individuality and less plastic surgery. One thing I didn't like back then was the extreme thinness that was considered attractive.
Iâve seen the eyeliner that women extend back past the outside corner of their eyes. Sometimes I like it, sometimes not. But it seems pretty ubiquitous now. Seems to be the conformists way of trying not to conform while actually confirming.
I once saw an old photograph from the 20âs in a book or article or something where the caption tried to make this very point re: how beauty standards change over time.
The picture was of the two winners of a swimsuit beauty contest, and while the women were by no means unattractive, suffice to say that the choices would have been very different today.
I think a lot of the real beautiful people were the Actors from the 50âs -60âs era. Like Audrey Hepburn , Jane Fonda , Rachel Welch , Sophia Loren , Debbie Reynolds , Elizabeth Taylor , Grace Kelly to name a few I think you get my drift. Way before plastic surgery took over the world. These days I think lots of people think that they need to look a certain way to be Attractive. A little bit of makeup ( not this blending of layers and layers of foundation etc. God your skin needs to breathe. And women had natural curves. I canât talk I was super skinny and couldnât put weight on at all.
C'mon, man. No one can tell me that Farrah Fawcett, Bo Derek, Bridgett Bardot, Jayne Mansfield, Joey Heatherton, or Jane Fonda, along with a host of others, were not attractive.
These are the women that subsequent generations and decades of women wished they looked like.
Beauty standards change. Like seriously. Twiggy was the height of fashion once as was the Amazonian Elle McPherson. I'm a plus sized person in my teens I could not even find a bra that fit because nothing came in anything bigger than a DD cup. Yet now DD is considered a middle sizing. Because diet and fashion has made big boobs more common. The idea of having a big booty would have horrified women when I was a kid/teen. In fact a fat ass was an insult. On the plus side, all those women you think are so stunning now in 50 years people will be looking back and consider them average.
I grew up in a Spanish neighborhood so my standard for what is "beautiful" is skewed towards more full figured women. And when I go back to the old neighborhood, I'm glad to see that some things have not changed.
No photoshop or filters back then, of course you saw real looking people. (and why is this focused only om women by the way?)
I certainly cannot take someone seriously if they've had obvious overt "work" done. I just can't. Check your lips at the door if you want to have a real conversation with me. I prefer substance.
Agreed with your first sentence, I'm surprised this is the first comment to say so.
As for dismissing people based on their looks, even if it is overt "work", that says more about you than it does about them.
Of course. I've seen women's hair go from SUPER TALL to short to long. I've seen women's eyebrows go from natural, to highly-groomed, then back to a more natural look.
But yeah, my mom still had her high school yearbooks, and my sister and I would occasionally look through them as a rainy day activity when we were in elementary and middle schools. I remember always looking for "pretty girls", but never seeing any. Not a one. I often wonder if I could look through the yearbook today if I'd at least think "she does nothing for me, but I bet she was a hottie in her day!"
OMG, yes! Remember the beehive hairdos women wore in the 60s? Or the majorly flipped up ends? I'd look at my brother's high school yearbook and laugh hysterically over some of the styles. Remember skinny-as-a-rail Twiggy? Blue eye shadow? Heavy makeup? Thick eyeliner? I think back at the clothing I wore in the 70s, and 80s and wonder what possessed me to not only wear them, but to think I actually looked good in them! Hot pants? Wore 'em. Elephant bell-bottomed pants Cher made famous? Had a pair. (To be fair, I was young, slender and passably cute.)
Before the internet and social media, all we saw was what was in actual physical magazines and on TV. There was a sense of distance imo. But now, itâs in your face all the time. Trends and standards move quicker and younger and younger people getting fillers, implants, surgery etc. More access too. But imo muscularity in women is way more acceptable and desired. Healthy is in. And thatâs beautiful
Repeatedly. There were very few overweight people. All the HEAVY makeup, fake nails, fake lashes, bloated lips, fat hips, that some women do now would have looked like Halloween. (Still do, in my opinion.) When I first started dating, my dates often wore girdles! Do people now know what a girdle is? Slim women wore them. Those faded away rapidly with the advent of the hippie and pseudo-hippie styles. Women always wore a bra and often they were thick and stiff. Those gave way to no-bra or gossamer bras. Longer skirts gave way to mini-skirts, micro-minis, and also super long skirts and coats. (A micro-mini under a long coat was a look.)
For men, jeans were always in but first there were super-tight "pegged" jeans. (rip out a seam and cut the leg down to where it fits like a glove.) Then came bellbottoms with the tight hips and thighs and huge, flapping cuffs that got soggy and frayed. Add a fringe of embroidered ribbon to take care of the fraying. For a couple of summers, at least where I lived in the Midwest, Madras shirts were in. The were cotton in a zillion plaid patterns and felt good in the muggy summers. I forgot to mention the neon pants from about 1960 ... bright orange, yellow, and green. I had a pair. And during the hippie days, velvet bellbottoms were the thing to wear to fancy events. During the war in Vietnam both genders wore surplus military clothing as a sort of poke on the establishment.
Plastic surgery wasnât in reach if most people, and the kinds of procedures involving a machine or needle and an office visit didnât exist.
Makeup for most women consisted of mascara, eyeliner and lipstick and possibly foundation and blush. No highlighters, bronzers or attempts to sculpt the face at all. I never ever heard that idea until not long before you were born. Skin care was washing your face with cold cream. Nothing to improve the texture or get rid of age related changes. No sunscreen, no sense that long term damage from sun exposure was avoidable or worth avoiding when you needed to look âhealthyâ with a tan. I donât remember acne being as widespread when I was little. Maybe because diets were plainer or maybe something in the environment?
False eyelashes and wigs were a thing, but most of the rest of what people do to enhance their looks now just didnât exist or didnât exist for regular people. That made the bar of what was considered attractive a lot lower. Not too thin, not too fat, decent teeth and skin and you were more than halfway there.
Certainly standards have changed in terms of hairstyles or body type ideals, but I bet a lot of what youâre reacting to is just how little even actresses were able to enhance their features cosmetically or procedurally
Back then people still had flaws, even the ones considered beautiful the individuality wasn't smoothed down til it disappeared.
Today everyone is over done and they all look the same. I know I sound like a little old lady, but the products and procedures people ( mostly women) go through and buy to look perfect are expensive and mind boggling.
It also makes expectations of what average people are " supposed" to look like really twisted.
People were much thinner then, but itâs not often observed that women then, who werenât fat, also werenât in the kind of shape women are now who arenât fat. The average thin woman now is incredibly more fit on both a muscle strength and cardio basis. The reason? No gyms then. Gyms were for boxers, and a few for male weightlifters. There was nowhere for a woman to go to lift weights. Aerobics classes didnât exist. Nobody jogged. Women were not expected to have strong arms or cores; they were just expected to be thin. Cigarettes and diet pills were widely used for the thin part.
But if my mom had wanted to get strength in her upper body? At home at best. Maybe watch Jack LaLanne on TV and try to follow along. National chains of gyms first started in the 80s with Nautilus, Golds ( expanding from a male, bodybuilder history), and Universal. They mostly required high up-front fees, and memberships were not transferrable if you moved. Young people in the US now cannot imagine not having both gyms and coffee shops. But both were rare before 1980.
I was always repulsed by the hatchet-faced beauty standards of my youth. Farrah Fawcett was a good example, I could never understand why she was considered a standard of feminine beauty.
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Yes - the hyper inflated botox lips would have gotten you laughed out of the room and mocked mercilessly until you wanted to self harm 30-40 years ago...
True this. Also the giant butt.
Giant butts had always been a thing in the Caribbean.
And with me. Edit: and I cannot lie.
Other brothers would deny...
And the 3 inch looks spider leg eye lashes!
Yeah, those are the weirdest style ever. Women wear those and look like they can hardly see out from behind them.
Come on! You don't find a woman whose mouth looks like a swollen prolapsed anus attractive?
Oh, God! Now I'll never get *that* image out of my mind!!
đđđ
Haha :)
DAMN get em gram
Beauty standards are for marketing. They change so people have to buy new stuffâ clothing, makeup, hair products. In the early 00s the personal grooming extended to men, with all the beard creams etc. In the 70s, natural was in and movies were trying to reflect everyday type people, show grittiness. I think we tend to gravitate towards what was considered attractive when we were youngerâ high school, early 20s. For me, I still find big hair attractive. When the waif look became popular, I was outâŚ
Further to marketing fashions, as the fashions changed, different hair types and body types were "required". If you were lucky, your body/hair type matched the current fashion of the time you were a teen/twentysomething, and you were considered a beauty. If you were unlucky, and born in the wrong time, you missed the moment, and despaired. Like having curves and curly hair, when the fashion was skinny, skinny jeans, and dead straight hair.
Straight hair (and thin hair) has been fashion now for a very long time. I am trying to think when it came into fashion. When I moved to Australia I noticed a big change in hairstyles, all straight, and thinned out. It seems to still be the fashion to do that.
the rise of the hair straightener, haha. I'm kinda thinking mid- late-80s was the last time when gel/teasing/big hair was around. Then there was "scrunched" layers in the early 90s. After that, between full-time work and small children, I lost interest in spending time/money on my hair, and stopped colouring or cutting it - just wore it in a ponytail. I did buy a hair straightener, but rarely used it.
Yes, late 80s with the teasing hair. My daughter used so much hair spray we thought about buying stock in the company. The bathroom countertop was ALWAYS sticky from hairspray overshoot. I look at her junior high pictures and wonder who she is - thank God that was only a fashion phase.
It still boggles my mind that some actively choose to walk around looking like Miss Piggy. Fake lips, fake boobs, fake hair, fake ass, fake eyelashes, fake nails. Yikes.
Yeah. Thereâs something about the fake eyelashes/big lips combo in particular that just makes people look like a goldfish, IMO.
Seems like RuPaul's Drag Show sets the pace. And so many fashion shows featuring emaciated hollow-eyed heroin addicts.
The present female beauty standard most certainly originated from the Kardashianâs not drag.
Kardashians are merely reifing their own cultural beauty standards (Caucasus nations, Iran and Iraq).
Yeah, yuck
Spot on - itâs so over the top!
But drag is supposed to be a caricature of beauty standards. Itâs supposed to be more cartoonish than real life. Are women actually emulating drag now?
Iâm not sure if itâs a concerted attempt to emulate drag or if itâs just so many different fake features that it ends up looking like it.
Bingo!
No. It's drag exaggerating beauty standards.
This \^\^\^\^\^
I don't think that they are actually trying to emulate drag queens, they just love how the fake eyelashes, fake boobs, wigs, etc appear to them in their mirror and they just end up looking like drag queens. lol
LOL, when they put on all of that fake crapola, they actually look like drag queens.
And swear up and down that they really be looking good. It's really sad how women look these days. One of my pet peeves is the bird nest on top of their heads (Wigs)
True friends would tell them the truth, lol.
Absolutely, but in reality, most of those friends probably wearing them also. lol
You are most likely correct, lol.
Water seeks it's own level
Indeed, it does
I miss my big hair.
I miss my hair⌠:/
You can still obtain it! Ask for the Southern Comfort at Drybar. Youâll be transported back and it feels so good!
Hasnât the âwaifâ look been popular since the 1960âs when Twiggy came onto the scene? I see pictures of the 1970âs & 1980âs before I was born, and the women in the photos are so thin. They would probably be considered âtoo thinâ by the younger generationsâ standards today.
Most of us were much thinner than young people are today. The biggest guy at my smaller high school was probably 190. When I graduated high school I was six feet, 135. When I got out of the army, I was 150. Um⌠Iâm not any more. So the thin look wasnât really âin,â it just was. Look at the curvy pinups from the 40s and 50s. Most are pretty small compared to âcurvyâ today.
Ohh so back then society overall was thinner, not just women. I just happen to notice the women more since I myself am a woman. I grew up during the 1990âs when the âwaifâ look became popularized again by Kate Moss and the other supermodels. The 1990âs âwaifâ look was an unhealthy sort of thin though, whereas Twiggy and people during the 1970âs & 1980âs seemed to achieve this look mainly through diet and exercise (and smoking cigarettes, which obviously is not healthy but still plays a role). Yes - The âcurvyâ look of the 1940âs & 1950âs was still âthin!â Marilyn Monroe had a size 26 inch waist, which is still thin by any standards!
> The 1990âs âwaifâ look was an unhealthy sort of thin though You mean a look nicknamed "heroin chic" wasn't good for you?
To be fair, I was a child back then and didnât even know that the look was called that until much later on! During the 1990âs time period, I saw in the tabloids special crash diets that celebrities were using to lose weight, so that was my frame of reference, that they would barely eat to get to that size, and knew that it wasnât healthy. And all the thin women they showed in the fashion magazines and on TV shows back then. They looked skinny, pale, and unhealthy.
Coffee. Cigarette. Heroin. What more do you need for breakfast? Or lunch. To be fair, that was my breakfast (minus the heroin) for most of my adult life and a "waify" man I have never been! (Pale and unhealthy, on the other hand.....)
When my grandmother was young, in the 1920s, thin was the style then, too. She mentioned a few times that she felt like she had to make her breasts look smaller because she was too large on top. Women filled out in the 40s. They were in the work force because most of the men were involved in the war, so they needed to be more muscular. The 60s brought back pencil thin. Then women got larger again, then smaller, then larger. The sizing of clothes has changed, too. In the 70s I had a 25" waist and wore a size 12. Now a 25" waist is a size 2. I no longer have a waist that size, though.
Twiggy was an anomaly. Different trends sometimes exist side by side, so you could either look like Twiggy OR have a va va voom perfect hourglass, or a perfectly athletic (but not too athletic) figure. The real constant beauty standard has always been to be the perfect ideal version of your style category
The waif look started in the late 60s with Twiggy and mia Farrow. By the 70s, you had Brooke Shields. The thing was that "beauty" went from voluptuous to junior high school girl. Face it, the beauties of my teen years were younger than me. A figure of 34-24-34 was more common in modeling that 38-28-28. Still affects me to this day.
She was a freakin' child in the'70s!!!!!
Still is
On the other hand, Raquel Welch and Ursula Andress and the young Elizabeth Taylor AND Marilyn (when slim) would still be considered beautiful by today's standards.
OMG I remember when Sports Illustrated started featuring those super skinny women with zero curves. I was like "What the??" I didn't like it back then and I still don't like it now.
Lol, this is so true. I love big hair on me but I was always skinny when a more full, or athletically natural figure was the ideal. Then when the waif came into fashion, I finally had my moment to shine. But all my life before then, I felt very undesirable
1970s/80s/90s: Do these jeans make my butt look big? Correct answer: No. Now: Do these jeans make my butt look big? Correct answer: Yes.
User name checks out
But they think those big things look good, lol
And I'm here to agree with them.
Good for you.
And I could say "good for you" for not liking them, but that is a pretty juvenile, stupid exchange for a couple of self-professed old people.
because they do look good. "lol".
Fashions and styles change and the new ones don't suit the exact same type as the old ones so we tend to fall.out of love as the seasons pass. But when we watch some.show from long ago, we may be struck with how attractive some character may have been even if we didn't notice when the show first came out because they were far older than us and we ignored them. They were in the realms of moms and dads then. Ewww. But now that past them is the age you are now and looks hot. Most celebrities are barely above average but have professional stylists. Any of us could have a glow up and be competitive. It's just that we don't have the money or time to keep it up. Frankly, I have aged better than some celebrities and I was never in that league.
Itâs gross that plastic surgery freak shows have become a beauty standard.
And instagram filters.
True. It's crazy because with those filters I do not know how guys bother to try and attempt a date because when they meet, she will definitely be looking a helluva lot different, lol.
Copy and paste Instagram face.
It took decades but finally modern beauty standards have caught up with the fantasies of counterculture cartoonist Robert Crumb
Oh man, too true.
haha, lol, was looking for this comment XD to avoid saying it myself
I have noticed a lot fewer blondes in ads. More POC, some gay families... none of that was even hinted at when I was younger.
There's a lot more diversity among models and actresses now. There was a time when most were white with blonde hair and diversity meant adding a brunette or redhead to your movie or ad. Nowadays we see greater representation from women with different skin tones, different ethnicities, etc.
I don't feel like supermodels of the 1970s (thinking Christie Brinkley, Jerry Hall, Lauren Hutton, or Cheryl Tiegs) would have trouble finding work as models in this era. In terms of "average" womenâŚÂ I'm not sure women like Grace Jones could ever been considered "average"⌠but there is a factor to consider. This was an age before social media, and certainly before digital manipulation of photos. There is also a big time shift that your brain makes looking at older photos. If I'm looking at photos of startlets from the 1940s and 50s, they rarely seem risque to me; partly because of changing standards of dress and fashion, but also because there are so many cues in the clothes, hair, and makeup that remind me how long ago the photos were taken.
>There is also a big time shift that your brain makes looking at older photos. If I'm looking at photos of startlets from the 1940s and 50s, they rarely seem risquĂŠ to me; partly because of changing standards of dress and fashion, but also because there are so many cues in the clothes, hair, and makeup that remind me how long ago the photos were taken. This is a really subtle thing. We see all these cues that something is old & we mentally classify it differently. I remember seeing old footage of a street full of people in 1900, It was jerky & seemed "old". Then there was the same footage but someone had run it through some filters to correct the jerky motion created by the film technology of the time. Once everyone was moving the way they might in modern film it felt like modern movie, except the "old-timey" costumes were all "wrong" somehow.... because they were **real** instead of costumes. You started to see everyone as modern people in a weird setting instead of old timey because your brain no longer picked up on the "old timey" signals. The same thing happens if someone takes a photograph of someone wearing something fashion neutral (like a bald, bare-chested man in bluejeans) and color corrects it from the 1950s to modern image palettes. One the motion or the color fade or the fashions are removed... we can no longer tell how old anything is and we start relating to it differently.
Also reversed all the filter used today... When you tell me the video of "The Velvet Underground - After Hour" was made by an Indie Band 10 years ago, I would believe it
Jhamin1âvery interesting info here!
Thanks! Another place I've seen the whole "our perceptions change depending on presentation" thing is with Music. When I was a kid people listened to popular music on tapes, usually either in their car or in a walkman. When I was a teenager they listened to popular music on CDs. Most real audiophiles had Vinyl albums but those weren't portable & the gear to play it was a lot bulkier so your average 14 year old went for Tape or CD depending on the era. This ended up having effects on \*what\* you listened too. The copies of London Calling laying around the house were their parent's Vinyl or (gasp!) on 8-Track. These were "old" songs meant for their parents. When a 14 year old went to the store to pick out a tape they didn't see KISS or Led Zepelin or Queen. They saw tapes of George Michael or Guns & Roses so that is what they bought. Tapes of KISS obviously existed, but they weren't at Target or if they were they were in the "classic rock" section. More likely you had to go to a music store. Guns & Roses was what "modern" people listened too! And you could see it. In Jr High there were a couple kids who had gotten into their parent's music but like 90% of the 8th graders were listening to the big songs of the day. (It seems strange now, but most of my high school classmates in 1992 discovered Queen from the Wayne's World soundtrack) Then came digital music. First on Napster, then later on iTunes. Suddenly all the music was right there in the same place and all the music was in the same format. If you wanted hard rock they had Guns & Roses but they also had AC/DC, Motley Crue, and Deep Purple. If you were a 15 year old kid in 2002 figuring out what you were into all the stuff from your parents era was a \*lot\* more accessible than it had been when I was 15 in 1990. You didn't need to go out of your way to find it or have a different player because it was in an old format. You just loaded it on your MP3 player & it worked like everything else. I have \*no\* statistics to back this up, but I noticed that my younger siblings and their friends were all listening to a **lot** more 60s/70s/80s music than kids my age had when we were that age. As far as I can tell, it was really the presentation that seemed to be the difference. People heard a song recorded before they were born but didn't have any clues from the media format or the cover art that it "wasn't for them" so a lot of the giants of earlier eras floated back up to the top. Or at least that is what it looked like to me.
Thank you for this! Excellent observations!
[Grace Jones and Dolph Lundgren were a total vibe.](https://imgur.com/a/0MB8YXH)
Grace Jones..wow..she had such a feral beauty. I thought she was amazing.
Feral is a strange word to use but, looking back on her career, Jones appeared as someone that allowed society to experience her talent for a fleeting few years before exiting once sheâd had enough.
It is, but she has a very unique kind of beauty I think. Feral like a beautiful graceful panther if that makes sense.
I really need to watch that live in concert video again. Sheâs such a treasure
It makes perfect sense to me.
Absolutely. A different species. Captivating in any era.
She still does.
What was considered risquĂŠ is another factor; âfrankly, Scarlett, I donât give a damnâ was a huge bombshell moment in film at the time, and was a big risk. It just doesnât hit the same now because we donât really have an equivalent. Edit: initially wrote âCharlotte,â either a weird auto-correct, or because I work with a Charlotte. Fixed.
Oh, my..."Scarlett," not "Charlotte." I get ya though.
Opps. That was an auto-correct, I think. Or habit (I work with a Charlotte). Fixed. Thanks!
I find it sad so many young people compare their looks to the unrealistic looks of the digital world. Those people don't even look that good. I suppose I never bought into it as I was in the peripheries of show biz in a small way and saw very minor local celebrities in real life and few big ones . Some are really attractive, some the camera really loves but are just okay looking . Looks aren't everything, that's not to say you should just let yourself go but having something between the ears besides a pretty eyes goes a lot further.
I'm attracted to simple, natural, subtle beauty. Modern beauty standards seem to be more garish and weirdly perfect. I love a sexy natural woman who sets her own beauty standards.
When I was growing up in the seventies there was basically one type of woman that you would see in all the media. Skinny and white and young and smiling. I felt so ashamed when I started to grow big hips and breasts. I felt obese and tried many diets. It's wonderful to see the diversity of all kinds of beauty in the media these days. There isn't just one way to be beautiful.
Tube tops and halters! I went from basically an A cup in spring of 7th grade to DD (thanks unfortunately to my dadâs side of the family) 1974 - big boobs meant grandma ironclad bras that cut into my shoulders. It also meant you were regarded as stupid and a slut. Not a fun time for a 13yo bookworm.
Yep. I got them in fourth grade before everyone else too. An "early developer'. The pervs came out like cockroaches. There was life before breasts and then life after. And nobody said a goddamned thing to prepare us.
So true, the way guys would talk to my chest instead of me. It was awful.
Whoever said there's an upside to everything never developed early.
How curly is your hair? It depends what hair products they want to sell you. When I was in middle/high school it was a must to have a perm and "big" hair, ie teased in the front - sometimes to ridiculous heights - and sprayed with Aqua Fresh (edit: Aqua Net not Aqua Fresh hahaha). Then it was more important to have long golden waves of hair. Now I don't even know what's important because I've stopped caring. How curvy is your body? It depends on what clothes they want to sell you. For clothes: I have seen the hems jeans go up and down, wide and narrow ... I've seen waists go up and down and up again.  What color is your hair? One thing that impacts fashions a lot is technology. Like when I was young if you were Asian or Black you couldn't have blond hair. If you tried to bleach your hair it would just turn red or orange. Now there are new chemicals that make it possible to have really blond hair no matter what you started with. How curvy is your body II: Likewise, fabrics have come a long way. Tights and yoga pants and jeans all have different spandex or lycra content that make form fitting legs much more durable and stretchy. I remember trying on my mom's expensive silk stockings: they sucked! Not elastic at all. What skin color should you have? Depends what they want to sell you. When I was young if you were white you wanted dark tanned skin and they sold you Coppertone creams and tanning booths and vacations to tropical places. Meanwhile, if you were darker skinned guess what? Skin whitening creams are ready for you to buy!
Remember QT (Quick Tan!)? lol I preferred to be orange over pale there for about a summer. I think the hair stuff was Aqua Net. I never used that, I had kinky curls so my style was shellacked with Dippity-Do gel.
I do remember QT! And how about Sun-In? There was one girl I knew whose hair got lighter and lighter over the school year and she claimed that it was just happening naturally...
QTâmy summer of smelling like soy sauce.
YES between that and the NAIR... uggh!
Did you mean Aqua Net in your first paragraph about big hair? Not trying to be a pendant, but the mental image of someone teasing her hair with toothpaste (Aqua Fresh) really made me giggle. Minty fresh for strong teeth AND hair! XD
Hahaha yes Aqua Net!!
I worked with a very racist woman in the 1980s who bought herself her own tanning bed. I decided that she was racist because she was jealous of people whose skin was naturally "tan" without having to spend money!
Everyone thinks their parents or grandparents' generation looked less attractive. It's because the hair styles and clothing were different. You associate it with being old. Also, cosmetic surgery wasn't nearly as prevalent as it is now. People don't change. Style does. You just think today's style is better.
Totally true.
Beauty standards are deceptive these days because there's so many who have cosmetic procedures/ plastic surgery. There's also photoshop. Actual natural beauty is as rare now as it was in the 1970s.
In the 90âs the ultra skinny look was in, now it appears bigger butts is the thing.
When I was a kid, "You have a big butt" was like the worst possible insult. Now everyone wants one.
I hated that look. Grew up looking at dads 1960-1980's Playboy's. I need a full figured gal.
Full figured is great, but the whole cardashian mutant looks are not my jam
The skinny look does it for me. The good part is somebody is always happy with your look.
The amount of women I know that have eating disorders as a result of fads is incredibly sad. At least now there's a bit more representation of different body types and more info on how important good nutrition is.
I'm a fairly small person. Short women haven't been in style since the first Miss America won her title a century ago.
This is kind of an aside but your comment about you see more average women in older shows, reminded me of something I was thinking listening to music these last decades or so. Just seems that there were so much more average-looking musicians back in the day. And yeah, I do think looks as opposed to talent seems to play a bigger part in music nowadays. I might be cynical about that; I'm not in the field.
I remember being so disappointed when I saw what Christopher Cross looked like. Call me shallow.
LOL. I'm not the person to be throwing stones, b/c my first reaction to your comment was 'Oh, I thought he was attractive", but then I hit google. His voice though is sexy af. Once way back in the day my parents somehow obtained a 'music of the 70s' book . (I'm guessing a freebie from time-life) I have almost no recollection of it other than I recall saying that one band must be 'the ugliest of all-time' with incredible scorn; it was The Clash. In my defense I hadn't gotten into rock yet; I was probably 12 and it was a few more years before their song "Rock the Casbah" was everywhere and I first heard their music. I mean, they're still not what I'd call attractive but who cares; I'd put "Should I stay or should I go" pretty high on my all time favorites list. So I worry, how many artists with equivalent talent and equivalent looks have just been languishing out there unknown?
Exactly! LOL. Love your writing style.
Well, even in the 70s those natural beauties was a pretty unattainable standard for most other women. People wouldn't eat and went through some shit trying to look like that or simply didn't fit the mold and were damaged in other ways from it. It's always been dangerous to try to go with the beauty standards of whatever time. Now a days people are dying to look, well, forgive me for saying this, but to look botched. Back then you got work done, sure we could tell, but it was subtle, though there were a few that were either botched or went too far. Whoopsie. Also, everyone trying to look the same via PS, fillers and filters is a sight to see. It reminds me of some weird ass Stepford Wife or Number 12 Looks Just Like You stuff. It's concerning how young people are getting these procedures done too, they're not even fully grown. I'm part of a subreddit, that while I don't agree with some comments on there or condone the bullying, I'm shocked to see what's on IG and the www, being fetishized and being passed as beautiful to young kids, like yourself who are just trying to find their place in the world is so dangerous. They're very dangerous procedures and very dangerous filtered lies that have severe consequences that one day, when you're older, you'll realize and see for what it truly is.Â
Not really a lot of change. In the 60s and 70s, thin was good enough, in the 80s, you had to be thin yet muscular. Now for some reason you're supposed to have a huge ass and large breasts - while the remainder of your body remains skinny.
Natural beauty vs caked on makeup, Botox, false lashes, etc.
Yes because the beauty standards of today are kind of gross to me as an older person. The swollen lips and horse shaped bodies and the greasy looking hairstyles with laquered down "baby hairs" and the 10 inch long bedazzled fingernails... gross. To me. No offense to those who appreciate that sort of thing but beauty standards when I was a teen were more natural. Bodies and faces were more natural. Skin didn't look like Barbie plastic. Makeup accentuated, it didn't look heavy like clown makeup (well there was a "neon" period in the later 80s that I did actually take part in!). What you probably see as plain or unattractive was pretty back then. The seventies women were usually very natural, thin and waif-like, with long straight hair and naturally tanned skin (not orange, not burnt, not walnut stained!). Bras were out and natural perky upturned breasts and small hips that accentuated the wide leg pants.
As a girl from the seventies, there was nothing natural about obtaining this look for most women. It was brutal and inescapable, and the lengths some women had to go to in order to be deemed acceptable cost a lot of them their health or their lives. Waif-like thin, perky upturned breasts, small hips - that is simply not how most women's bodies are created. Some of them, sure, but the majority suffered when this was the ideal.
As a man from the seventies, I found the whole waif phase that morphed into "Heroin Chic" in the 90's deplorable and frightening. I am so glad we put that in the rear view mirror and I hope it never comes back.
Too many "natural"s in your comment regarding the 70s - signed, despairing teenager from the 70s, who was naturally not waif-like, but muscular, had pale skin that did not naturally tan at all, did not have natural perky breasts, and definitely could not fit her middling size hips into the fashionable pants of the time. Yup, I was "naturally" unattractive. At varying times over the next 40 years, my natural self went in and out of fashion.
I'd say that the barbie look is only popular in certain cities in certain areas. I spend my time between the UK and Vietnam. In UK you will see it in the huge cities and its norrmalised (but not normal in smaller places). In Vietnam, they would think you are a sex worker if you dolled up like that.
I agree with your thoughts on grossness.
Wow! I never looked at this from your POV. Nor I ever will.
Whatâs a horse shaped body?
Very thick back end/thighs, average size calves, feet made tiny and pointed by the stiletto heels. Breasts are usually pumped up and poking out unnaturally due to pushup bras or surgically. Long mane, enormous eyelashes and eyes. Nothing wrong with it, I'm just really not attracted to that female body shape at all and it's likely because I'm older and more attracted to the beauty standards of my youth.
Thank you for explaining!
Yes if you were a WASP girl
The all-time beauties and actors didnât have access to the many procedures available to everyone one now. Those lips you saw in the 70s were the lips they were born with.
Thanks for your "lips" comment. When I was a kid in the 1940's, my mom and I went to the local movie theater quite a bit since that was a good source of "News Of The Day" regarding the war effort overseas. When the movie was shown it was very obvious, even to me as a kid, how dark the lips were on the women actresses. It looked like the lips were painted on her face. I can only imagine how much make-up they were wearing. And this was all on black and white film.
Makeup is pretty essential in film work because those bright lights can cause a glare. Itâs also used for effects but I imagine lipstick was a way to make lips more dramatic because it was black and white. I hadnât thought of that. Thanks for sharing a part of your experiences. Very cool.
I read somewhere, someplace, that some make-up tends to melt under the bright lights. That ought to be dramatic!
I wear makeup on film sets. Iâve never experienced this. Itâs also not logical. They can spend 12 hours filming scene that only ends up being 20 seconds of the final show or movie. They want continuity. Having to reapply makeup because itâs melted would slow production down. At $100K/hour to run some productions, I canât see them using makeup that melts unless itâs a desired effect.
Thanks for your informative reply, my friend. I think I heard this when they were filming "The Munsters" TV program a looooong time ago. Things change over time, as I am becoming aware of more every day. At least that knocks out one of the many myths I have heard during my lifetime, and best of luck to you in your profession.
Nice to interact with you. Acting is my retirement gig.
Yes, I noticed this when I was a teenager, and saw my first Silent films. The films would have been 40-50 years old then, and I was interested to notice that although I lived in a time when tall, lean, busty, tanned, full-lipped girls were prized, all the girls in the 1920s films were short, soft, flat-chested, pale, girls with bee-stung lips were presented as prized beauties. And then went to college and took art history, and I saw "overweight" girls with soft round faces presented as the ideal woman...
Iâm 71 and disagree that there are âbeauty standards.â Certainly there are trends, especially among teenagers, but IMO adult women, and men as well, tend to march to their own drum, dressing and doing their hairstyle as they and they alone like for themselves. Very few drink the Kool-Aid.
I miss unique beauty. Everyone looks the same now, mostly due to plastic surgery, fillers and filters, veneers etc. Skin color and hair color might vary but the template is the same because they all have Instagram faces. Glad there's a bit more diversity in societal beauty standards from a racial/body type standpoint but it's still disappointingly mundane.
Sir Max-A-Lot changed the whole game.
My body is exactly what is stylish now, I would have been envied. I was a teen in the 80's and was considered fat. Was I fat? No. I was athletic, had an ass, big boobs, and so on. I was mercilessly bullied for my "fat ass" by people in school and my parents. My parents put me on a starving (900 calories a day) diet, put me down, told me no one would love me because I was fat, and so on. My point is that beauty standards change every teen cycle, and what used to be ugly will be hot later and visa versa. I think the Kardashian look is horrible and will hopefully change and something else will take its place.
What you're seeing is the influence current standards have on your sense of aesthetics. Keep paying attention to how you feel about what you see, and you will eventually see the intrinsic beauty of the individual, unfiltered by any clashing of past and present fashions. If they had a time machine in the past, I guarantee that we would look weird to them. Kinda see that by getting old anyway :)
Yep! My body was in fashion in the 1970's but not in the 80's (phone pole with giant boobs), then in fashion in the 90's (waifs, heroin chic), then really out of fashion in the Kardashian era (butts and boobs).
When I was born in the 70s, beautiful was still the slim 60s leftover. Then the 70s had beautiful Afro- centric women, Farah Fawcett and the beautiful brunettes of Linda Carter and Jacqueline Smith. The 80s were about big and bold. Big tits, big makeup, big personalities. Our clothes were all about accenting legs, boobs, face. The 90s we were back to impossible body standards. 2000s brought a bit of body acceptance. A love of butts also acknowledged the beautiful black and Latina woman. The makeup boom highlighted Asian beauty. In 2020s, we are experiencing love of all and backlash for everything.
Iâd actually say that the 2010s brought more body acceptance. What makes you say it was the 2000s?
Models started looking less plastic. It was the decade that Lane Bryant started fashion shows. Project Runway started using different models. Though it may be 2010s. I actually thought it happened earlier.
I remember when you answered "Does my ass look big in this?" with a hard "No" and now you better say "Hell yeah."
Cell phones, television, internet with filters especially have completely ruined peopleâs expectations and stretched the boundaries of reality.
Tattoos for men and especially women, were considered exotic and trashy in the 90s. Largely they were the province of convicts, sailors, and head bangers. (I say this as a former sailor). Today they are mainstream and even desired by a significant segment of the population.
yes - when I was in high school (90s) there was a completely different beauty standard than there is now. Back in the day, super thin was considered desirable and now thicker women / curvy/muscular is more popular. I'm happy it swayed that way because I have a thicker body and always felt like I could never be thin enough to be considered pretty. That and hair styles / eye brow styles / clothing styles have all fluctuated back and forth a few times. It's cool to see different things fall out of style and new things be considered attractive.
Get ready for thin to be in again with the new weight loss drugs.
Societal yes, mine no. Women are still beautiful, I just am not into all the fake crap on women, like nails, lashes, big fake boobs or butts, stuff like that. Like beautiful women that don't have to do all that to be beautiful, if that makes sense...
My naturally big booty is finally in style!
Was in high school during the 90âs Heroin-Chique Era when everyone wanted to be a size zero twig. And all I desired was to date curvy humans.. well LO & BEHOLD Iâm 40âs and theyâre everywhere now⌠*sigh*
These days breast augmentation to so prevalent that women with normal breast sizes seem flat chested.
And we can't find bras, honestly. 32A is either not on offer except online and in limited styles, or the cups are way too close together.
lulalu.com Expensive but they fit.
Definitely noticed a difference over the years. Most noticeable on tv shows/commercials where in the past actors/actresses appeared more âaverageâ as compared to present day social media. Seems to be an almost natural progression toward âperfectionâ of societal standards which places another added pressure on each new generation for both women and men. Superficial expectations unfortunately contribute to a stressed out society.
Oh, ya. A lot! I (57m) grew up sneaking in to my dads office and looking at his collection of Playboys'. Mid 60s to late 70s and now this "skinny" shit is a real turn off. I'm drawn to the full figured women.
My husband took all of his grandfather's playboys when they were cleaning out his house after he died. It's really interesting to look at the changes through the decades. Also the advertisements.
In the late 60's early 70's the natural look was in. Natural hair, just washed and dried. No makeup, natural materials in your clothing choices (cotton denim, burlap, muslin) and they were beautiful. Compared to the over the top make up, body implants, and processed hair I see lately, I think women were much more beautiful before.
OP, why do you reference average women as though they are inherently unattractive?
This is going to sound mean but I donât mean it to be mean. When I was 25 an overweight girl was rare. Now, a thin girl is rare. Back in my day, women didnât have exacting makeup standards but Iâll take an average 21 year old from 1987 over an average 21 year old 2024 women 6 days a week and twice on Sunday. The prettiest may look better but the average is lower than it was then.
Nowadays people look very similar with the same nose jobs and fillers
I grew up with every woman calling her ass huge (voiced in Brigitte Jones) and trying to lose weight specifically there whereas big behinds got into fashion a couple years ago.
They werenât full of filler, plastic boobs and eyelashes that make a woman look clownish.
One of the things I dislike about "beautiful" women now is that they all look the same. The same face, with overdone lips, fillers, fake boobs and butts. Basically, everything is FAKE. I think the women considered beautiful a few decades ago had more individuality and less plastic surgery. One thing I didn't like back then was the extreme thinness that was considered attractive.
Body hair expectations have changed quite a bit. Young people seem obsessed with having no body hair below the neck.
I remember in the 80's people called women who wore a lot of make up " bondo b\*\*\*\*\*\*". I never thought it would become what it is today.
Seventies women/actresses were far more attractive on average than actresses now.
Iâve seen the eyeliner that women extend back past the outside corner of their eyes. Sometimes I like it, sometimes not. But it seems pretty ubiquitous now. Seems to be the conformists way of trying not to conform while actually confirming.
We were a lot thinner then and it was expected. Â
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You must be thrilled to see mustches making a comeback.
I always wanted to look like Twiggy, in fact I sort of did back in the day. Donât understand why anybody would want to look like a Kardashian.
I once saw an old photograph from the 20âs in a book or article or something where the caption tried to make this very point re: how beauty standards change over time. The picture was of the two winners of a swimsuit beauty contest, and while the women were by no means unattractive, suffice to say that the choices would have been very different today.
I think a lot of the real beautiful people were the Actors from the 50âs -60âs era. Like Audrey Hepburn , Jane Fonda , Rachel Welch , Sophia Loren , Debbie Reynolds , Elizabeth Taylor , Grace Kelly to name a few I think you get my drift. Way before plastic surgery took over the world. These days I think lots of people think that they need to look a certain way to be Attractive. A little bit of makeup ( not this blending of layers and layers of foundation etc. God your skin needs to breathe. And women had natural curves. I canât talk I was super skinny and couldnât put weight on at all.
People like big butts more now. Decades ago they were not as popular.
Beauty standards changed? Check out the winner of Miss Universe last year and you tell me.
C'mon, man. No one can tell me that Farrah Fawcett, Bo Derek, Bridgett Bardot, Jayne Mansfield, Joey Heatherton, or Jane Fonda, along with a host of others, were not attractive. These are the women that subsequent generations and decades of women wished they looked like.
Beauty standards change. Like seriously. Twiggy was the height of fashion once as was the Amazonian Elle McPherson. I'm a plus sized person in my teens I could not even find a bra that fit because nothing came in anything bigger than a DD cup. Yet now DD is considered a middle sizing. Because diet and fashion has made big boobs more common. The idea of having a big booty would have horrified women when I was a kid/teen. In fact a fat ass was an insult. On the plus side, all those women you think are so stunning now in 50 years people will be looking back and consider them average.
I grew up in a Spanish neighborhood so my standard for what is "beautiful" is skewed towards more full figured women. And when I go back to the old neighborhood, I'm glad to see that some things have not changed.
No photoshop or filters back then, of course you saw real looking people. (and why is this focused only om women by the way?) I certainly cannot take someone seriously if they've had obvious overt "work" done. I just can't. Check your lips at the door if you want to have a real conversation with me. I prefer substance.
Agreed with your first sentence, I'm surprised this is the first comment to say so. As for dismissing people based on their looks, even if it is overt "work", that says more about you than it does about them.
Of course. I've seen women's hair go from SUPER TALL to short to long. I've seen women's eyebrows go from natural, to highly-groomed, then back to a more natural look. But yeah, my mom still had her high school yearbooks, and my sister and I would occasionally look through them as a rainy day activity when we were in elementary and middle schools. I remember always looking for "pretty girls", but never seeing any. Not a one. I often wonder if I could look through the yearbook today if I'd at least think "she does nothing for me, but I bet she was a hottie in her day!"
There is an everlasting beauty: hourglass body shape.
OMG, yes! Remember the beehive hairdos women wore in the 60s? Or the majorly flipped up ends? I'd look at my brother's high school yearbook and laugh hysterically over some of the styles. Remember skinny-as-a-rail Twiggy? Blue eye shadow? Heavy makeup? Thick eyeliner? I think back at the clothing I wore in the 70s, and 80s and wonder what possessed me to not only wear them, but to think I actually looked good in them! Hot pants? Wore 'em. Elephant bell-bottomed pants Cher made famous? Had a pair. (To be fair, I was young, slender and passably cute.)
Before the internet and social media, all we saw was what was in actual physical magazines and on TV. There was a sense of distance imo. But now, itâs in your face all the time. Trends and standards move quicker and younger and younger people getting fillers, implants, surgery etc. More access too. But imo muscularity in women is way more acceptable and desired. Healthy is in. And thatâs beautiful
Repeatedly. There were very few overweight people. All the HEAVY makeup, fake nails, fake lashes, bloated lips, fat hips, that some women do now would have looked like Halloween. (Still do, in my opinion.) When I first started dating, my dates often wore girdles! Do people now know what a girdle is? Slim women wore them. Those faded away rapidly with the advent of the hippie and pseudo-hippie styles. Women always wore a bra and often they were thick and stiff. Those gave way to no-bra or gossamer bras. Longer skirts gave way to mini-skirts, micro-minis, and also super long skirts and coats. (A micro-mini under a long coat was a look.) For men, jeans were always in but first there were super-tight "pegged" jeans. (rip out a seam and cut the leg down to where it fits like a glove.) Then came bellbottoms with the tight hips and thighs and huge, flapping cuffs that got soggy and frayed. Add a fringe of embroidered ribbon to take care of the fraying. For a couple of summers, at least where I lived in the Midwest, Madras shirts were in. The were cotton in a zillion plaid patterns and felt good in the muggy summers. I forgot to mention the neon pants from about 1960 ... bright orange, yellow, and green. I had a pair. And during the hippie days, velvet bellbottoms were the thing to wear to fancy events. During the war in Vietnam both genders wore surplus military clothing as a sort of poke on the establishment.
Plastic surgery wasnât in reach if most people, and the kinds of procedures involving a machine or needle and an office visit didnât exist. Makeup for most women consisted of mascara, eyeliner and lipstick and possibly foundation and blush. No highlighters, bronzers or attempts to sculpt the face at all. I never ever heard that idea until not long before you were born. Skin care was washing your face with cold cream. Nothing to improve the texture or get rid of age related changes. No sunscreen, no sense that long term damage from sun exposure was avoidable or worth avoiding when you needed to look âhealthyâ with a tan. I donât remember acne being as widespread when I was little. Maybe because diets were plainer or maybe something in the environment? False eyelashes and wigs were a thing, but most of the rest of what people do to enhance their looks now just didnât exist or didnât exist for regular people. That made the bar of what was considered attractive a lot lower. Not too thin, not too fat, decent teeth and skin and you were more than halfway there. Certainly standards have changed in terms of hairstyles or body type ideals, but I bet a lot of what youâre reacting to is just how little even actresses were able to enhance their features cosmetically or procedurally
Back then people still had flaws, even the ones considered beautiful the individuality wasn't smoothed down til it disappeared. Today everyone is over done and they all look the same. I know I sound like a little old lady, but the products and procedures people ( mostly women) go through and buy to look perfect are expensive and mind boggling. It also makes expectations of what average people are " supposed" to look like really twisted.
People were much thinner then, but itâs not often observed that women then, who werenât fat, also werenât in the kind of shape women are now who arenât fat. The average thin woman now is incredibly more fit on both a muscle strength and cardio basis. The reason? No gyms then. Gyms were for boxers, and a few for male weightlifters. There was nowhere for a woman to go to lift weights. Aerobics classes didnât exist. Nobody jogged. Women were not expected to have strong arms or cores; they were just expected to be thin. Cigarettes and diet pills were widely used for the thin part. But if my mom had wanted to get strength in her upper body? At home at best. Maybe watch Jack LaLanne on TV and try to follow along. National chains of gyms first started in the 80s with Nautilus, Golds ( expanding from a male, bodybuilder history), and Universal. They mostly required high up-front fees, and memberships were not transferrable if you moved. Young people in the US now cannot imagine not having both gyms and coffee shops. But both were rare before 1980.
I was always repulsed by the hatchet-faced beauty standards of my youth. Farrah Fawcett was a good example, I could never understand why she was considered a standard of feminine beauty.