COMMENTARY

subtle Further thoughts on my last post… I’m wondering if maybe those things like fit and color schemes are precisely the things that are hardest to learn because they are so ingrained. Our ideas of what is attractive is so subconscious — perhaps it’s easier to notice things like “oh, so in the 18th century they often wore two skirts, one of which was open in the front to show the skirt underneath” than something more subtle like “hey, Victorians seem to like color combinations which to my eye clash!”

I think it’s interesting that not only have our ideas of what is an attractive figure, facial and facial features shape(s), and hair color changed, but so have our associations — in the 19th century, brown hair was considered more attractive than blond because it was more demure, and freckles were bad because only poor people went out in the sun (guess I would have been screwed!). My theory on the modern trend of fake nails is that it is a holdover from similar associations — “I have long nails, which means I don’t do manual labor.” Hmmmmm!