PERFECTION

Women’s wear—and what it has meant over the centuries.  

With dazzling intellectual acumen, this book examines the various ways in which women’s bodies have been expressed culturally. It focuses on British society from the 17th century to the present, challenging the normativity of “white” skin as a “badge of civilisation” and tool of oppression. Throughout, beauty standards are employed to analyze the racial and socioeconomic implications of appearance. Far from superficial, Lincoln’s research is supported by a rigorous examination of what it means to be a woman in the Western world and the role of white women in furthering trade and colonialism. Lincoln draws parallels across centuries, writing about bodices and corsets and the pressures of social media. She investigates the Western obsession with slimness, from Catholic ideas of abstinence as virtue to the contemporary diet industry, noting that, in the suffragette movement, “a slender, fit body became associated with intellectual achievement.” Divided into categories like body, skin, makeup, teeth, and hair, the book is as thorough as it is fascinating, tracing, for example, how British standards of beauty became instrumental in enforcing colonial constructions of race and class. Diagrams, old photos, and advertisements add a richness and immediacy to the text.

A fascinating exploration of shifting beauty standards.