From the Victorian era when tanned skin was taboo and did not prove aristocratic origins to the present day when diversity is the key, beauty standards have changed a lot and this is for many reasons.

It is not only the internet that has helped in this, but also the evolution of our society that as the years go by "learns" to accept the different. It is no coincidence that around 1900 it was taboo to have tanned skin and that's why the aristocrats of the time were used to go out in the sun under umbrellas. The sun was a sign of work and slavery, something that changed 20 to 30 years later when black people were no longer slaves but citizens of a more modern society. The same thing happened with the dressing of women when the Suffragettes in England and France decoded the lightest outfitting thing unheard of for the time when layering and dresses "cakes" were the thing.

From style, behavior, homosexual relationships and lifestyle, beauty standards have changed and are constantly changing whether we like it or not. From the very first catwalks of designers, the models usually had curves, but this changed a few years later when skinny became the new trend, something that altered several times until today when we see the diversity in magazines but also in the fashion industry that has always operated with a lot of puritanism. Nudity was also something that was considered taboo, but it also changed over the years and the liberation of both the woman and the female naked body. Standards never had sex though. They influenced men and women and continue to this day to "alter" and reshape what we knew as classics. Once we hid every small flaw because it was not acceptable but reprehensible, it was not normal but strange.

The music and the film industry helped a lot in the creation of standards of beauty for both men and women, something that often reached the limits of misunderstanding with the deification of idols that left an era but turned society into a constant search for the ideal, something that even if we look at the now is not far away, except that television and social media have been added to industries that greatly influence beauty standards.

Today and every day from now on, we are one step closer to normalize our imperfections, of accepting our skin with its pimples and scars, our body with stretch marks and scars, love that does not know gender and the identity of each one of us. This is the most important as the appearance of each of us does not change and does not affect what we really are inside u.

Until next time #nothinker learn to love yourself for who you are and not have beauty standards but role models that will "scratch" your mind to become a better person

Xoxo
Elena Vafeiadi