In 1939, Life asked Hollywood imagineers to dream up "The Girl of Tomorrow." Quite predictably (the future, after all, always looks the same), they envisioned us wearing "wire eyelashes," "indelible lipstick that lasts two weeks" and tight ringlet hairstyles protected by bulbous celluloid helmets. Instead, of course, we're injecting sausage poison into our frown lines, gluing synthetic hair to our scalps and sewing sacs of salt water into our bosoms--a reality so grotesquely unimaginable, I'm not surprised they missed the mark back in '39.
4 comments:
ugh. why must our future (real or imagined) always entail so much effort and discomfort?
at times i have felt my dedication to personal maintenance a bit mediocre, but at least i'm not in pain.
Don't forget permanent make-up (a la tatoo)! Best decision I every made. PAINFUL, yes, but worth it. YES, we are still suffering for our outward appearance. Great topic and pics - thanks for stirring up the mind.
interesting post! Makes me frightened to think of what the woman of our future will look like... I agree in the extreme cases of plastic surgery I think we've regressed but in general I think women are under less pressure today than in the 50's to conform to an ideal.
I tend to agree, Margaret. I bet, though, that 1950s women looked at women of the 1890s and felt liberated by comparison. Lucy's girdle, after all, wasn't as tight as Annie Oakley's corset!
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