Monday, March 23, 2015

The Cost of Beauty

As we have talked about in class, there is a large cost to beauty. The inner costs: self esteem, body image, genetics, surgery. And the outer costs: paying for clothing, choosing the right foods, razors etc... This week we spoke about the burning man and corsets - both cost more than we think internally and externally. 

For the purpose of this blog post, I am going to focus on corsets and high heels because, to be completely honest, I couldn't watch the burning man videos. 

In class we watched a video about how to properly dress with a corset. During this video, an abnormal (for today's standards) amount of fabric was used and it took up a lot of time to get ready. While we did mention that during the time of the corset, women were at home working to look their best and keep the house running. This made time for a dresser and client to follow the steps for a 'perfect' outfit. Today, the standards of beauty are different but just as extreme and just as costly. While we are no longer modifying our waste, we are pushing up our breasts with the Victoria Secret Bombshell Bra 



and changing our feet's structure with high heels. The bombshell bra runs at about $49-68 USD per bra and is one of the top selling its from VS for women aged 15-23. The bra is meant to add a 'natural' 2 cup sizes when wearing it. This increases the woman's curves and helps "fill out a shirt". Similar to the corset, it costs a lot of money and is very impractical in terms of working and preforming daily activities. I find the bra itself to be very heavy and uncomfortable; although I have alot of friends who love it. Similar to wearing high heels, it gives them confidence when walking into a room as they believe society dictates you need a certain cup-size to be successful in mating and to be pretty. 

The one bandwagon I have jumped on is for high heels. I love wearing heels for many reasons. The first being I have a shortened chillies tendon, and while i should not do this, the heel itself relieves pain as the tendon does not need to stretch for my foot to reach the ground. Shoes in general, both men and women, very in price and functionality. Growing up, my parents always said to never 'skimp' on shoes because happy feet is a happy person. Having two daughters, i am sure they regret this. 

Shoes as simple and unisex as converse cost about $50-100 a pair, come in hundreds of styles and colors and can even be custom designed online. 

culturally, converse are the shoe of the nerd, jock and jap. They go with every outfit and style. Similarly, heels, while not unisex, are designed to fit every personality and are popular because they enhance how the female looks in them. 

There are so many types and just as many blogs expelling what type of heel to wear when. These extreme explanations relate directly to the corset video as depending on the year, social status and event, the type of corset and dress varied. 


While corsets are out of style and now leaning towards the fetish world, shoes are slowly taking its place. It seems that no matter what the style of the time is, dysfunctional clothing will always be there for us to feel and look better because we fit in.  




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