Beauty
Carla Fernández, The Barefoot Designer at the Gardner
This first fashion exhibition at Boston's Gardner Museum explores the development of a new language in visual design that Fernández has built over two decades. She uses a method called "the Square Root" based on the Mexican tradition of making clothing from squares and rectangles. more »
Beauty Balms and Color Correctors: Reducing Toxic Exposures Found in Moisturizers, Foundation and Sunscreens
The Environmental Working Group's report reveals that a consumer using a Beauty Balm or Color Correcting cream would typically be exposed to an average of 40 chemical ingredients, while someone using three separate products — foundation, moisturizer and sunscreen — would be exposed to an average of 70 chemical ingredients. more »
The Metropolitan Vanities Hold A Variety of Beautifying Paraphernalia
In the late 17th C., European high society began commissioning luxurious specialized furniture from craftsmen and furniture makers. The poudreuse in France, and the low boy, Beau Brummel, and shaving table in England served as models for the dressing table. During the 19th C., dressing tables were made in many revivalist styles including the Gothic, Elizabethan, Rococo, Renaissance, and Colonial revivals. more »
Future Beauty at the PEM: Avant-Garde Japanese Fashion
The fundamentals of haute couture in Europe and America — highly sexualized fitted forms, balance, finish, invisible tailoring and complementary color and pattern — are noticeably absent from contemporary Japanese fashion. Instead, imperfection, transience, austerity, asymmetry, roughness, simplicity and subtlety are valued. As designer Yohji Yamamoto affirmed, "I think perfection is ugly. Perfection is a kind of order ... things someone forces onto a thing. A free human being does not desire such things." more »