A new book of Vogue covers acts as a baromete r of beauty. But what are the ingredients that add up to more than a pretty face, asks Alanna Gallagher
Has beauty changed in the past 100 years or does the beauty myth remain a constant? When I was a teen I was pale and punky and I suffered from rosy cheeks. Yet if I had been born 50 years earlier I might have been considered a comely maiden. Most women just want to be considered gorgeous.
Fashions change. Does beauty? The cover girls featured in Vogue Covers: On Fashion's Front Page kick off the 20th century with artists' impressions of what a beautiful woman is. These flappers sport clara-bow lips and avant-garde bobbed hair, which had to be lustrous and straight to look good. They fit the mould because they were confident and in control of their lives.
In the 1930s red lipstick and suntans had filtered into the realm of Everywoman. A Vogue cover elucidates on the benefits of Coppertone's Elation while you're sporting a Simpson bathing suit. A decade later, the 1940s and Marlene Dietrich finally got women to wear the trousers, if only in a fashion sense.
Dior's New Look heralded a new silhouette for the 1950s. The exaggerated form created a new sense of glamour that needed a full face of make-up to counterbalance it. Women discovered the joys of the weekly shampoo and set. Sophia Loren caught the eye of Cecil B DeMille who once said of her: "You could build mountains around that girl." But Loren, when she was starting out, was told she had no chance, fashion photographer Barry McCall reminds us.
"Her eyes were too far apart and her nose was too broad, but when you put her in front of the camera magic happened. It's the X factor, something some beautiful girls are gifted with."
At the other end of the 1950s beauty barometer was elfin Audrey Hepburn. "She redefined the way we looked at elegance and style," explains fashion designer Helen Cody, who herself worked at Vogue magazine in the early 1990s.
While Hollywood greats benchmarked beauty in the first half of the 20th century, the second half celebrated the rise of the model as role model. The 1960s featured the waif-like Twiggy and the Shrimp (Jean Shrimpton). The 1970s gave us Jerry Hall and Bianca Jagger and the 1980s was Isabella Rossellini's decade.
"What is considered beautiful remains constant," says Rebecca Morgan. And she should know. She runs Morgan The Agency, one of the three principal model agencies in this country. "You need symmetry of face and high cheekbones as well as a certain slenderness of body. Certain proportions remain consistent. Pi is the magic ratio that constitutes beauty, the template on which all beauty is placed. In part it's a balance of ratio between the depth of your brow, the length of your nose and the distance from below your nose to the tip of your chin."
"Beauty remains beautiful but fashions change," says photographer Mike Bunn. "There have been fashions for particular looks," continues McCall. Remember the Supermodels? They were usurped by Heroin Chic, with Kate Moss as its poster girl. Then came the Glamazons, led by Brazilian babe Gisele.
The market, at different times, is attracted to different looks, although symmetry and high cheekbones remain constants, agrees founding editor of IT Magazine, Noelle Campbell-Sharpe. She recalls discovering a Traveller girl whom she thought looked stunning. "I took her to Ib Jorgensen and David Marshall who were both struck by her beauty. Once she opened her mouth, their attitude to that beauty changed. But we shot her anyway and she looked great."
"Nutrition and fitness have impacted on what we perceive to be beautiful," adds anthropologist Jamie Saris of NUI Maynooth. "A fit body displays the luxury of leisure time. Marilyn Monroe wouldn't be considered a female icon now. She'd be grossly overweight."
"Women today are under more pressure to be groomed and beautiful than ever before, opines Dr Elaine Sisson, senior lecturer in visual culture at Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology.
"Surveillance of the face and body is everywhere in popular culture. There is a closer monitoring of the self. We're expected to be successful, assertive, sexy and well maintained.
"Botox is becoming as normal as a hair colour," continues Sisson. "It's no longer considered a vanity, rather a grooming product." The only women allowed to show wrinkles, she says, are those really far into their career - Jane Fonda, for instance, who at 68 made headlines by saying no to more surgery when she publicised an anti-ageing cream by L'Oreal that targeted the over 60s.
If beauty is symmetry then Linda Evangelista is probably the only person on the planet who gets an A-plus when she does the mirror test, says McCall. "This is a symmetry test, where you put a mirror up to one side of the face to determine how balanced your features are," he explains. "One side of her face is an exact copy of the other - she's practically perfect."
Vogue Covers: On Fashion's Front Page by Robin Derrick and Robin Muir, published by Little, brown Book Group, £40 in UK
BEAUTY TIMELINE
1920s: March 1929
Paris Fashions
Illustrated by Pierre Mourgue
A side profile of the flapper gal at the helm of her own automobile. She sports a red cloche, a fur shawl-collar and a louche attitude that only the idle rich could afford. She's beautiful, in part, because she's wealthy.
1930s: August 1939
Autumn Forecast
Photograph by Horst/Hirsch
Being brunette was an essential part of the 1930s look when hair had to be wrapped and worn in conjunction with matching lips and nails as espoused by Elizabeth Arden, who introduced Montezuma Red lipstick to American working women during the war.
1940s: March 1945
Spring Fabrics and Renovations
Photograph by John Rawlings
The severity of the 1930s is softened in the 1940s. Make-up is less of the Total Look as pioneered by Arden but pared back. Beauty is embodied by an effortless elegance that is in reality anything but effortless.
1950s: June 1950
Black and White
Photograph by Irving Penn
Model: Jean Pachett
Fashion: Larry Aldrich and Lily Dache
This wonderfully sophisticated look shows the pendulum swinging back towards a strong make-up look. Smokey almond-shaped eyes shoot sideways from Iriving Penn's image. She is strong and still beautiful in a very female way, helped in part by the monochromatic plate. We all look more beautiful in black and white.
1960s: May 1963
The New Beauty
Photograph by William Klein
Model: Jean Shrimpton
Fashion: Dior
This cover portrays Jean Shrimpton as a real classic beauty, almond eyes, with flawless skin and rather large nose by today's conventions. Her kooky ears on view is a quirk of fashion photography that began in the 1960s. The Shrimp looks very classically beautiful, which of course she was. With shades of Audrey Hepburn, she fits the beauty mould perfectly.
1970s: May 1975
Jamaica: Blue and Beautiful
Photograph by Norman Parkinson
Model: Jerry Hall
Fashion: Wiki
This is vintage Jerry Hall. Oodles of almond-eye contact with the camera, needle-thin brows, an aquiline nose and a tough but teasing mouth creates a provocative picture. She's so hot she's positively radioactive. In these pre-Photoshop and other digital wizardry days this is an exceptional shot in the way it stands the test of time. While the shot is grainy and her make-up looks dry in parts with some smudging around the eyes, she is the picture of a strong, sexy woman, which, along with her perfect features, helps make her beautiful.
1980s: December 1987
Night Attractions
Photograph: Patrick Demarchelier
Model: Naomi Campbell
Fashion: Chanel
Hair: Didier Malige
Make-up: Mary Greenwell
Naomi Campbell takes a giant step for girls of ethnic extraction in Britain. This is British Vogue's first black girl cover. She looks wonderful, relaxed and laughing. I remember this cover for the glamour it portrayed. It's unusual in that there's no eye contact with the potential reader but the cover jumped off the shelves. I for one was seduced by Naomi.
1990s: September 1992
Changing Gear
Photographer: Peter Lindbergh
Model: Linda Evangelista
Fashion: Principles
Fashion editor: Lucinda Chambers
Hair: Odile Gilbert
Make-up: Stephane Marais
Chameleon Linda Evangelista in her most unbelievable role to date - that of a New York cab driver. The girl who changed her hairstyle the way most women changed handbags is said to be one of the most versatile beauties of her era. Her make-up is natural and soft with a slight kick to the eyes and mouth. The image also illustrates the mainstreaming of body artistry such as tattooing.
2000s: September 2006
The New Smart
Photograph: Nick Knight
Model: Kate Moss
Fashion: Jil Sander
Fashion editor: Kate Phelan
Hair: Sam McKnight
Make-up: Val Garland
Kate Moss reprises her Vogue cover girl role for the 23rd time. A model who once epitomized Heroin Chic of the mid 1990s she remains to fashion's front. This type of longevity in fickle fashion is unusual. While her look is more digitised than any of her other previous 22 covers Kate is peerless in her ability to sell product, be it Rimmel or Burberry. Her features are less defined thanks to the nude look of this face. It plays second fiddle to the monochromatic typefaces.