Ugly is the New Pretty

BOLOGNA, Italy—Prior to leaving for the Peninsula, I was swarmed with well-meant advice. Rather than suggesting I pack first-aid however, my friends and family transformed themselves into my self-appointed style experts. “Try and dress nice,” they cautioned, all raised eyebrows and knowing looks. “You don’t want to stand out as an American. Italians are more fashionable.”

True, most Americans dream of glimpsing the mere dregs of the glamour this country emanates. Italy, typically considered the hub of the fashion world, shamelessly worships its designers—Gucci, Armani, and Dolce & Gabanna. Those textile wizards labor day and night to concoct stunning, near-holy ways to be frighteningly beautiful, original, and colossally stylish. If what I have seen is a glimpse into the future of fashion, then I have seen the four horsemen of the Apocalypse.

The folks who prance down the streets horrify the eye with their courageous but bizarre aesthetics. Men and women alike bedeck themselves in skintight jeans that cling to bony legs with non-existent muscles. Midriffs, too, are common for both sexes, revealing ribs and hipbones to match. Piercings, facial and otherwise, make the crowded street sparkle like a Christmas tree. In a crowd like this, Americans certainly stand out like sore thumbs.

This is about more than personal taste. The astonishing element of many of these trends is not the absurdity—fashion has been absurd for the entirety of documented human history—but that, on a biological scale, these standards of aesthetics are, objectively and cross-culturally, unattractive. If you’re into extremely convoluted academic essays full of big words and citations, add Karl Grammar’s essay “Darwinian Aesthetics: Sexual Selection and the Biology of Beauty” to your summer reading list.

He discusses how we evolved to think that fertility and health are sexy. Sexual selection in a nutshell: If people did not think that attributes linked to these positive characteristics were attractive, the human race would have died out pretty quickly. For example, female fertility is indicated by curvier bodies, which correspond to higher estrogen levels and more advantageous fat distribution—curvier girls get pregnant easily and can have truckloads of children.

So why is the fashion industry emphasizing this totally unprecedented aesthetic? When I look at the fashion-forward Europeans, all I see is disaster. Tight jeans on men make them look sterile; lack of muscle definition and visible bones both look like malnourishment—which comes with a whole package of exciting side effects, like anemia, bone loss, and decreased testosterone levels, according to the Mayo Clinic. A complete lack of body fat—combined with clothes designed to make hips look smaller—makes the ladies look either prepubescent or infertile, not to mention just as starved and malnourished as their male compatriots. The current European standards of beauty would be a turn-off to even the loneliest of cavemen.

Yet Europeans are much healthier than Americans. A continent of people whose diets are free of hydrogenated oils and whose primary means of locomotion is walking or bicycling is any American doctor’s utopia. So why promote an aesthetic that makes these healthy people look starving and infertile? Who decided it was attractive to look sickly? Part of me believes that Americans stand out in Europe because we look like we could pass a physical. Not that we choose to look the way we do—new fad diets sweep the States every six months, and countless women are anorexic or bulimic; we too strive to achieve these biologically unattractive standards of beauty.

Let’s not forget, of course, our nation’s weary battle with obesity, the other extreme on the spectrum. But obesity, also a visual cue of infertility and unhealthiness, is hardly a worthy goal. The Western world prefers to appear hungry rather than sated.

Commonly understood in the fashion industry is the concept that runway models are not the main attraction, but merely human coat hangers, used to display designers’ wares. Inexplicably, these human coat hangers have become the standard of beauty. As Grammer writes, although attractive features themselves are “cross-culturally universal,” socio-economic factors within cultures do modify them slightly. Maybe our abundant resources have spoiled us into thinking that affluence is more attractive than health. Rather than maintain a physique that could outrun a lion, we showcase our ability to outspend a monarch. And our tokens of wealth—expensive, designer clothes—are best displayed on skinny, sickly-looking bodies. I couldn’t blame Europeans for looking wealthy. But nothing changes the fact that you’d have to be crazy to want to sleep with a coat hanger.



Sarah C. McKetta ’09, a Crimson editorial editor, is an anthropology concentrator in Winthrop House. She actually enjoyed Italy’s World Cup victory, and has just started a hanger collection.