Extreme Beauty The Body Transformed. The Metropolitan Museum of Art By Harold Koda.

Extreme Beauty ,The Body Transformed. The Metropolitan Museum of Art By Harold Koda.Yale University Press, New Haven and London. Copyright , The Metropolitan Museum,New York 2001.

I recently took out the book 'Extreme Beauty, The Body Transformed By Harold Koda', from the library. I decided to read this book in response to some of the recent blogs I have written, these blogs discuss high fashion clothing collections that have inspired me and held and an Elizabethan theme. My decision to look at aspects of fashion design alongside Makeup and Hair design has been due to the influence of fashion designers always looking at a whole image. What I mean by this is, that I feel that when fashion designers organise their clothing for a show they consider everything, the makeup, hair, accessories, race of models, facial features of models, etc. As I have been creating my contemporary Elizabethan character, I have been considering the same things, as I feel that visualising the clothing and personality of my Elizabethan character, has made me think more creatively and out of the box. The practitioner Alexander McQueen is a perfect example of this as his outstanding fashion shows, always feature abstract and unique make-up and hair designs making the models appear as if they are fantasy characters from another universe. The image below is a good example of some of the incredible work Alexander McQueen created, and it can be used to argue that the hair and makeup design is powerful and transforms clothing into a story.

Alexander McQueen Genius of a Generation.
A&C Black London
Getty Images.
Spring/Summer 2003

''Extreme Beauty addresses the ideals of beauty that have persisted or shifted through the ages in various cultures. The mechanisms of costume have transformed the zones of the body, dictating shaping and proportion by artificially changing the body's silhouette and sometimes physically altering its natural structure. Kodak draws on the historical and cultural diversity of fashion to tell the fascinating complex story of the continual varied shifts of style and recurrences of the past that have occurred right up to the present. His project is especially pertinent in this age, when mass communication enables individuals around the globe to reach through time and across the cultures by jet or computer. He examines historical fashions, traditional consuming from Africa and Asia, and fashions by some of the most creative and often controversial designers of today- John Galliano for Christian Dior, Alexander McQueen for Givenchy, Rei Kawakubo for Comme des Garcons, Issey Miyake and Thierry Mugler, among others." - Extreme Beauty ,The Body Transformed. The Metropolitan Museum of Art By Harold Koda.Yale University Press, New Haven and London. Copyright , The Metropolitan Museum,New York 2001.

This book allows me to take Elizabethan beauty ideals and compare them to other cultures and even modern day examples, giving me a different aspect of beauty and how we are still influenced by historical traditions to this day. I have already discussed some cultures in my blogs were I was inspired by, African Tribal skin scaring and the beauty ideal of skin whitening and a fair complexion in Japan. In this book it takes some examples of Renaissance and Elizabethan portraiture, discussing its traditional beauty in the image and then comparing it to other cultures and examples. 


Extreme Beauty ,The Body Transformed. The Metropolitan Museum of Art By Harold Koda.Yale University Press, New Haven and London. Copyright , The Metropolitan Museum,New York 2001, Page 20-21. 

" The origin of the ruff is attributable to the wearing of the white linen undergarments and shirts to protect the richer, more fragile outer fabrics of dress from both the perspiring body and the friction of the skin against the neckline and wrists. As witnessed even in the early depictions of this practice, the visible boundaries of undershirts and chemises were quickly ornamented by laces and embroideries. These embellishments were not only decorative but also functioned as reinforcing elements of the undergarment.

Amazingly, what began as the outlining of the neckline with ornamental edgings or small collars quickly evolved into a framing of the face. The ruff's discrete beginnings do not anticipate its accelerated inflation to shoulder-wide dimension. This broadening obliterated any exposure of the neck and consequently visually detached the heady from the body. Additionally, the canting of the neckpiece created an optical illusion; the extended plane of white suggested a larger distance between the head and the torso. In effect, the ruff floated the head above the body at an ambiguous point that appeared farther than the physical reality. The expense and ostentation of the ruff made it a compelling object of moral censure. As illustrated in the engraving on the overleaf, the stiffly starched collars typical of seventeenth- century black- suited burghers today evoke the probity and sobriety of bourgeois traditionalism. But at this height of florid fashionableness, the ruff conveyed the impression of an impulse to luxury and a submission to ludicrous vanity."

Cornelis de Vos, Portrait of a Woman
Oil on wood, 17th Century.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
European Paintings,
Marquand Collection, Gift of Henry G.
Marquand, 1889 (89.15.37).
Photograph: Peter Zeray, The Photograph Studio,
The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Yoshiki Hishinuma, Evening Ensemble,
'Peche Originel" Collection, Fall-winter 2001.
Photograph:Firstview.com

" In Cornelis de Vos's portrait illustrated above left, the ruff's wide border of white obscures the neck and disrupts the relationship of head to body. There is a sense of disengagement of the head from the trunk. This spatial ambiguity introduces an optical attenuation. The linen cuffs in the portrait achieve a similar illusion; it is as if the sitters arms were too long for her sleeve. Yoshiki Hishinuma's ensemble shown above right extends the effect of the ruff onto the shoulders. Two rows of identically constructed bands adumbrate the puffed neckpiece. Although they are discontinuous, being open at center front, the two puffed rows at either shoulder create a visual segue to neckpiece and head. While Hishinuma's actual ruff is substantially smaller than the one depicted by de Vos, It functions with the ancillary bands to give the impression of a triple- tiered ruff that extends past the shoulders like the short mantles in Vogue in the 1890s." 

The above description taken from Harold Koda's book, discusses not only a fashion trend shared between two cultures and centuries but also perfectly describes the finish and illusion created in my contemporary make-up design. After reading this page from Harold Koda's book I feel that my contemporary design can be compared to the form and illusion of the 'ruff' as described above. The ruff has been worn in History as an accessory and also a symbol of wealth and vanity as described above, although I had known many prestigious people in society were known to wear the ruff, I wasn't aware that it was worn to accentuate or change the form of the body. I feel that similarly to the ruff my final design creates a lot of illusion, this was confirmed when my lecturer and partner of my design commented on me wearing the design, saying it looked as if I was 'floating' and they could not recognise my expression as the contrasting colors created an illusion, as if my facial features had disappeared. Below is an image of my final makeup look which best describes the optical illusion I feel it creates, similar to the effect of the Ruff in Renaissance portraiture.

The Revengeful Bride - Elizabeth Brydges.