Originally published in WSJ Speakeasy blog
Filed under: Books / Culture / Fashion / Fashion Books
"Where humanity exists, beauty exists," writes Sir Lindsay Owen-Jones, Chairman of L'Oreal in the opening essay to a five-volume work published by the L'Oreal Foundation.
The phrase pithily sums up the thesis of "100,000 Years of Beauty," a four-year academic project to dismantle the cultural constructs of beauty. The project tapped 300 authors of 35 different nationalities and across 20 different disciplines to decipher and explain how aesthetic exercises occurred not just in contemporary society but throughout time. The first book begins with a look at pre-historical efforts at jewelry, embellishment and colored powders.
