Lucky Seat

22/10/2021

And the conventional notion of the Mediterranean "tall, dark and handsome" type is still in demand, despite growing diversity. The phrase came to use in Europe in the early 1900s, and then was commonly used in Hollywood during the 1920s to describe Italian star Rudolph Valentino. It has remained a frequently used idiom, although the exact meaning and inference of "tall, dark and handsome" is now more closely scrutinised and debated. Anthropologist Shafee Hassan tells BBC Culture: "Mediterranean men have a huge advantage in having dark eyebrows and dark facial hair. You can grow a full beard… dark hair is associated with virility". Beautiful by these standards is Italian actor Michele Morrone. From Puglia, Southern Italy, he was working until last year as a gardener in Rome and auditioning for acting roles. His life changed overnight when he was cast as the lead in Netflix film 365 Days, which became one of the most-watched films on the platform of 2020. He plays the smouldering Mafia boss Massimo, a figure of fantasy for his many fans.

20/10/2021

And as with every ethnicity, East Asian beauty standards are also diverse. US-Korean model Dae Na says: "When I first started there was a handful of Asian models but now you see multiples. Exponentially, it just kind of grew as the industry geared more towards Asian buyers or [the] Asian market". With a large population of high-net-worth individuals in Asia, brands want to make models like Dae the face of their campaigns, to create a connection with consumers.

19/10/2021

Professor of anthropology at the University of Edinburgh, Alexander Edmonds, tells BBC Culture: "Due to the legacy of slavery and colonialism [Western] images of the beautiful man have always been very white, and in the past, there were fewer barriers for this to change but this may be happening now". Black supermodels like Tyson Beckford and Alton Mason regularly grace the covers of GQ and other magazines, and the fashion world is gradually becoming more diverse, perhaps in part because global social changes such as the Black Lives Matter movement have made brands recognise the need for diversity.

13/10/2021

hat makes a man handsome – or beautiful? In past decades, the most famous icons of Western male beauty have been a rather narrow cohort – blue-eyed stars of the screen like Brad Pitt or Leonardo DiCaprio come to mind. But the idea of what the "perfect" male looks like is evolving as the film and fashion worlds embrace greater diversity, and the importance of representation is understood by global brands.

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13/09/2021

13/09/2021

Artists and writers have long been drawn to solitude – but why is that, and what can we learn from them? Beverley D'Silva speaks to Tracey Emin and others to find out more.
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From Wordsworth wandering lonely as a cloud to a thousand pop songs about love-lost angst, culture is steeped in references to loneliness. Some authors have sung its praises – Virginia Woolf said loneliness allowed her to feel "the singing of the real world". Emily Brontë's novel, Wuthering Heights, pulsates with agonising loneliness, from its windswept Yorkshire Moors setting to its moody, solitary antihero Heathcliff. The writer is said to have avoided human society, and rarely left Haworth. While comedian Lily Tomlin once quipped: "Just remember. We're all in this alone".