Beauty myths i just don't get.

[ConfusedParticle]

Like someone having 'cheekbones', that this is somehow important as a woman ages (not my opinion!).

That being tall is superior to being short: this persistent idea that taller people look better in clothes. In my own opinion it is posture, not height that makes a difference.

I know there's history regarding height, especially with males, the pecking order and all that, but i am amazed that these ideas still circulate.

But who decided fashion/clothing was best carried off by taller women? It never made sense to me.
It makes some, kinda vague sense for a catwalk, but not in the real world.
If clothes are in proportion, then it's as broad as long to me.

I have also never noticed cheekbones necessarily make someone 'age' better either - whether that's Peter Cushing or Debbie Harry. People tend to look good if they look good (to my mind) regardless their age.

Also, please feel free to add your own!

That we should look like early twenties for our entire adult lives. Many people spend a fortune injecting poison into their face whilst forgetting hands age too

@GettingStuffed

That we should look like early twenties for our entire adult lives. Many people spend a fortune injecting poison into their face whilst forgetting hands age too

And necks. It's always striking when the face looks out of sync with necks and hands.

"But who decided fashion/clothing was best carried off by taller women? It never made sense to me."

I'm short and I definitely think it has a negative effect on how I look in clothes. It might depend on how you are short though. In my case I have short legs and a normal sized body so I look a bit unbalanced.

I don't know about high cheek bones, but I think chiselled cheeks are generally attractive, which is a pain for me as I'd need to lose quite a bit of weight to get them.

Someone somewhere, is laughing up their sleeve, having convinced many young women that drag queen style makeup is attractive
Necks and hands not matching a face
Overly white teeth

When I was 19/20 I was in a uni G&S group with a whole load of other younguns.

The person who played lead soprano in the Mikado also played the Old Bat Alto (she was quite versatile) in Pirates the following year.

As Yum-Yum she was perfect - utterly beautiful.

As Ruth she was made-up with artificial wrinkles and grey in order to look old. It kind of worked, but she just looked like a beautiful person with wrinkles. I inspected the photos quite closely, and came to the conclusion that it was the cheekbones

The cheekbone thing is true.

I was pretty in my youth in a kind of chubby face, slightly cherubic way...no cheekbones! I'm 40 and wrinkle free but aging terribly..like a bassett hound. I swear it's because I have no defined cheekbones

I agree about the cheek bones too. I say that as someone who got a raw deal on that side of things.

Clothes do look better on average/taller women, in the main, because the majority are made for that market. Those of us at 5.2 have to look for 3/4 sleeves, the petite range, or put up with something that's not quite right!

For years I bought jeans & trousers at M&S as they were one of the few shops to do short lengths - no longer, their 'short' is now at least 2 inches longer. Gap used to be good for shorties, but they've gone.

I have also never noticed cheekbones necessarily make someone 'age' better either - whether that's Peter Cushing or Debbie Harry. People tend to look good if they look good (to my mind) regardless their age

Emmylou Harris is stunningly beautiful and the cheekbones myth is true for her. Her contemporary and friend Linda Ronstadt is stunningly beautiful too and the cheekbones myth doesn't apply at all.

It doesn't apply to Catherine Deneuve either.

And then there's Joni Mitchell- cheek bones you'd cut yourself on in her younger days, but , well it certainly doesn't apply to her now.

Joni Mitchell had cheekbones

The height thing works well for supermodels, but not in reality.

The faff to find clothes where hemlines hit where they need to is an absolute nightmare if you are 6ft or thereabouts.

I always envy shorter women for exactly this reason and think clothes look so much nicer on them!

I don't agree that a sun-tan always looks better than untanned skin. Some people really suit one - it just makes me look sallow.

@YorkieTheRabbit

Someone somewhere, is laughing up their sleeve, having convinced many young women that drag queen style makeup is attractive Necks and hands not matching a face Overly white teeth

I couldn't agree more!!!! To me, all the current makeup trends simply transform the wearer into a drag queen lookalike. Best example: Adele's photo in the papers last week. Real Housewives TV series, identikit drag queens complete with big hair and most unnatural boobs. Not in the least attractive.

I disagree with the tall/short opinion. Because I have seen lots of short women looking fabulous wearing clothes that fit their size, shape and height. For all women, the fit makes all the difference. Then you have styles that fit certain people because of the way they look and move. It's about wearing what works and suits the individual.
Plenty of fashionable trends do not suit tall people or anyone for that matter. But regular visual exposure just creates this impression that 'yes it looks lovely' and 'it suits a particular frame' when in fact it looks awful. So not all styles are that great for anyone really and most things can be adapted to each height.
For catwalks, I think taller models definitely present the clothes better simply because there is mire movement, drape, volume and more impact, the items they wear are more visible. Although maybe I've been conditioned to this.

@YorkieTheRabbit

Someone somewhere, is laughing up their sleeve, having convinced many young women that drag queen style makeup is attractive Necks and hands not matching a face Overly white teeth

I'm so glad someone else thinks this too! I think it spoils a lovely face and makes young girls especially look quite old, not in a good way! There was a viral tiktok they mentioned on This Morning last week, it showed a rather average looking girl doing her makeup reveal, I thought she looked like a completely different person at the end it was mind blowing really. Amazing what make up can do but it didn't look like her at all.

The really skinny straight down look. I’ve seen so many celebrities get to a really low weight eg Anna Kendrick when they looked so much better and healthier before (and they were always slim!)

@ClariceQuiff

I don't agree that a sun-tan always looks better than untanned skin. Some people really suit one - it just makes me look sallow.

I don't like sun tanned skin- just makes me think "wrinkles, leathery skin and if you're really unlucky, skin- cancer"

Enormous lips and overly fake looking hourglass shape. Anything that looks overly fake or unhealthy I find unattractive.

I think prominent cheekbones do, on the whole, cause a face to 'age' better. It's not the whole story of course, but all other things considered, they do provide more of a frame and structure as time passes. It is swings and roundabouts though because as a woman with 'stong' features I was often told I looked manly when younger, and certainly as a teen more conveniently pretty features were considered the most desirable.

I agree with Adele's 'drag queen' make-up, I think that that very contoured look it a bit passè now though and there's a return to more natural style.

My thought? That botox and fillers make people look younger. They tend to make people look like a very well preserved 60 year old. I think they're very ageing. I'm not against the idea of a little intervention, but I think for most people, if they're of mind to do something, a lower face-lift at the right time would look so much better than constant 'tweakments'.

@westfacing - I've noticed that about all the M&S reviews recently. All say short lengths are now too long. Why on earth have they done that!!

I think it’s definitely easier to find well fitting clothing if you are tall. If you’re short you can still definitely look good but it’s harder and often more expensive to find/tailor clothes to fit well.

It's really not that easy finding well fitting clothing of you're tall.

Of course I don’t mean unusually tall. But if you’re short it’s harder than average size/a little tall.

I would say it is a myth that there are universal laws of beauty. Other than than perhaps symmetry (of which there is quite a lot of research) and genuine youth (again because it makes sense in survival of the species.

I think cheekbones look great, I think skinny models look great. But I would never argue the point to others. Taste is individual and is influenced by current trends.

I'm not sure what height women's clothes are designed for but in the same way that if you're a couple of inches shorter than that design height, clothing will not fit properly, so it is that if you're a couple of inches taller or more, then clothes don't fit properly.
I'm 5'9" but finding clothes where sleeves are long enough, waists fit where they should, lengths are ok etc, is difficult.

Maybe not what the OP meant but every time I hear the often repeated myth about Jane Birkin inspiring the Birkin bag when she sat next to someone from Hermes on a plane blah blah I can’t understand why people are impressed by it or think that it makes Jane Birkin some sort of style paragon.

Here’s how it happened. She was 35 and the mother of two kids and was carrying stuff in a wicker shopping basket, like Miss bloody Marple. She was still going for the ingenue vibe, at 35: you know, the “I don’t carry a normal bag like a normal 35 year old because I’m cool and a rule breaker and it doesn’t suit my lifestyle because I’m just a teenager at heart!” schtick. She’s trying, unsuccessfully, to shove the flaming basket into the overhead locker in first class and the Hermes bloke decides to design a bag for her. Probably because he was sick of her squashing his coat in the locker and he wished that she would just bloody sit down and let the cabin crew serve the champagne!