Taking pleasure in the female form - Daily Telegraph
Few people now see blondeness as necessarily superior to any other colourway, but the chemical acquisition of it is an example of how we use artifice to create "ideal" versions of woman. Notions of perfection may change with time, but what is indisputable is that in any historic period the dominant version of the ideal woman betrays the fears and preoccupations of the era. Take Coco Chanel. She was not just a great woman designer, but a great designer of women. Her education in a strict convent gave her a lifelong respect of uniforms. But she did not wish to escape them: she designed a new one as a liberating tool. The Chanel suit contained a pocket for the cigarettes smoked by the modern woman. The jacket's hem hid a chain that weighted it, creating an ideal profile for a woman-on-the-move. Chanel's version of woman was a brilliant design: form and function cleverly married. So while God did most certainly create woman, we finished the job. This is the subject of my ...