After all the sexiness you could see from magazines, Social networks, models, actresses, singers or celebrities, now the tone is to a more authentic vision of things. And I am not talking about the “nude” trend. The nude look is everything but really nude. Now we see the idea of “morning beauty” to become the trend for 2014. It is as basic as it sounds. The idea is to present shots of oneself at the wake-up moment in the morning. No make-up (i mean really no make-up), no hair dressed, the real thing. This trend is in a way to give a certain clarity away from digital manipulation and other photoshops techniques. An idea of your true oneself. It allows a certain connection with a true vision of femininity.
Origins of the trend
After all the tremendous excess of the 80’s, the 90’s and the millenium brought a stronger connection to the innerself. It was a real Back to basics, not only from a spiritual perspective but also from a lifestyle and social point of view. We went from individualism towards the community. From expansion to deepness and from artificial to real. It was a way to reconnect to Nature, Mother Nature or your True Nature. The idea of essentiality becomes almost a sort of obsession like if you could not miss it. If you miss the essence of things you might miss the essence of life. So in all domains like Fashion, art, music, architecture or Beauty, we could see the impact of this new era. More transparent, more minimalistic.
Fashion was minimal
In fashion it was the arrival and the discovery of the Japanese designers. While the fashion landscape was dominated historically by French, British and American designers, Asia brought the Asian touch. They were different, completely aligned with this new era and they mastered their design as no one. Fashion went from opulence to minimalism. It was the era of the “Less is more”.
- Issey Miyake
- Yohji Yamamoto
- Kawakubo Rei
- Kenzo
Fragrances got closer to Nature or a certain idea of it
In Fragrances and Beauty, there were of course strong consequences and new inspirations. In Fragrances, the opulence of Obsession, Kouros, Opium was left behind for the cleanliness of CK One and Eau d’Issey. There was all the revival trend of Eau de Cologne which made the success of brands like Acqua di Parma and Roger & Gallet.
In Beauty and Cosmetics, the time was for Detox! Brands like Clinique became a huge hit as they presented themselves as the “real thing”. It was the start of skin diagnostics. People wanted to have a healthy mind in a healthy body: “Mens sana in corpore sano” It followed with the trend of Pharmacy brands, Doctor’s brands and para-pharmacy.
West discovered also the well-being inspired from the East: Ayurveda, Thai massage and Tea. We all realized how important was to pay attention to what we do, what we eat and what we believe on. Buddhism became a strong force and the Dalai Lama turned into a super star, performing all over the world in stadiums and show houses.
In Design and Architecture, the world discovered the Japanese and the Swiss designers like Jacques Herzog or SANAA founded by Kazuyo Sejima et Ryue Nishizawa.
In Music, the broad public got interested into relaxing music, ambient music or even what was later called Lounge music.
“Morning Beauty” and the true face of Femininity
Hype magazine C-Heads published an article called Models in the Morning: A talk with Basement Fox (nsfw). It was a very inspiring article in which photographer Asher Moss a.k.a. Basement Fox caught on picture very natural and intimate morning moments of different women.
This all idea of capture those magic moments in which true femininity is revealed, is an interesting anti-trend of all extravagance that we can see nowadays . Which we could also call the MTV culture. It is definitely more artistic and only good true photographers can dare to try. The interesting idea is also that 2013 was the “Selfie” year. Thanks to social networks development as Facebook and specially Instagram, people started publishing self-portraits in all styles and moments of the day. Celebrities used this powerful mean of reaching their fans to present themselves in a more closer way. They started sharing the “back-stages” of their lives, their personal moments and little by little the hashtags like #Selfie #NoMakeUp started populating the web. Again, it is a way for celebrities to show, literally, their true faces and prove that they are not just a red lipstick and a fake wig. Not sure that all results are great but at least they are true 🙂 Here some examples of most popular Selfies with no Make-up recently published.
It is very Interesting how mass-media also allows to bring a certain connection to people in a more intimate way. This display of true femininity evokes a complete change of attitude towards the Photoshop era that transformed women in photography but recently also in video. So at the end we loose completely the image of a true woman. With this new trend pushing the aim for more authenticity, certain magazines are studying the possibility to not use photoshop on their pictures and just publish them as they are. The Lingerie brand American Eagle decided to publish a series of campaigns with models without photoshop. The result is amazing. Of course they picked up beautiful models but you can see there are little natural details that you would never see in a photoshop campaign.
So be true to your real-self.
LA
Info sourced at all quoted brands websites. C-Heads website, wikipedia, Vogue and American Eagle website. Images sources here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
