100 Years of Beauty Heads to Sweden For Their Next Installment

For their 28th installment of the long running “100 Years of Beauty” series, CutVideo explores the beauty standards of Sweden.

Happy New Year everyone! As part of the joys the internet gave us during the last days of 2016, one was the next installment of their long running series “100 Years of Beauty”.

As the series heads into their third year of production, they’ve explored countries spanning the globe, from Japan, to Mexico to Brazil to Kenya. For their 28th installment, and the last one for 2016, they’re heading back to Europe, from whence many Western beuaty standards originated. But this is not a country that was a taste maker until recently. Instead we head as North as Europe goes, to Scandinavia. This is country of Sweden.

Check it out:

The three Nordic countries (Sweden, Finland, Normway) are stereotyped as being tall with blonde hair and blue eyes and pale skin, so the choice for the model here is dead on. Part of this is due to the population descending from the vikings and, later in the 1700s, germanic tribes. Up to the 1910s, Sweden was one of those countries which helped swell the ever growing population of the United States, partially due to the industrial revolution not arriving that far north until the 1870s.

During the World War I and II periods, Sweden was one of those “officially neutral” countries that always leant towards the German side without every outright declaring for them, so when the allied powers won both times, they had plausible deniability. That “follower” mentality is seen in the fashions of the times, all the way through the 1960s, where we see them adopting whatever Western Standard is fashionable that decade with gusto.

Image via CutVideo

In the 1970s that changed. A nationalist program to institute heavy music education into the public school system post WWII began paying dividends, as the first generation to graduate with major music education began flooding the market. Via Eurovision, Sweden began to be recognized as taste makers in popular culture, including donating such acts as ABBA, Europe and Roxette, as well as Max Martin, who is the genius producer behind nearly a dozen US and UK acts. Note the 1980s spiky “hair metal” look , which then traveled to the US and UK by the later part of the decade, stemming from Sweden’s heavy metal scene.

Also, note that the Goth look of the 90s is considered a standard enough for the country that the 1990s gets a double feature. Same with the 2010s, as the recent surge of “creative coloring” hairstyles that has begun to filter to the US is credited back to Sweden.

Home/Fashion