The Paradox of Impossible Beauty: Body Changes and Beauty Practices in Aging Women

Abstract

The aim of this article is to describe and understand the experience of aesthetic body changes in women between 65 and 75 years old. To approach the issue, 29 in-depth interviews were conducted in Marseille in 2011. Following a brief review of contemporary Western aesthetics, we will examine the marks of time women perceive as stigmatizing and analyze beauty practices that aim to conceal or repair them. The last part of this article will be devoted to the experience of the aesthetic body and in particular show how aging can paradoxically have a beneficial effect on some women.

KEYWORDS:

• aging body
• phenomenology
• anthropology
• France

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors would like to thank all of the women interviewed for the time they gave us. We also thank the Observatoire Nivéa for funding this study.

Notes

1. In France, liberation of the body began in the 1920s with the loosening of corsets (Chevé, 2011), the emancipation of looks in the 1930s, and the hedonism and leisure of 1950–1960. But the link between beauty and youth is not a recent phenomenon (Vigarello, 2004).

2. Hurd Clarke and Griffin (2007) have demonstrated the fluidity of these notions of natural and unnatural in their work on the appearance of aging women.

3. This statement appears to be in complete contradiction with the mask of aging theory (Featherstone & Hepworth, 1991), a theory that is incompatible with any phenomenological approach (Macia & Chapuis-Lucciani, 2008).

4. Here we note the transition to the third person from the singular used by Madam I.