One Of The Earliest Uses of Color Film - From 1922
As my alter-ego (or one of them), I write about fashion, beauty, cosmetic surgery, and most of all, body image. I despise what Hollywood has done to men and women's perception of beauty and what is acceptable. Female stars starve themselves, male stars work out to have artificially muscular bodies, everyone has white teeth, and even the old people are virtually wrinkle-free. Watch a few documentaries that aren't about show business and you'll see what I mean.
A friend sent me a link to one of the earliest uses of color film, from 1922. Kodak was testing its Kodachrome color film. The first full-length color film was made in the late 1930s. This shows naturally beautiful women posing for the camera. Note the bodies, the way they move, the variation in facial features.
Of course they are self-conscious, as someone behind the camera is telling them to move this way, move that way, etc. The blonde at the end epitomizes the one of the ideals of beauty, with her bobbed hair and "bee-stung" lips. Women "rouged" (put lip rouge on) to make their mouths look like small cupids bows, just as in the 1940s it became the fashion to put lipstick outside the natural lines of the mouth to make them look bigger. Her poses gave me the giggles.
Click to viewNaturally, as a vintage clothes nut, I'm also fascinated by the way the women dress. I believe the last part is a costume, but it might not be.