Did you know that the nail polish industry was an offshoot from fast-drying nitrocellulose automobile lacquers that were developed to keep Henry Ford's assembly line running smoothly? Were you aware that the construction of the grand dome of the U.S. Capitol in 1857 had an enormous influence on hoop skirt design? Teresa Riordan, Patents columnist for The New York Times, explores the intersection between technology and fashion in her book Inventing Beauty, which will be published by Broadway Books in October.
Martha Henry, program coordinator for the Knight Fellowships, asked Teresa about writing and lipstick.
Martha Henry: Your book, Inventing Beauty, considers beauty in the U.S. from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, roughly from the first Women's Rights Convention at Seneca Falls, New York in 1848 to the introduction of the Pill in the 1960s. What is unique about that period?
Teresa Riordan: That stretch of time covers the first wave of feminism in the United States. At Seneca Falls, women began to formally question their economic and social rights and demand equal legal standing.
By the 1960s, the second wave of feminism had lurched into gear, giving us a very necessary, radical reassessment of women's place, where women were not just looking for equality but were also rethinking what it meant to be female—challenging their reproductive role and the division of labor. Inventions that come after the consciousness-raising of the 1960s have to be evaluated through a different lens, I think.
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MH: Was it women who were primarily responsible for innovations in beauty during that time?
TR: Both men and women were beauty innovators. But women were involved to a surprisingly greater degree than I had thought when I first started this book.
The first falsies go back at least to 1858—that year Anne McLean of Williamsburg, New York patented a bust enhancer that featured what looks to be a four-inch metal spring. It would have done Mr. McLean some serious harm if he had been on the receiving end of a tight embrace from his wife.
Between the mid-nineteenth century and the mid-twentieth century, women received almost two thirds of all patents for breast enhancement technology. And there was a lot of it—using all manner of material, from elk hair to rubber.
MH: Though we chortle at the quackery women used to subject themselves to to enlarge their breasts or smooth their wrinkles, do you think anything has really changed? Are modern women any wiser, or are we, being equally vain, just as easily duped?
TR: We're just as easily duped today as we were 100 years ago, but the technology has gotten a LOT better. Botox actually does decrease wrinkles, as does a well-wrought facelift, whereas most anti-wrinkle technology before the 1970s had very little enduring effect.
And by the way, it's not just women who are duped—that's why I think it's silly to look at these inventions as specifically oppressive to women. Baldness cures, for example, have a long and hilarious history.
MH: You make the argument in your book that inventions like bustles and stiletto heels can be seen as empowering objects because they allow women to transform their appearance so that beauty becomes something women can control, rather than something innate. Would you elaborate on that.
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TR: Well, such inventions allow a woman to create a zone of visual interest that is flattering to her body, whether she is congenitally beautiful or not. As James Laver once observed, anyone who has visited a nudist camp knows that clothes can sometimes be a help.
But also women have responded to the male predilection for novelty by using technology to reinvent themselves—to make themselves novel again and again. An individual woman can transform herself from one woman into many women by using beauty inventions to shift the focus of male attention from the breasts to the hips to the legs to the belly to the face and back again.
MH: Yes, but a woman having to shift the focus of male attention up and down her body like an elevator operator, is that ultimately empowering? Doesn't that simply reinforce male stereotypes of women as purely sexual objects?
TR: It's empowering in this sense: Men are visually stimulated whether we like it or not. No matter how much we gripe about it, that will probably always be the case. So isn't it better for a woman to be able to exert control over her appearance? At least until that far-off, utopian moment when men appreciate women exclusively for the beauty of their minds?
Writing this book has convinced me that the real objectification of women occurs when they are portrayed as being passive victims rather than agents in their own destiny.
MH: As a culture, Americans embrace self-invention and social mobility. Does that affect how readily women adopt new fashion trends and inovations? Do American women wear makeup any differently than women from other cultures?
TR: Probably. We're a nation of people who are self-selected to embrace innovation. Many of us are immigrants or descendants of immigrants who had the sense of adventure to strike out for a new land and leave old customs behind (or were forced to leave and had to rely on ingenuity to survive). But this enthusiasm for endless novelty is also a function of prosperity. We wouldn't have the option of choosing from 15,000 different shades of nail polish if we weren't a rich nation.
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I'm a student of American culture and know less than I would like about other cultures. But it is fascinating to me that the first thing many women from formerly repressive regimes spend their money on—once the repression eases up—is cosmetics. That seems to be true whether the context is totalitarianism in the Soviet republic or religious fundamentalism in Iran. This only feeds my suspicion that woman's ability to manipulate her appearance may be some kind of important step in the long march toward true emanicipation.
MH: What did feminism change, if anything, about the way women think about beauty?
TR: Some feminists, especially second wave feminists who generally came of age between the 1960s and the 1980s, have denigrated the pursuit of beauty as being oppressive, as being a kind of male ideal foisted on women.
But now that we're beyond the very important revolution of the 60s and 70s, it's time to consider beauty in a more nuanced way. I think certain feminists are reluctant to do that because they're still fighting battles that I feel have already been won (and thank god).
Back when I was shopping the proposal for this book I received a vitriolic rejection from an editor who clearly thought that I was some kind of atavistic nut for even considering that beauty might be something more complex than a male-imposed conspiracy.
I think younger feminists are casting a fresh eye on topics that many old-guard feminists consider unworthy—sex, childrearing, domestic arts, and, yes, beauty. For feminism to evolve and grow, I think these new viewpoints need to be respectfully considered rather than summarily dismissed, which they often are.
MH: How has writing this book changed you or your personal habits? Do you wear more or less lipstick?
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| Teresa Riordan |
TR: Let's just say that I remain a better beauty theorist than I am a beauty practitioner. I am notoriously casual about my own personal upkeep, so certain of my glam friends are HIGHLY amused that I have written an entire book about beauty. Just take a look at the wild eyebrows I'm sporting in my author photo.
I still wear the same lipstick I always have—a burgundy TerraTints colored lip gloss, which I buy for $3.55 at the local food coop. I have been known to swipe on the hot pink shade when I'm feeling especially frisky.
Writing this book has totally reversed my attitude toward cosmetic surgery, however. Not that I personally would alter my nose, because it's my father's nose and my grandmother's nose and it's my nose. But one day I might consider a tuck and a nip here or there to make me look younger. I would do this for the same reason that I already dye the gray out of my hair—the pursuit of beauty is an arms race. If I don't do it I'm going to look even older than I really am because everyone else is doing it.
MH: As Patents columnist for The New York Times, you relied heavily on the archives of the Patents Office for the book. Where else did your research lead you?
TR: Probably the most unusual archive I visited was the Museum of Menstruation, which is in suburban Maryland, about 30 minutes from my house. It's in the basement of the ranch house of a guy who has devoted his life to the study of the history of menstruation. He has what must be the world's biggest collection of tampons. Originally my book was about all inventions dreamed up for women, from vacuum cleaners to vibrators, but that proved too ambitious so I carved out what seemed the most fascinating but least explored part of that territory: beauty.
I also would have to include the women's reading room in MIT's Hayden Library among the exotic places that I conducted research. It's a strange little room tucked down a lonely corridor on an upper floor. It made that leg of my research easier in that all that feminist theory was sitting in one room. I remembered mentioning the room to a historian at MIT who railed about how ridiculous it was to have all those books about women segregated, rather than being integrated into the rest of the collection where patrons who were browsing might happen upon them, even though they hadn't originally gone looking for them. In all the time I spent in that room, I don't think I ever encountered another soul there, so I think she had a point.
MH: As you were writing Inventing Beauty, what sort of objects or photos did you have around your desk to inspire you? Did you end up buying an antique rubber corset or sheet metal bra on eBay?
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TR: Mainly, I was knee-deep in thousands of patents drawings, which I sifted and re-sifted many times to cull the 100 or so images that made the final cut for the book. Many of these drawings are, as Siegfried Giedion—one of the granddaddies of the history of technology—once observed, lost folk art. I love looking at them.
While writing the book I began collecting vintage girdles and bras and falsies. Mostly I get them from estate sales or garage sales. Last summer my husband stumbled on a trove of brassieres from the 1950s. They were in a remote country store in Tennessee that was still trying to sell off stock that it had acquired a half century ago. Yes, I bought up all the stock—and paid the original, 1950s prices.
I don't get much from eBay. Not long ago I tried to buy a gorgeous pair of ballistic-tipped Kim Novak-era Maidenform falsies. I was outbid. Alas.
MH: Do you think Hollywood's recent remake of The Stepford Wives has anything to do with contemporary fears and hopes about the degree to which we can alter human beings, women in particular?
TR: We can alter our human facades to a greater degree than ever before and the pace of our ability to do so is just going to accelerate. So yes, I think The Stepford Wives remake as well as TV shows like The Swan reflect our anxiety over this, because a lot of that altering has a homogenizing effect. But this was just as true with corsets and cosmetics in previous centuries as it is with plastic surgery today.
There are certain universal principals of beauty, such as symmetry, but we sometimes forget that beauty is also, fundamentally, about diversity. As Charles Darwin wrote in The Descent of Man, "If every one were cast in the same mold there would be no such thing as beauty. If all our women were to become as beautiful as the Venus de Medici we should for a time be charmed, but we should soon wish for variety."
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MH: After years of researching and writing this book and thinking a lot about how women pursue beauty, is there any advice that you'd give your nine-year-old twin daughters? Is there anything you wished your mother had told you?
TR: My mother was born to great beauty. I suspect that when she was younger, my mother felt constrained by her beauty—felt that she was always judged by her looks and not by her (considerable) intellect. So I think she was a bit flummoxed about what to say to a child like me who was *not* born to beauty, because my problem was exactly the opposite of hers: I was appreciated mainly for my brains. What's that saying? —a pretty girl only wants to be told she's smart and a smart girl only wants to be told she's pretty.
What advice would I give my own children, my daughters as well as my son? I would like them to know that—whether we're talking about our exterior facades or our interior mindscapes—the highest form of beauty is not conformity but originality. That is something I learned from both my mother and my father.
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MH: Have you ever invented anything yourself?
TR: I've invented a corset for the 21st century and have co-invented a game. The corset is functional and comfortable, yet also very supportive and flattering. With all the new materials we have available today, I'm gunning for the corset to make a comeback and overthrow its upstart rival, the bra.
The game has to do with invention. I haven't yet received a patent for either of these inventions so I can't really say much more about them. And of course neither has made it to market. Let's just say that, familiar as I am with the bumpy road of entrepreneurialism, I have great compassion for the hopes and heartbreaks of inventors.
Teresa Riordan was a 2000-01 Knight Science Journalism Fellow. She has been a New York Times patents columnist for ten years and has written about invention for ABCNEWS.com, U.S. News & World Report and The Washington Post Magazine. She lives in Maryland and collects buttons. Inventing Beauty is her first book.
If you still have questions about the difference between a corset and a bra, email Teresa at tr@inventingbeauty.com
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