Fashion & Beauty

08/17/2025

Doris Duke’s life was one of dazzling contradictions. Born in 1912 to immense privilege as the only child of to***co magnate James Buchanan Duke, she inherited an almost unimaginable fortune before she was out of her teens. The press quickly branded her “the richest girl in the world,” but wealth did not shield her from restlessness. She moved through life with an adventurous spirit, collecting experiences, art, and lovers with equal fervor. Her interests were as unpredictable as they were wide-ranging—one moment she was funding medical research or historic preservation projects, the next she was surfing in Hawaii, cultivating rare orchids, or mastering the art of belly dancing.

Duke was a woman who refused to be boxed in by society’s expectations. She was a world traveler, often immersing herself in other cultures rather than simply passing through them. She learned languages, studied traditional crafts, and brought pieces of her journeys back home to her sprawling estates. Her reach was just as broad, spanning environmental conservation, the performing arts, and causes. Still, the tabloid press preferred to dwell on her romances, scandals, and eccentricities, painting her as a reclusive and mysterious figure.

Beneath the glamour and intrigue, Doris Duke was fiercely independent. She wasn’t afraid to follow her curiosity wherever it led, whether that meant building an Islamic-style mansion in New Jersey, championing the work of struggling artists, or even working incognito at a textile museum simply because she wanted to learn more. Her life was messy, extravagant, and deeply unconventional—a reminder that wealth may open doors, but it’s courage and curiosity that truly shape a woman’s story.

08/17/2025

08/05/2025

07/20/2025

06/26/2025

Lace has long been a symbol of beauty, refinement, and a kind of invisible power—quietly communicating status, skill, and desire through thread. In its earliest forms, lace was not simply an adornment but a statement of wealth, as every inch had to be made by hand, knot by knot, often taking weeks or even months to complete. There was no quick route to lace—it required time, eyesight, steady hands, and the kind of patience only women and the most dedicated artisans could muster. And while it may surprise some, lace was not always reserved for women; men, too, wore lace extravagantly—on collars, cuffs, sashes, and shoes—as a visible display of their rank and taste.

At its peak, lace was sometimes the most valuable part of one’s wardrobe. Dresses might be made of simple silk or linen, but the lace trimming could cost more than the fabric itself. Entire economies were shaped by its demand. In royal courts, lace became such a status symbol that monarchs tried to restrict its use through sumptuary laws—telling their subjects who could and couldn’t wear certain kinds of lace, or banning lace imports in an effort to keep wealth from leaving their borders. But such efforts often failed. Lace was smuggled, hidden in coffins, sewn into hems, and passed across borders in secret, so coveted was this delicate fabric.

The French Revolution brought a dramatic pause to lace’s dominance. With the collapse of the monarchy came a rejection of the ornate, the aristocratic, the excessive—and lace was all three. But lace did not vanish. It evolved. As machines changed the way fabric could be made, new forms of lace emerged. Women across Europe began combining machine-made netting with hand-applied designs, creating intricate yet more accessible lace styles. Some of these innovations were born not just out of artistic ambition, but out of survival.

In Ireland, following the devastation of the Great Famine, women turned to crochet lace as a means to support their families. Taught in convents and cottages, Irish crochet lace became both a source of income and a form of resistance—against hunger, against displacement, against being forgotten. Similar movements took place across Europe, where domestic lace-making became a quiet industry led by women, often supported through women’s magazines and pattern books that circulated ideas, designs, and solidarity.

Whether it adorned a gown at , a widow’s veil in mourning, or a doily on a farmhouse table, lace carried more than just beauty—it carried stories. Stories of hands at work, of changing fashion, of revolution, resilience, and reinvention. It is delicate, yes. But never fragile.

06/25/2025

06/25/2025

06/09/2025

For centuries, a high, smooth forehead was the ultimate beauty ideal for women—so much so that some would pluck their hairlines back inch by inch, endure tight headbands, or even shave their brows to achieve it. But why? The obsession wasn’t just about aesthetics; it was tied to power, class, and the way women’s bodies have always been politicized.

In Renaissance Europe, a high forehead signaled nobility and refinement. Women of the aristocracy—think of portraits of Queen Elizabeth I—deliberately emphasized their browlines with elaborate wigs, pearl-adorned headpieces, or even lead-based makeup to lighten the skin there. A large forehead suggested intelligence (the brain was thought to "expand" the brow) and, more importantly, a life free from labor. Peasant women working outdoors often had sunburned, lined faces with lower hairlines from years of toil, while the elite could afford to stay pale, plucked, and sheltered indoors.

The trend went beyond Europe. In Heian-era Japan (794–1185), noblewomen blackened their teeth and shaved their eyebrows to draw attention to their foreheads, a look immortalized in The Tale of Genji. In Ming Dynasty China, a smooth, broad forehead was part of the "willow leaf" ideal—delicate, youthful, and feminine. Even in 19th-century America, Victorian women copied the style with bonnets and ringlets to frame (and artificially elevate) their hairlines.

But there’s a darker thread here: these beauty standards often required pain or sacrifice. Tudor women rubbed walnut oil on their brows to prevent regrowth; Edwardian ladies slept in tight "forehead clamps" to smooth wrinkles. The message was clear: a "perfect" forehead was something to be constructed, not born with—a metaphor for how femininity itself has always been a performance.

06/08/2025

Details Katie Gee Salisbury, author, Not Your China Doll Anna Wong, niece and namesake of Anna May Wong Iris Moon, Associate Curator, Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, The Met Experience the 1922 film The Toll of the Sea, Hollywood’s first general release color feature film, st...