Learning about the beauty standards of different cultures, students in Fashion I began a project that allows them to express what they perceive as beautiful.

“This project is starting the freshmen off with what they consider beautiful and what we do to make ourselves beautiful, whether that’s plastic surgery, makeup, or tattoos and why we think that’s beautiful,” Fashion teacher Nicole Carlson said.

When brainstorming ideas for the project, students had to consider modern beauty standards such as slim waists or toned bodies. 

“After we [create our own definition of ‘beautiful’], we’ll take a look at different cultures or tribes around the world and their belief systems to understand what they consider as beautiful,” Carlson said.

The project’s main objective is to identify and learn about how physically harmful being beautiful can be. 

“There are some people that go out of their way to take out their ribs to have a smaller waist,” freshman Brooke Young said. “If that’s what you want, then go ahead, but if that’s what makes you feel more confident in yourself, then that’s pretty sad.”

Students have to do research on the beauty standards of their cultures, such as neck rings in China or lip plates in Africa. Once the research is completed, they’ll present their findings to compare beauty between different countries.

“People say that you [need] to have something that makes you stand out from others, when in reality, we’re all just beautiful the way we are,” freshman Lexi Walker said. “Learning about other beauty standards in other cultures was interesting because they’re different than what I’m used to seeing here.”