Cultural Perceptions of "Perfection"
“So that there is nothing truer than the old proverb, that “there is no accounting for tastes.” This difference in opinion with respect to beauty in various countries is, however, principally confined to ‘color and form’ and may, undoubtedly , be traced to national habits and customs” (Montez 20).
In Chapter One, titled "Female Beauty", Montez explains that the idea that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, or that each person has their own specific taste when it comes to what they believe is beautiful. Montez offers that while people all over the world have different beauty standards, having the right "color and form" is of the upmost importance. The dilemma is, however, that the ideal "color and form" is different in every country and is largely influenced by habits and culture.
In modern times, this still remains true. In 2015, in attempt to reveal just how unattainable ideal beauty is, a pharmaceutical company asked 18 people from across the globe to photoshop the same image of a woman into what their country would view as the ideal woman. The result was 18 very different figures (shown below).
These images reveal that no one person can possess all the qualities necessary to be considered perfect by everyone. One would think that by having knowledge about how culture affects one's beauty preferences would make women less willing to modify their bodies in order to appeal to others, all of which will interpret these body modifications in a different way.
Why though does Montez, while acknowledging that "there is no accounting for tastes" attempt to point out how women should look? And why would she tell women that if they do not fall in like with what she believes to be beautiful, they still may be able to achieve this look with her how-to guides?
Perhaps, Montez skillfully used her knowledge of how cultural preferences also affect beauty preferences to her advantage. In fact, she did burry her Irish roots by changing her name from Elizabeth Rossana Gilbert to Lola Montez, and played up this new Spanish persona by becoming a dancer and dressing the part. Maybe Montez's natural looks aligned more with what the ideal woman in Spain looked like rather than the ideal woman in Ireland, and decided to seize this opportunity to reinvent herself as the most beautiful Spanish woman.
To view the differences in these specific countries beauty ideals, as they are today, take a second look at the images representing the UK and Spain in the slideshow above.