Keeping Up Appearances
No matter what, Elizabeth painstakingly kept her looks in tiptop shape. Dr. Anna Whitelock, a British historian, spoke in 2015 to the BBC on the matter. “Elizabeth’s contemporaries believed that beauty amplified female power, and so they regarded the queen’s splendor as confirmation of her claim to the throne.” Making sure that her hair and makeup routines were nothing short of meticulous were then essential to Elizabeth’s reign. As she grew older, she became more preoccupied with convincing her people that she was desirably stunning.
Keeping Up Appearances
The Greek Statue
Perhaps the historic queen’s most iconic feature was her painfully developed appearance, particularly, her dazzlingly pale flesh. During this period, the whiter one’s skin was, the better, and many women strove to achieve this aesthetic. With such paleness came an association with innocence and fertility. Then there were the class associations of fairness. If one was pale, it was assumed that they were far removed from a life of manual labor spent in the tanning sun.
The Greek Statue
