Glamour (presentation)
Encyclopedia
For other meanings, see Glamour. See also Style.


Glamour originally was a magical-occult spell cast on somebody to make them believe that something or somebody was attractive. In the late 19th century terminology a non magical item used to help create a more attractive appearance gradually became 'a glamour'. Today, glamour is the impression of attraction or fascination that a particularly luxurious or elegant appearance creates, an impression which is better than the reality. Typically, a person, event, location, technology, or product such as a piece of clothing can be glamorous or add glamour.

Virginia Postrel
Virginia Postrel
Virginia I. Postrel is an American political and cultural writer of broadly libertarian, or classical liberal, views. She is best known for her two non-fiction books, The Future and Its Enemies and The Substance of Style...

 says that for glamour to be successful nearly always requires sprezzatura
Sprezzatura
Sprezzatura is an Italian word originating from Baldassare Castiglione’s The Book of the Courtier, where it is defined by the author as “a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it.” It is...

 - an appearance of effortlessness, and to appear distant - transcending the everyday, to be slightly mysterious and somewhat idealised, but not to the extent it is no longer possible to identify with the person. Glamorous things are neither opaque, hiding all, nor transparent showing everything, but translucent, favourably showing things.

The early Hollywood star system in particular specialised in Hollywood glamour where they systematically glamorised their actors and actresses.

Glamour can be confused with a style, which is adherence to a particular school of fashion
Fashion
Fashion, a general term for a currently popular style or practice, especially in clothing, foot wear, or accessories. Fashion references to anything that is the current trend in look and dress up of a person...

, or intrinsic beauty
Beauty
Beauty is a characteristic of a person, animal, place, object, or idea that provides a perceptual experience of pleasure, meaning, or satisfaction. Beauty is studied as part of aesthetics, sociology, social psychology, and culture...

; whereas glamour can be external and deliberate.

History of glamour

A glamour was originally said to be a spell cast by a witch to make somebody see things in a different way.

Late in the 19th century the common meaning shifted to being applied to ordinary objects and jewellery without connotations of supernatural, merely upon the effect that it has on appearance. This is a sense used in this article and to some extent is the way that it was used by the early Hollywood system.

In modern usage glamour is often confused with style or beauty
Beauty
Beauty is a characteristic of a person, animal, place, object, or idea that provides a perceptual experience of pleasure, meaning, or satisfaction. Beauty is studied as part of aesthetics, sociology, social psychology, and culture...

; but they may be considered to be distinct, although glamour may give the appearance of beauty or present as a personal style.

Cinema

"Glamour doesn't just happen, people don't wake up in the morning glamorous." - Virginia Postrel

Early Hollywood movie stars were often seen as particularly glamorous, this was due to the operation of the early Hollywood system where extensive methods were used to make the stars glamorous. For example photography was done in rooms which had been specially painted to flatter the skin tone of the actors and actresses, and attention was paid to hair and clothes. Notably this was successfully done with:
  • Marlene Dietrich
    Marlene Dietrich
    Marlene Dietrich was a German-American actress and singer.Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In the Berlin of the 1920s, she acted on the stage and in silent films...

  • Joan Crawford
    Joan Crawford
    Joan Crawford , born Lucille Fay LeSueur, was an American actress in film, television and theatre....

  • Grace Kelly
    Grace Kelly
    Grace Patricia Kelly was an American actress who, in April 1956, married Rainier III, Prince of Monaco, to become Princess consort of Monaco, styled as Her Serene Highness The Princess of Monaco, and commonly referred to as Princess Grace.After embarking on an acting career in 1950, at the age of...

  • Hedy Lamarr
    Hedy Lamarr
    Hedy Lamarr was an Austrian-American actress celebrated for her great beauty who was a major contract star of MGM's "Golden Age".Lamarr also co-invented – with composer George Antheil – an early technique for spread spectrum communications and frequency hopping, necessary to wireless...

     is quoted to have said "Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid."
  • Sean Connery
    Sean Connery
    Sir Thomas Sean Connery , better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards and three Golden Globes Sir Thomas Sean Connery (born 25 August 1930), better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy...

  • Marilyn Monroe
    Marilyn Monroe
    Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, singer, model and showgirl who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s....

  • Brigitte Bardot
    Brigitte Bardot
    Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot is a French former fashion model, actress, singer and animal rights activist. She was one of the best-known sex-symbols of the 1960s.In her early life, Bardot was an aspiring ballet dancer...



Glamour icons

Glamour icons are people that are thought to epitomise glamour, that have an individual style that makes them more attractive.

For example:
  • Audrey Hepburn
    Audrey Hepburn
    Audrey Hepburn was a British actress and humanitarian. Although modest about her acting ability, Hepburn remains one of the world's most famous actresses of all time, remembered as a film and fashion icon of the twentieth century...

  • Imelda Marcos
    Imelda Marcos
    Imelda R. Marcos is a Filipino politician and widow of 10th Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos. Upon the ascension of her husband to political power, she held various positions to the government until 1986...

  • Queen Elizabeth II
  • Naomi Campbell
    Naomi Campbell
    Naomi Campbell is a British model. Scouted at the age of 15, she established herself among the top three most recognisable and in-demand models of the late 1980s and early 1990s, and she was one of six models of her generation declared "supermodels" by the fashion world...

  • Stella McCartney
    Stella McCartney
    Stella Nina McCartney is an English fashion designer. She is the daughter of former Beatles member Sir Paul McCartney and the late photographer and animal rights activist, Linda McCartney.-Early life:...

  • Claudia Schiffer
    Claudia Schiffer
    Claudia Schiffer is a German model and occasional actress, who reached the peak of her popularity during the 1990s, initially due to her resemblance to Brigitte Bardot. Schiffer is one of the world's most successful models, having appeared on over 500 magazine covers...

  • Elizabeth Taylor
    Elizabeth Taylor
    Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age...

  • Aishwarya Rai
    Aishwarya Rai
    Aishwarya Rai Bachchan is an Indian film actress. She worked as a model before starting her acting career, and ultimately won the Miss World pageant in 1994...

  • Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
    Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
    Jacqueline Lee Bouvier "Jackie" Kennedy Onassis was the wife of the 35th President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, and served as First Lady of the United States during his presidency from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. Five years later she married Greek shipping magnate Aristotle...

  • Sophia Loren
    Sophia Loren
    Sophia Loren, OMRI is an Italian actress.In 1962, Loren won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Two Women, along with 21 awards, becoming the first actress to win an Academy Award for a non-English-speaking performance...

  • Ava Gardner
    Ava Gardner
    Ava Lavinia Gardner was an American actress.She was signed to a contract by MGM Studios in 1941 and appeared mainly in small roles until she drew attention with her performance in The Killers . She became one of Hollywood's leading actresses, considered one of the most beautiful women of her day...

  • Joan Collins
    Joan Collins
    Joan Henrietta Collins, OBE , is an English actress, author, and columnist. Born in Paddington and raised in Maida Vale, Collins grew up during the Second World War. At the age of nine, she made her stage debut in A Doll's House and after attending school, she was classically trained as an actress...

  • Dita Von Teese
    Dita Von Teese
    Dita Von Teese is an American burlesque dancer, model, costume designer, author and actress.-Early life:...

  • Maria Callas
    Maria Callas
    Maria Callas was an American-born Greek soprano and one of the most renowned opera singers of the 20th century. She combined an impressive bel canto technique, a wide-ranging voice and great dramatic gifts...


Glamour photography

Glamour photography is the photographing of a model with the emphasis on the model and the model's sexuality and allure; with any clothing, fashion, products or environment contained in the image being of minor consideration. Photographers use a combination of cosmetics, lighting and airbrushing techniques to produce the most physically appealing image of the model possible.

Architecture

Many forms of architecture employ glamorous motifs to enhance the appearance of what may be otherwise mundane buildings.

The Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...

 style is generally considered to be a glamorous one.

Violence

Many types of media have been accused of glamorising violence, for example the film A Clockwork Orange
A Clockwork Orange (film)
A Clockwork Orange is a 1971 film adaptation of Anthony Burgess's 1962 novel of the same name. It was written, directed and produced by Stanley Kubrick...

by Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...

 or The Matrix
The Matrix
The Matrix is a 1999 science fiction-action film written and directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski, starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, and Hugo Weaving...

.

The Grand Theft Auto
Grand Theft Auto (series)
Grand Theft Auto is a multi-award-winning British video game series created in the United Kingdom by Dave Jones, then later by brothers Dan Houser and Sam Houser, and game designer Zachary Clarke. It is primarily developed by Edinburgh based Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games...

video game series is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records 2009 as the most controversial game series and has often been accused of glamorising violence.

See also

  • Beauty
    Beauty
    Beauty is a characteristic of a person, animal, place, object, or idea that provides a perceptual experience of pleasure, meaning, or satisfaction. Beauty is studied as part of aesthetics, sociology, social psychology, and culture...

     - attractiveness
  • Burlesque
    Burlesque
    Burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects...

  • Dandy
    Dandy
    A dandy is a man who places particular importance upon physical appearance, refined language, and leisurely hobbies, pursued with the appearance of nonchalance in a cult of Self...

  • Elegance
    Elegance
    Elegance is a synonym for beauty that has come to acquire the additional connotations of unusual effectiveness and simplicity. It is frequently used as a standard of tastefulness particularly in the areas of visual design, decoration, the sciences, and the esthetics of mathematics...

     - simple grace and dignified propriety
  • Glam rock
    Glam rock
    Glam rock is a style of rock and pop music that developed in the UK in the early 1970s, which was performed by singers and musicians who wore outrageous clothes, makeup and hairstyles, particularly platform-soled boots and glitter...

     - a type of music where the musicians used outrageous glamours such as platform shoes and outrageous hairstyle
    Hairstyle
    A hairstyle, hairdo, or haircut refers to the styling of hair, usually on the human head. The fashioning of hair can be considered an aspect of personal grooming, fashion, and cosmetics, although practical, cultural, and popular considerations also influence some hairstyles.-History of...

    s
  • Glamour photography
    Glamour photography
    Glamour photography is a genre of photography whereby the subjects, usually female, are portrayed in a romantic or sexually alluring way. The subjects may be fully clothed or seminude, but glamour photography stops short of deliberately arousing the viewer and being pornographic photography.Glamour...

     Photography which shows a model, often nude or seminude
  • Prestige
    Prestige (sociology)
    Prestige is a word commonly used to describe reputation or esteem, though it has three somewhat related meanings that, to some degree, may be contradictory. Which meaning applies depends on the historical context and the person using the word....

  • Sprezzatura
    Sprezzatura
    Sprezzatura is an Italian word originating from Baldassare Castiglione’s The Book of the Courtier, where it is defined by the author as “a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it.” It is...

     - to appear as without effort
  • Style
    Human physical appearance
    Human physical appearance refers to the outward phenotype or look of human beings. There are infinite variations in human phenotypes, though society reduces the variability to distinct categories...

     - dressing according to a school of thought
  • Tantra
    Tantra
    Tantra , anglicised tantricism or tantrism or tantram, is the name scholars give to an inter-religious spiritual movement that arose in medieval India, expressed in scriptures ....

  • Eros
    Eros
    Eros , in Greek mythology, was the Greek god of love. His Roman counterpart was Cupid . Some myths make him a primordial god, while in other myths, he is the son of Aphrodite....

  • Sex
    Sex
    In biology, sex is a process of combining and mixing genetic traits, often resulting in the specialization of organisms into a male or female variety . Sexual reproduction involves combining specialized cells to form offspring that inherit traits from both parents...

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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