Beauty patches anno 1948

I’m currently doing research for a post on Madame Isis' Toilette on the history on beauty patches for and I came across this little gem that I thought would interest you here. Beauty patches as fashion assessor in 1948.

Found in LIFE, 2 February 1948

  

BEAUTY PATCHES

The romantic looks get a boost from still another old custom

Tiny adhesive pieces of black silk are pasted on girls’ skin to direct maximum male attention to their best features. Backs, eyes or lips.

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In their concerted drive toward studied femininity, U.S. high fashion leaders have revived full, frilly petticoats, long, swirling skirts and tiny waist-pinchers. Reaching once more into the past, they have come up with still another proved artifice in the crusade for ultrafeminity: the beauty patch. The U.S. has seen spots on the face twice before: in the late 18^th Century and briefly in the 1920s. In England, besides being an adjunct to beauty, they were worn by politically conscious ladies to signify whether they were Tory or Wig. In Imperial Rome, where the patches had their beginning, they were used to satisfy artificially a superstitious interest in moles and blemishes. The new patches, neither superstitious nor political, are pure vanity- designed to accent a fair complexion and highlight a woman’s most beautiful feature, whether it’s her lips, eyes or back (above).

[Picture of woman in day dress and hat with a heart-shaped patch near here mouth. The text says: WORN WITH HAT at recent Lilly Daché fashion preview, beauty patch was an essential part of costume. Patch will ordinarily worn with evening dress.]

BOX OF PATCHES sells for $2. Each assortment of 100 silk spots has eight shapes, including hearts, circles, diamonds, stars, half-moon and squares.

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