by Katie Fremantle

So what is beauty really all about? Is there a purpose or a use for it? I went to Vogue’s fashions night out in London where at Browns Store Robert Rowland-Smith, an Oxbridge Master of philosophy from The School of Life, gave us a Talk on the thinking behind beauty.

The evening buzzed with fashionistas from every part of the industry including the senior fashion editor of Vogue whose talk on this season’s styling was complementary to the evening’s entertainments. So what of beauty?

Is beauty only used attracting mates to further a species? Certainly, this is a valid point. But then again, is beauty only just visual? Music, for example, is also beautiful. Furthermore highly structured pieces of music such as those by Bach and on a more contemporary note Coldplay’s ‘Sparks’ from Parachuttes, have been considered exceptionally appealing.

And what of our opinions on beauty including harmony and symmetry versus that of free flowing nature? Shakespeare’s sonnets, set in iambic pentameter, are highly structured and artificial, but considered the most emotive literature ever written. Yet the Garden of Eden - the ideal image of paradise is as equally stunning. Its descriptor, ‘Sublime’ by Wordsworth in the 1800s, was a far more powerful word back then, capturing the image of terror in beauty. Equally, in architecture, symmetry and harmony evoke different ideas of beauty. For example the Taj Mahal has connotations of everlasting love and perfection. Yet the organic imperfect structure of the Guggenheim in Bilbao emulates a different beauty.

One cannot deny the connection between women and beauty – after all it was the face of Helen of Troy launched a thousand ships! Robert suggested that connotations of a women’s beauty trigger the idea of being morally good. He also touched on the idea that being in love is more of a perception than a reality and romantic imagery about beauty and truth such as the Keats’s poetry is that which influences us. Hence in love we look to seek goodness in others in order to acquire, for ourselves, this perception we have of this idea.

Robert concluded with the suggestion that taste in beauty is an unconscious opinion asserting from our backgrounds and experiences. And further discussion touched on our post-feminist world where beauty, for women, involves empowerment but also a relaxation into their choice to be feminine once again especially driven by the recent trends taken from the catwalk.