Fashion and Health

We look at old photos and think "How did we ever think that sort of hairstyle was attractive?" While it is most uncomfortable when it is us personally, we also think that of the whole era. The shirts were too tight or too blousy, the patterns too plain or too busy.  The ties are strings or they are small kites. It is not merely our own era, nor only because they are now out of fashion and look so 2017 now. We can see clear fashion problems in the young, who tend more to exaggerating the styles, in most eras. Not that it's all ugly.  Every age does hit upon some things that look nice as well.

Yet what came over us?  How did none of us see the ridiculousness of it?

For openers, it was the youngest, most attractive people who were wearing them. Whatever the prettiest girls and the most handsome boys wear is still going to look darn good. We say that of the especially attractive: "She could wear a potato sack and make it look good." But it's that sector of society where everyone looks good. The worst of them doesn't look so bad - though they don't know it themselves. It is that time of life when clothes really don't make the man. The day will come, and come soon, when the boy will have to leave off being quite right up to the minute and and start leaning toward styles that have a track record over a few decades of being more attractive.  Even that changes and has fashions, but the amplitude is less.

Something similar happens with health and diet fads.  Who are the people who are most concerned with what they put in their mouths?  The people concerned with their appearance, who are already active and keeping their intake steady but moderate. They already look good, and will hold those looks longer than the others.

This sells food fads, supplements, and extreme beliefs.  I mean, just LOOK at her! She's 40 but she looks 28! This stuff must work!

Unattractive researchers who have put years into learning this stuff are nowhere near as convincing.