A slightly protruding belly, full thighs and voluminous buttocks are a prerequisite for female beauty.
Indian cinema is a very special genre of cinematography. Incendiary dances and songs, adorable outfits and mesmerizing love stories. The cherry on the cake is a stunningly beautiful girl in bright saris, hung with bracelets, beads and earrings. Thick raven hair, perfectly even skin, huge eyes and a white-toothed smile are classics of Indian cinema.
The only thing that has undergone changes in recent years is the figures of the ladies. The more modern the film, the slimmer the beauty. If, however, we consider the paintings of 30-50 years ago as an ideal, the main characters are distinguished by excessively exciting forms. Quite simply, most of the old school Indian actresses are plump. Take at least the beauties from the legendary Zita and Gita, Bobby and The Magnificent Seven. To explain this phenomenon is quite simple: in India, girls in the body have always been valued.
The last decades in the country are increasingly influenced by Western culture
The standards of female beauty in India were formed under the influence of the caste system, political and economic components. In ancient times, the concepts of “slimness” and “weight loss” were completely absent. It was not so easy for the ancient ladies to get the long-awaited dinner – a fair amount of work preceded the eating.
In the twentieth century, fullness was considered an attribute of luxury, and they did not even think about being slim and losing weight. Striving for the ideal, the girls ate a lot on purpose in order to gain weight. Thinness indicated sickness or deplorable financial condition, which means malnutrition or excessive physical activity. And it was also believed that slender girls are not able to reproduce healthy offspring.
To this day, in the ideal female figure in India, the navel is the center of the circle that makes up the hips. A slightly protruding belly, full thighs and voluminous buttocks are a prerequisite for female beauty. With narrow shoulders and massive hips, small stature, delicate skin, thin wrists and ankles are highly regarded.
Draupadi, the protagonist of the Mahabharata, had black curly hair, elongated lotus-like eyes, a thin neck, red lips, and a small face. The author clarifies that the beauty was not slim. Meanwhile, genetically all Indian women are inclined to be overweight.
Perhaps that is why plumpness has always been the only consistent favorite in the tastes of Indian men. Most of the details of the appearance of Indian women have been actively changing over the course of the twentieth century. Until the 1920s, the image of local beauties was distinguished by simplicity and minimalism in makeup and hairstyles. In those same years, the struggle for freedom from British rule began in India, and the mood of the people was reflected, among other things, in women’s appearance. The make-up has become more aggressive. Of the hairstyles, the priority is “tails” and braids. However, already in 1940, India became a sovereign state and more and more women began to wear loose hair.
In the 1950s, Western fashion began to seep into India – local girls began to wear short wavy hair, following the example of Marilyn Monroe. 1960s – the time of the birth of Bollywood, the world saw the beauty of Indian women for the first time. At this time, beauties preferred to wear wide “winged” eyebrows and thickly eyeliner. In the 1970s, we saw Bollywood girls with straightened hair, active makeup, and massive round earrings. They were exemplified by American hippies. Since the beginning of the 1990s, Indian women began to lose weight en masse. The fashion was set by local models who began to participate in world shows and tried to match the world-renowned beauties. In 1994, Indian woman Sushmita Sen gained worldwide fame with the title “Miss Universe”.
The actresses are equally organic both in European outfits and in traditional bright sarees that emphasize the luxurious lines of the figure.
By 2010, Western fashion had become firmly entrenched in Indian reality and cinema. Sarees, previously loved by Indian women, have faded into the background, and the camp of local actresses is getting thinner every year. Today, European beauty canons are increasingly sprouting in the hearts of Indian beauties. Widespread thinness is in fashion – just like in Parisian fashion shows.
However, even today, most Indian women are characterized by a very special type of figure with soft, feminine forms. Male viewers are simply mesmerized by their voluminous hips and breasts. But the main advantages have remained unchanged for decades – long luxurious curls, huge eyes, plump lips and delicate skin. All together creates a harmonious, seductive and at the same time proud image.