Project title

Ugly Beautiful World: How we can understand and (who knows?) thwart the expanding beauty regime

Research question

How has the contemporary beauty regime come into being, how does it work, what are its consequences, and what possibilities are there to change, redirect or mitigate the expansion of this regime?

Project description

During her time at NIAS, Giselinde Kuipers will be working on two interconnected book projects, both exploring what she terms the expanding beauty regime. She argues that, since the mid-19th century, it has become increasingly important for people from all walks of life to look good: to strive for beauty, and, if that ideal cannot be achieved, at least to appear young, toned, fit, and well-groomed.

The first book, Beauty as Taste and Duty, is an academic study written in English. In it, she traces the emergence and growth of the contemporary beauty regime and examines how it shapes personal lives and social relationships in modern European societies. The book also develops a new sociological theory of beauty standards and socio-cultural regimes, bringing together insights from contemporary cultural sociology with classical theories of the self, social control, and modernity.

The second book, Ugly Beautiful World, is a shorter work for a general audience, written in Dutch. Here, she explores the rise of the beauty regime and its adverse effects on our well-being, society, and the planet, while also considering ways in which this pervasive regime might be challenged or resisted.

Selected publications

  • Kuipers, Giselinde & Sarpila, Outi (eds.) (2026). Handbook of Beauty and Inequality. Springer. https://link.springer.com/book/9783032080349
  • Kuipers, Giselinde (2022). The expanding beauty regime: Or, why it has become so important to look good. Critical Studies in Fashion & Beauty, 13(2), 207-228. https://doi.org/10.1386/csfb_00046_1
  • Kuipers, G., Holla, S., & Van Der Laan, E. (2022). Structure, strategy and self in cultural peripheries: Theorizing the periphery in the Polish and Dutch fashion fields. European Journal of Sociology/Archives Européennes de Sociologie, 63(2), 213-245. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003975622000224