From the author: The topic of this publication arose in the discussion of one of the topics of the online seminar “Psychotypes of a modern woman in Haute Couture images”, and since it seems interesting to many people, I decided to share my reflections. It is difficult to find a topic that has aroused more interest throughout human history than the topic of beauty. Perhaps only the topic of money can compete with it. Let me make a reservation right away that I am not inclined to consider the cult of beauty a feature of our time, as, for example, those who are of the opinion that such importance of beauty is actively inculcated and is a product of the activities of the media and fashion industry believe. In my opinion, rather, the value of beauty is the basis for the existence of the fashion industry, and the media, as an attribute of our time, simply allows ideas to spread faster, but does not determine the content of these ideas. What is so attractive about beauty? On the one hand, beauty is attractive, alluring, and therefore being beautiful is understood as being attractive. Behind this lies one of the basic needs: the desire to be noticed, highlighted, discovered and accepted. Because through the fact that we are noticed, singled out, we receive confirmation of our existence, our reality in the world (“I am”), and our value, significance (“I am not an empty place, I am important”). On the other hand, beauty is attractive because it satisfies our aesthetic needs. For some reason, it so happens that the aesthetic need is not included among the basic needs. But doesn’t this need reveal itself very early in both phylo- and ontogenesis? Doesn't it permeate all areas of our lives? We have a great desire to communicate with beautiful people, we want to be surrounded by beautiful things, we admire the beauty of nature and feel bad if the environment around us is ugly or ugly. Even the area of ​​morality is permeated with aesthetic experience: we say: “Doing this, behaving this way, is ugly!” And isn’t it this need that makes us human? Let me quote Christian Dior: “In these troubled times, when weapons and airplanes are luxuries, we must protect our sense of beauty at all costs. I do not hide the fact that such an opinion goes against generally accepted norms in the world. But I believe that this is the essence of existence. Everything that goes beyond self-defense and getting food is luxury. The civilization we defend is a luxury.” However, despite the seemingly triumph of beauty, when addressing a specific person, the following paradox reveals itself: a person recognizes the attractiveness and significance of beauty in others, but his own beauty seems to go into the shadows, somewhere in the background, third plan, it turns out those for which there is either no time left, or there is a time and place only sporadically. Or, in other words, it is valuable when I see it in another person, but loses its value in me. I will give examples for illustration. Internally, a person wants to be bright, but dresses in such a way as to blend into the crowd. Or a woman wants to be beautiful, but cannot overcome the feeling of constraint and inappropriateness. Or he goes to the store for a new dress, but buys trousers for a child or a shelf for home. Etc. Why is one’s own beauty devalued and limited in its manifestation? Without claiming to be an exhaustive analysis, I will outline some reasons. I will conditionally highlight two aspects: motivational-semantic and mental, which in practice are closely intertwined. The motivational and semantic aspect of limiting and devaluing one’s own beauty manifests itself as a taboo on beauty and can be associated with: - psychotrauma, the presence in the past of a situation of sexual violence. Women who have had negative experiences of attention to their appearance try to dress in such a way as not to attract attention. And not just unhealthy attention, but almost any attention. And they think that this will protect them, because clothes,which they choose makes them plain, gray, “invisible” - with fear of their own sexuality. Quite often, such a taboo can be brought up in the family and passed on from generation to generation - with an internal conflict, which is experienced as a struggle with pride and narcissism, since the experience of being beautiful can be combined with a feeling of one’s own specialness, power and superiority. - with the fear of loneliness. As I wrote above, a person wants to be noticed, to be distinguished from the mass of other people, but at the same time he is afraid of this. Because being singled out, he finds himself alone. And this state can actualize, “pull together” various fears: the desire for attention turns into a fear of attention (it seems to him that everyone is looking at him, and he cannot bear it), fear of envy or a negative, picky assessment or ridicule. Revealing the aspect of thinking, I will describe several widespread ideas that underlie the “thought traps”, falling into which, it becomes difficult to show one’s own beauty: 1. The contrast between natural and artificially created beauty. Priority, of course, is given to natural beauty, and the original reality is taken as nature, which does not involve any effort (“born this way”). Anything that involves some kind of effort or action is interpreted as deception. Accordingly, if a person does not see his beauty “with the naked eye,” then he denies himself the right to be beautiful. The idea of ​​beauty as a given does not allow us to see that beauty is largely work and self-discipline. Although, on the other hand, this aspect can simultaneously be present as the idea that “beauty requires sacrifice.” As a result, we are dealing with extremes: on the one hand, “natural” beauty without any effort, on the other, sacrifices and self-torture for the sake of beauty. As they say, tertium non datur. Therefore, if you are not ready for sacrifices, and you do not have natural beauty, then don’t blame me - you should be ugly. I will also note that the idea of ​​natural beauty dates back to medieval Christianity. However, one must understand that then the context of “natural” beauty arose from the opposition of soul (spirit) and body, with the latter being interpreted as a source of sin, which it is desirable to exclude. This is understandable, since physicality is closely related to sexuality. Therefore, any manifestation of caring for one’s body is sinful, since it can cause sexually tinged sensations and feelings. This is where the message comes from: you don’t need to tempt yourself or anyone else, you need to be naturally innocently beautiful. 2. Directly related to the first, the idea of ​​​​the contrast between external and internal beauty. According to this idea, caring about external attractiveness is sinful vanity, but you need to care about spiritual, inner beauty. Including through asceticism, or even better, a complete denial of external attractiveness. Although, I believe that everything here is not so simple, and most likely, it is distorted, since even monks have certain requirements for appearance. I am silent about Orthodox clergy with their bright, very expressive and literally precious robes. Well, or, for example, the image of a cardinal - it’s very aesthetically pleasing and thoughtful. And here I’m reminded of a quote from the movie “The Devil Wears Prada”: “After all, what is the multimillion-dollar fashion industry aimed at? To the beauty of the soul! 3. As a modification of the first two ideas, the idea of ​​the opposition of intelligence and beauty: an intelligent, educated person does not “bother” with beauty, because his mind is important. Beauty is the lot of superficial, stupid and narrow-minded people with huge conceit. To this I would like to quote Alexander Vasiliev’s statement that he “never saw a single beautiful idiot.” Instead of a conclusion. I don’t want to draw the line now and draw any conclusions now. I would like to leave the text unfinished in order to stimulate understanding of this.