Vogue Magazine

If you're a member of the Pinterest community, or an Internet enthusiast at all, you've probably seen this photo circulating. In January I saw this photo for the first time and was intrigued as a photographer, so I chose to visually analyze it in school. It ended up taking a very different path than I had expected. Anyway, I thought I would share it.

Standards of beauty evolve over years and vary greatly between cultures. In developed countries, the economy and the sale of cosmetics, clothing, etc., have a circular effect on each other. Countries such as the United States, Italy, France, and Germany, where the fashion industry is booming, also seem to place great emphasis on beauty in a superficial sense. Overpriced clothing fills store windows, beauty magazines line store racks and streets. Everywhere we look we are bombarded by the industry.

Vogue magazine is circulated to approximately 1.7 million people each month in over 15 countries. Ethiopia is not one of those 15 countries. Viewing this photo, all that seems to come to mind is the difference between “Western beauty” depicted in the magazine, and the woman holding it in her hands. In this underdeveloped country, a seemingly different world, no flashing billboards with the latest trends or store windows call buyers, but there is still a beauty standard. It seems to be very different from that which we are used to seeing, but stopping to consider the similarities yields a new way of thought.

In our Western world, men and women alike adorn themselves with decorative clothing, accessories, and jewelry. Women make up their faces to feel good enough; to feel up to par with the ideal that has been set. At first thought, we may not think that people in the underdeveloped country of Ethiopia experience anything similar to the overbearing standard of beauty we have set. But they do, in a contrasting way.

In the Mursi tribe, men and women alike adorn themselves with decorative accessories and jewelry. They paint their faces to conform to their traditional standard of beauty. Their accessories are not the same as ours. Their face paint is not nearly as expensive as our “face paint,” nor is it applied in the same way, but the idea behind it all is related.

The woman in this photo may very well be looking at this magazine with a confused and wondering attitude, just as we may look at her and wonder. We may find each other strange or interesting or any number of other things when examining each other’s lifestyles.


We all have our own beauty standards. While we may look at each other and be shocked by the differences in hair, skin, clothing, and jewelry, the fact still stands that all are alike in traditions. Across countries and cultures, we are drastically different, but we are all human, and we all want to be beautiful. Our differences make us unique, but our similarities make us unified.