Korea Sees Shift in Beauty Standards

Goh Hyeon-jeong, who was in the recently finished television drama “What’s Up, Fox,” is a former Miss Korea from the 1990s.

Park Si-yeon, who can be seen in the period drama “Yeongaesomun” in a tragic love story, was Miss Korea in 2000. These two actresses are 8 years apart in age, and both give off very different impressions.

Professor of multimedia studies at Kyonggi University, Kim Soo-jung, and professor of psychology at Yonsei University, Jeong Chan-seop, analyzed the facial features of 171 Miss Korea winners over a 30-year span starting from the 1970s at the recent Korean Contents Association’s fall forum.

Lengthier forehead and shortened chin-

The most prominent change was in the lengthier forehead and shortened chin.

The winners in the 1980s and 90s had longer foreheads than those in the 1970s.

1977 Miss Korea Kim Sung-hee, who became a celebrity with her youthful image, has a shorter forehead than 1987 winner Jang Yoon-jeong and 1991 winner Lee Yeong-hyeon.

After the mid-1990s, the winners start boasting noticeably longer foreheads.

The chin has also grown shorter. Winner of the 2000 Miss Korea awards Park Si-yeon has a relatively longer forehead and shorter chin than 1989 winner Goh Hyeon-jeong.

The relative length of the forehead and chin is an important determining factor of the maturity of one’s face. The longer the forehead and the shorter the chin, the younger you appear. People tend to see Goh Hyeon-jeong in her twenties as an older woman than Park Si-yeon is.

The logic of the famous “Eolzzang” (meaning superbeauty) degree when taking digital pictures also works the same. If you tilt your face slightly south and take pictures, you look younger than you actually are.

The face shape and lips have undergone changes as well. In the 1970s, the winners had square-shaped faces, whereas after the 1980s the face shapes rounded out into ovals. Nowadays people see longer faces as more attractive.

The lips have become fuller. Miss Koreas after the new millennium like Kim Min-gyeong, Geom Na-na, and Choi Yoon-yeong have fuller lips than winners in the 1970s and 80s. Fuller lips are another way to look younger.

The popular baby-face look is evidence that the standards of beauty have altered.

In a survey that translated looks into numbers, people clearly thought the baby-faced look was in.

In the 1970s there were more mature-looking winners, but enter the 1990s and the winners have grown more youthful in appearance.

Kim says, “It’s not that people’s face shapes have changed over the years. It’s that people’s preferences have changed,” and added, “The baby-faced look is not exactly a passing trend, though.”

Kim analyzed, “Injecting Botox into lips and changing the face shape by undergoing facial contouring plastic surgery are social phenomenon that reflect these preferences.”

kunta@donga.com