Tim Metz

A Noteworthy Case of Sunburn

Post #8, 2014.10.21 | An Idiot’s Guide to the Future

Fashion designer Coco-Chanel arrived back in Paris from a relaxing holiday along the French Riviera in the 1920s. Her fans noticed something different about her: Coco came back with a suntan. She accidentally got sunburned, but her fans loved the darker skin tones so much that having a tan became desirable.

How desirable? By 2000, a survey showed that 50% of Britons said returning with a tan was the single most important reason for actually going on holiday. Ask them why they’d desire it so much, and they’d probably tell you because it looks good, healthy or sexy. There’s also another, more subconscious reason at play though.

Throughout history, tanning has gone in and out of fashion. In the United States before about the 1920s, tanned skin was associated with the lower classes, because they worked outdoors and were exposed to the sun. Women went to great lengths to preserve pallid skin, as a sign of their “refinement”.

Not convinced? Just travel to modern day China for validation. Until very recently, most Chinese worked outdoors as farmers, hence a tanned skin is still associated with the lower classes (cultural values and stigmas don’t change overnight*). Most women in China therefore still go to great lengths to keep their skin pale. But, history repeats itself, even in the Far East.

As the upper and middle classes move into office jobs, you can see the trend starting to tilt. Some Chinese white collar workers now value a tanned skin as a sign of prosperity, reflecting the luxury of time spent away from the office. If no other issues (health concerns, too many people uber-bronzing in tanning studios) reverse this image, it will likely “trickle down” to the rest of society in coming years.

This short history of tanning doesn’t only equip you with useful trivia for your next pub quiz. It shows societal trends and behaviour are not always driven by the obvious reasons we take at face value. If you dig deeper, you might find a very different motivation, which can help to explain and maybe even predict changes as to what lies ahead.

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** Having lived in Bulgaria from 2011 — 2013, it’s fascinating to see how many people, especially in Western Europe, still associate the country with mafia violence and just outright danger (I learned this from the typical responses of shock and awe I would get when people found out I was living in Sofia). Though it’s true Bulgaria was a very dangerous place in the 90’s, with a lot of Wild West style violence going on openly in the streets of Sofia, those days are long passed. Nevertheless, the image still persists 15 years later on the other side of the continent.*

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Post #9, 2014.10.24 | An Idiot’s Guide to the Future