29 Human appearance

Human physical appearance is the outward phenotype or look of human beings.

Aestheticism was an art movement in the late 19th century which privileged the aesthetic value of literature, music and the arts over their socio-political functions. According to Aestheticism, art should be produced to be beautiful, rather than to serve a moral, allegorical, or other didactic purpose, a sentiment exemplified by the slogan "art for art's sake." Aestheticism originated in 1860s England with a radical group of artists and designers, including William Morris and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. It flourished in the 1870s and 1880s, gaining prominence and the support of notable writers such as Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde.

Alternative modeling is a branch of the modeling industry that features models who do not conform to mainstream ideals of beauty. Alternative models are often niche-specific, with a personal style that represents subcultures like goth, steampunk, and fetishism. An alternative model may, for example, be tattooed, pierced, or have other body modifications, have distinctively subcultural hair such as being shaved, dyed a distinctively unnatural color, or styled into a mohawk or dreadlocks. Alternative modeling can be clothed or unclothed.

Barefoot is the most common term for the state of not wearing any footwear.

"Big Beautiful Woman" is a euphemism for an overweight woman.

Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), occasionally still called dysmorphophobia, is a mental disorder characterized by the obsessive idea that some aspect of one's own body part or appearance is severely flawed and therefore warrants exceptional measures to hide or fix it. In BDD's delusional variant, the flaw is imagined. If the flaw is actual, its importance is severely exaggerated. Either way, thoughts about it are pervasive and intrusive, and may occupy several hours a day, causing severe distress and impairing one's otherwise normal activities. BDD is classified as a somatoform disorder, and the DSM-5 categorizes BDD in the obsessive–compulsive spectrum, and distinguishes it from anorexia nervosa.

Body horror or biological horror is a subgenre of horror that intentionally showcases grotesque or psychologically disturbing violations of the human body. These violations may manifest through aberrant sex, mutations, mutilation, zombification, gratuitous violence, disease, or unnatural movements of the body. Body horror was a description originally applied to an emerging subgenre of North American horror films, but has roots in early Gothic literature and has expanded to include other media.

Body image is a person's thoughts, feelings and perception of the aesthetics or sexual attractiveness of their own body. The concept of body image is used in a number of disciplines, including neuroscience, psychology, medicine, psychiatry, psychoanalysis, philosophy, cultural and feminist studies; the media also often uses the term. Across these disciplines, there is no single consensus definition, but broadly speaking body image consists of the ways people view themselves; their memories, experiences, assumptions, and comparisons about their own appearances; and their overall attitudes towards their own respective heights, shapes, and weights—all of which are shaped by prevalent social and cultural ideals.

Breast binding or chest binding is the flattening of breasts with constrictive materials such as cloth strips, purpose-built undergarments, often using spandex or other synthetic fiber, and shirts layered from tight to loose.

Buttock cleavage is minor exposure of the buttocks and the intergluteal cleft between them, often because of low-rise pants. The crena is a formal term for the cleft between the buttocks.

Cardiofaciocutaneous (CFC) syndrome is an extremely rare genetic disorder, and is one of the RASopathies. It was first described in 1986.

Cleavage is the narrow depression or hollow between the breasts of a woman. The superior portion of cleavage may be accentuated by clothing such as a low-cut neckline that exposes the division, and often the term is used to describe the low neckline itself, instead of the term décolletage. Joseph Breen, head of the U.S. film industry's Production Code Administration, coined the term in its current meaning when evaluating the 1943 film The Outlaw, starring Jane Russell. The term was explained in Time magazine on August 5, 1946. It is most commonly used in the parlance of Western female fashion to refer to necklines that reveal or emphasize décolletage.

The intermammary cleft or intermammary sulcus or sulcus intermammarius is a surface feature of males and females that marks the division of the two breasts with the sternum (breastbone) in the middle. The International Federation of Associations of Anatomists (IFAA) uses the terms "sulcus intermammarius" or "intermammary cleft" when referring to the area between the breasts.

A comb over or combover is a hairstyle commonly worn by balding men in which the hair is grown long and combed over the bald area to minimize the appearance of baldness. Sometimes the parting is lowered so that more hair can be used to cover the balding area.

A dandy is a man who places particular importance upon physical appearance, refined language, and leisurely hobbies, pursued with the appearance of nonchalance, in his cult of the Self. A dandy could be a self-made man who strove to imitate an aristocratic lifestyle despite coming from a middle-class background, especially in late 18th- and early 19th-century Britain.

A deformity, dysmorphism, or dysmorphic feature is a major abnormality in the shape of a body part or organ compared to the normal shape of that part.

The dimples of Venus are sagittally symmetrical indentations sometimes visible on the human lower back, just superior to the gluteal cleft. They are directly superficial to the two sacroiliac joints, the sites where the sacrum attaches to the ilium of the pelvis. An imaginary line joining both dimples of Venus passes over the spinous process of the second sacral vertebra.

Fashion icons are influential people who introduce new styles which spread throughout fashion culture and become part of fashion. They initiate a new style which others may follow. These influential people may be famous personalities such as political leaders, celebrities, or sports personalities. For example, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was a fashion icon, and her famous Pink Chanel suit is one of the most referenced and revisited of all of her items of clothing. Twiggy was an It girl, she was a teenaged model and fashion icon of Swinging Sixties.

Jewellery or jewelry consists of decorative items worn for personal adornment, such as brooches, rings, necklaces, earrings, pendants, bracelets, and cufflinks. Jewellery may be attached to the body or the clothes. From a western perspective, the term is restricted to durable ornaments, excluding flowers for example. For many centuries metal such as gold often combined with gemstones, has been the normal material for jewellery, but other materials such as shells and other plant materials may be used.

A macaroni in mid-18th-century England was a fashionable fellow who dressed and even spoke in an outlandishly affected and epicene manner. The term pejoratively referred to a man who "exceeded the ordinary bounds of fashion" in terms of clothes, fastidious eating, and gambling. He mixed Continental affectations with his English nature, like a practitioner of macaronic verse, laying himself open to satire:There is indeed a kind of animal, neither male nor female, a thing of the neuter gender, lately [1770] started up among us. It is called a macaroni. It talks without meaning, it smiles without pleasantry, it eats without appetite, it rides without exercise, it wenches without passion.

Macrocephaly-capillary malformation (M-CM) is a multiple malformation syndrome causing abnormal body and head overgrowth and cutaneous, vascular, neurologic, and limb abnormalities. Though not every patient has all features, commonly found signs include macrocephaly, congenital macrosomia, extensive cutaneous capillary malformation, body asymmetry, polydactyly or syndactyly of the hands and feet, lax joints, doughy skin, variable developmental delay and other neurologic problems such as seizures and low muscle tone.

In fashion, the midriff is the human abdomen. The midriff is exposed when wearing a crop top or some forms of swimwear or underwear. Cholis worn by Indian women expose a section of midriff, usually 4 to 5 inches.

A model is a person with a role either to promote, display or advertise commercial products or to serve as a visual aid for people who are creating works of art or to pose for photography. Though models are predominantly female, there are also male models, especially to model clothing. Models may work professionally or casually.

Put on airs, also give airs, put in airs, give yourself airs. Colloquial phrase meant to describe a person who acts superior, or one who behaves as if they are more important than others. It is derived from the French word "air" - meaning appearance, and was first used in the 1500s. Variations of the phrase were used throughout the 1700s. The phrase appears in the 1911 Dictionary of French and English by John Bellows. It appears under the entry for the French word "Poseur" meaning to pose, and more specifically "poseur: a person who pretends to be what he or she is not: an affected or insincere person".

Sexual selection in humans concerns the concept of sexual selection, introduced by Charles Darwin as an element of his theory of natural selection, as it affects humans. Sexual selection is a biological way one sex chooses a mate for the best reproductive success. Most compete with others of the same sex for the best mate to contribute their genome for future generations. This has shaped our evolution for many years, but reasons why humans choose their mates are hardly understood. Sexual selection is quite different in non-human animals than humans as they feel more of the evolutionary pressures to reproduce and can easily reject a mate. The role of sexual selection in human evolution has not been firmly established although neoteny has been cited as being caused by human sexual selection. It has been suggested that sexual selection played a part in the evolution of the anatomically modern human brain, i.e. the structures responsible for social intelligence underwent positive selection as a sexual ornamentation to be used in courtship rather than for survival itself, and that it has developed in ways outlined by Ronald Fisher in the Fisherian runaway model. Fisher also stated that the development of sexual selection was "more favourable" in humans.

Syringomas are benign eccrine sweat duct tumors, typically found clustered on eyelids, although they may also be found in the armpits, abdomen, chest, neck, scalp, or groin area, including genitals, in a symmetric pattern. They are skin-colored or yellowish firm, rounded bumps, 1–3 mm in diameter, and may be confused with xanthoma, milia, hidrocystoma, trichoepithelioma, and xanthelasma. They are more common in women and are most commonly found in middle-aged Asian women. While they can present at any time in life, they typically present during adolescence. They are usually not associated with any other symptoms, although can sometimes cause itchiness or irritation.

A toupée is a hairpiece or partial wig of natural or synthetic hair worn to cover partial baldness or for theatrical purposes. While toupées and hairpieces are typically associated with male wearers, some women also use hairpieces to lengthen existing hair, or cover a partially exposed scalp.

Tucking is a technique whereby an individual hides the crotch bulge of the penis and testicles so that they are not conspicuous through clothing.

Xanthelasma is a sharply demarcated yellowish deposit of cholesterol underneath the skin. It usually occurs on or around the eyelids. While they are neither harmful to the skin nor painful, these minor growths may be disfiguring and can be removed. There is a growing body of evidence for the association between xanthelasma deposits and blood low-density lipoprotein levels and increased risk of atherosclerosis.