Video: 100 years of Korean Beauty – the birth of modern Korean Beauty Standards

Discover what happened in the past 100 years of Korean Beauty and the historical origin of many contemporary Korean Beauty Standards we still see today.

Every year, on August 15, Korea celebrates National Liberation Day. This day, which is known in Korean as 조국해방의 날 (Gwangbokjeol, literally “the day the light returned”), celebrates the liberation of Korea from 35 years of Japanese colonial rule in 1945.

To commemorate this important holiday, I wanted to show you how Korean Beauty looked like 100 years, back when Korea was under Japanese colonial rule.

In this new episode of my series on the history of Korean Beauty, we’re going to explore how Korean Beauty (and Korean Beauty Standards) moved away from the ancient confucian values of simplicity and purity, to embrace new modern ideals, that later went on to shape contemporary Korean Beauty as we know it today.