Images of beauty: Sex, race, age, and occupational analysis of fashion magazine covers

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to examine the manner in which fashion magazine covers portray ideal female and male images in various countries from western and eastern cultures. Content analysis of Vogue and GQ from four countries (the U.S.A., England, Korea and Japan) was conducted to determine whether a trend exists in presenting certain types of models. Overall, the characteristics of Vogue cover models were more homogeneous compared to GQ cover models in all four countries, with respect to sex, race, occupation and age. Perhaps the reason for this is that social standards for the ideal image are narrower for women than men. Thus, women would likely feel more pressure than men to create their appearance in keeping with the standards of beauty considered to be socially acceptable.