Muy hermosa.
"100 Years of Beauty: Puerto Rico" is the latest installment of WatchCut Video's 100 Years of Beauty series. This time, the looks of each decade are separated into trends from Puerto Rico and New York.
"Two million people live in Puerto Rico's capital city, San Juan. 1,070,558 million people of Puerto Rican descent live in the NYC area," Christopher Chan, WatchCut's visual anthropologist, told BuzzFeed.
"By putting two histories together side-by-side, we see how complexly they are entangled. We see how migrants to New York bring with them the spirit of the island, but also how styles that emerge in Harlem or the Bronx also recirculate back 'home' to Puerto Rico. It's time to start complicating the idea that one people come from one place, when many of us in the diaspora feel like we always float between two."
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In the 1910s, the Puerto Rico look of a loose, "undone" updo was inspired by Luisa Capetillo, while the more regal look in New York was inspired by Isabel Gonzalez.
Capetillo was one of Puerto Rico's most famous labor rights activists, while Gonzalez was an activist who helped to pave the way for Puerto Ricans to gain U.S. citizenship.
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In the '20s, women in Puerto Rico wore their hair out of their faces in an unfussy manner, while those in New York went for coiffed curls.
The people living in Puerto Rico were slowly migrating out of the country, while those living in New York were working toward civil rights.
WatchCut Video / Via youtube.com
In the '30s in Puerto Rico, Julia de Burgos was the inspiration for the tightly curled hair, pencil-thin eyebrows, and dark lips. The "girl next door" look in New York was inspired by Diosa Costello in the musical Too Many Girls.
Julia de Burgos was a poet who also served as the secretary general of the Daughters of Freedom, the women's branch of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party.
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