[QUOTE=Guinastasia]
…Or the Romanov girls?
Maria, Tatiana (seated), Anastasia and Olga
[/QUOTE]
Tatiana has a marvellously interesting face, but you’d have to forego kids because of the hemophilia thing. Darn. 
[QUOTE=Rocketeer]
Tatiana has a marvellously interesting face, but you’d have to forego kids because of the hemophilia thing. Darn.
[/QUOTE]
I couldn’t help noticing that someone has given her a pearl necklace.
[QUOTE=nyctea scandiaca]
What was in fashion back then is a lot different from what is considered attractive today. These women were probably considered very pretty in their day. Keep in mind their clothes covered almost all of them, so you’re not seeing any breasts, legs and arms like you’re used to seeing. Also their hairstyles are all upswept with poofy bangs, which was the fashion. That would not look good today, but was the fashion then. These women could use eyebrow-tweezing and some makeup, and some modern clothes and hair, and they would look perfectly lovely.
Also the second photo you posted is all of old Mormon women, so that doesn’t really serve as a good example.
Also, here are a selection of photos from the era of beautiful ladies.
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
[/QUOTE]
These clearly seem fake to me, at least the first few. They are not all actual old photos, correct?
[QUOTE=Zsofia]
Seriously, Shagnasty, it isn’t your GQ versus IMHO style… that was just kind of revolting. And I’ve never felt that way about you. These are real women, you know? I feel you either can’t see past the hairstyles or you can’t get over the “screwing my great grandma” thing, because otherwise I can’t square it with what I know of you. I mean, really?
[/QUOTE]
I think where Shagnasty was going with this was to express his admiration for the success of our nation’s selective breeding program, which in a mere four generations has turned Caucasian women from homely to modestly attractive. I think we can expect that in four more generations, Caucausian women will be so universally stunning that people will look back on Brigitte Bardot as a wizened old hag.
[QUOTE=Zsofia]
If I gave you the pictures he took of me and told you it was a young miner boy, circa 1870, you’d totally believe me. (A boy because of my short hair and pants, not because I’m that butt ugly.)
[/QUOTE]
Exactly. Male and female faces are very similar - it’s the cues we get from mannerisms, makeup, styles of clothing etc. (boobs too of course 
) which tell us what gender someone is. Modern girls would look just like these ladies without all of the ‘beauty’ aids we use.
[QUOTE=bordelond]
One specific difference not yet pointed out in detail is the lack of modern-day eye makeup – not even shadow, necessarily. A little eyeliner and mascara makes a significant difference.
[/QUOTE]
That’s part of it. Exposure times for 1800s-type cameras were several minutes long. Some of these ladies were accustomed to holding a pose for a really long time, but they had to blink now and then, which undoes the benefits of any kind of eye makeup.
[QUOTE=Shalmanese]
I think the photographic limitations are a red herring. paintings don’t look sexy until the mid 20th century either. In fact, I had assumed there was just something about painting faces that made it hard to realistically depict women until I started seeing post 1950s representational art and I was stunned by some of the beauties.
[/QUOTE]
You should Google “Goya” AND “La maja desnuda” sometime. I’d provide a link, but it’s pretty NSFW. It was painted in 1800.
Also, you’re only looking on fine arts. Look at commercial, advertising and illustration to get a better gauge of popular female glamour, esp. Gibson, Loomis, Leyendecker et al for evidence that our great grandfathers liked the same kinda gals we like, not the prairie-dressed Texas polygamist gals we’ve seen so much of lately.
[QUOTE=Shagnasty]
I wouldn’t screw any of them with somebody else’s dick and there is no way in hell I would kiss any of them without tens of thousands of dollars in dental work.
[/QUOTE]
No NastyShag for Shagnasty?
What poor imaginations some of you have. I can easily imagine each of those sorority girls wearing 2008-style makeup, hairstyles, and clothing. Put a plastic cup of brew in their hands and an “I’m a sloppy drunk party girl” expression on their faces and you’d never know they weren’t waiting in line to audition for “Girls Gone Wild.”
When they took my Basic Training group photo in 1994 our drill sergeants forbid us to smile. We were wearing our BDUs with caps and our Army-issued glasses, if we had them.
One of my fellow soldiers sent her photo home to her mother, who asked her, “Which ones are the girls?”
It was an all-female platoon.
Seriously, the gratuitious slams at these young ladies’ looks don’t put you gentlemen in a very good light.
[QUOTE=neutron star]
Now this picture of Winston Churchill’s mom from the related CS thread, on the other hand, is quite nice!
[/QUOTE]
And to think some people question why it’s required to carry condoms on all Time Machines!
For those who aren’t aware of Federal Time Machine Regulations; in 2078 a law was passed requiring the stowage of condoms on all time-excursions when it became clear that many men who ventured into the mid-to-late 19th Century were completely confident (based on historical photographs) that all women of that time would be so hideously ugly, unhealthy, and unshapely as to make any sexual relations with them out of the question.
Then Churchill’s mom.
[QUOTE=elmwood]
The Wives of Brigham Young
[/QUOTE]
Well, apparently even by the standards of the time, these weren’t considered beauties…
From “Roughing It”, by Mark Twain
*Our stay in Salt Lake City amounted to only two days, and therefore we
had no time to make the customary inquisition into the workings of
polygamy and get up the usual statistics and deductions preparatory to
calling the attention of the nation at large once more to the matter.
I had the will to do it. With the gushing self-sufficiency of youth I
was feverish to plunge in headlong and achieve a great reform here–until
I saw the Mormon women. Then I was touched. My heart was wiser than my
head. It warmed toward these poor, ungainly and pathetically “homely”
creatures, and as I turned to hide the generous moisture in my eyes, I
said, “No–the man that marries one of them has done an act of Christian
charity which entitles him to the kindly applause of mankind, not their
harsh censure–and the man that marries sixty of them has done a deed of
open-handed generosity so sublime that the nations should stand uncovered
in his presence and worship in silence.” *
[QUOTE=Sunspace]
Because of this thread, I spent my time on the subway this morning imagining what the people around me would look like dressed in Victorian costume.
[/QUOTE]
Speaking of imagination: Could it be that men’s powers of imagination might have atrophied somewhat in the course of the last century or so?
[QUOTE=spifflog]
These clearly seem fake to me, at least the first few. They are not all actual old photos, correct?
[/QUOTE]
It is certainly possible to fake old photos, but do you have any particular reason for thinking these are fake? Or is this a whoosh somehow?
I agree that with a smile, some modern clothes and hair and several of the sorority girls would be attractive. As for Brigham Young’s wives-- well, most of them are pretty old and the photos are terrible. But a few of them could easily be spruced up a bit.
[QUOTE=awldune]
It is certainly possible to fake old photos, but do you have any particular reason for thinking these are fake? Or is this a whoosh somehow?
[/QUOTE]
Actually, Miss Rigl, number one I believe, looks to have pierced ears, which would clearly make her a more recent gal. From that lens, on my part, I though others looked like fakes.
[QUOTE=spifflog]
Actually, Miss Rigl, number one I believe, looks to have pierced ears, which would clearly make her a more recent gal.
[/QUOTE]
No offense, but that’s nonsense. Ear piercing goes back millennia, and was popular in the U.S. into the 1920’s, when clip-on earrings became popular. If anything, the pierced ears support the purported age of the photo.
[QUOTE=Gary T]
No offense, but that’s nonsense. Ear piercing goes back millennia, and was popular in the U.S. into the 1920’s, when clip-on earrings became popular. If anything, the pierced ears support the purported age of the photo.
[/QUOTE]
None taken. But I believe you are incorrect. While piercing goes back for hundreds of years, it has not been a western practice until the 1960’s. And while there was some piercing earlier, it was not popular at all. In any event, I have no idea how it would “support the purported age of the photo”, as ear piercing is much more popular now than ever.
[QUOTE=spifflog]
None taken. But I believe you are incorrect. While piercing goes back for hundreds of years, it has not been a western practice until the 1960’s. And while there was some piercing earlier, it was not popular at all. In any event, I have no idea how it would “support the purported age of the photo”, as ear piercing is much more popular now than ever.
[/QUOTE]
That’s just silly. Victorian ladies are always wearing earbobs!
ETA - my grandmother, who is 92, has had pierced ears all her life. Certainly before the 60’s. She’s wearing earrings in her wedding pictures from the 30’s.
[QUOTE=Guinastasia]
Empress Carlotta of Mexico (aka, Archduchess Charlotte of Austria, Princess of Belgium)
[/QUOTE]
Ye Gads!! What’s up with her date?! He’s downright creepy.
[QUOTE=spifflog]
None taken. But I believe you are incorrect. While piercing goes back for hundreds of years, it has not been a western practice until the 1960’s. And while there was some piercing earlier, it was not popular at all. In any event, I have no idea how it would “support the purported age of the photo”, as ear piercing is much more popular now than ever.
[/QUOTE]
My paternal grandmother had he ears pierced shortly after birth, maternal grandmother at about age eight, which would have been roughly 1932.