Too Beautiful To Be True by Meike Harde

These masks by German designer Meike Harde cover just the eyes and mouth, replacing the wearer’s features with idealised ones from the media.

Called Too Beautiful To Be True, the results are more disturbing than attractive.

See all our stories about masks and disguises here.

Here are some more details from the designer:

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German designer Meike Harde generated masks which picture the eye and mouth area correspond to the current ideal of beauty.

When put on, however, they cause a contortion of the face. This is meant to show that artificially produced beauty is not always beautiful; instead it can evoke the very opposite. Furthermore the pressure to be beautiful is to be questioned and denounced.

The installation “Too beautiful to be true” was developed on the occasion of the exhibition “Fine Arts” in Saarbruecken, Germany.

The visitors of the exhibition were free to take along an exemplar of the masks, which, not only inside the exhibition rooms, resulted in many unsettling reactions during the evening.

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• Design