Up to the 19th century, skin whiteness was popular within the upper classes, hinting at a noble life of leisure spent indoors, as dark skin was mostly associated with labouring in fields all day.
The trend for whiteness halted when the Industrial Revolution was born, meaning that, by the 19th century, the working classes had moved ‘into the shadows’ as they lived in cramped dwellings and worked in mines and factories. Any leisure time available was taken indoors, to avoid the smog and soot of the streets. Children developed rickets and other bone deformities. Then, sun radiation became friendlier when, in early 1900, Niels Finsen was awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine after using ‘phototherapy’ to treat rickets and the world recognised that sunlight was crucial for bone development.
In the West, tanning was only made chic years later, when Madame Coco Chanel got tanned on a Mediterranean cruise and set a new precedent of beauty. To common people, this look was aspirational rather than achievable as holidays were rare, and went no further than the nearest lake, hill or seaside.
The end of the Second World War then gave birth to a new and not so famous positive link connected to the sun: the US soldiers returning to their home country from either Europe or Asia were sun tanned and this led to the link that being tanned was a symbol of commitment to stand for freedom and human rights.
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