The Future Of Beauty

Anti-ageing laser showers, print-your-own blusher and topical Botox will soon be winging their way to your virtual shopping cart. We look at the beauty predictions shaping the way we look, here.

- Alice Du Parcq

Heard of the model Shudu? She’s the model of the moment. She loves Fenty Beauty lipstick and she’s busy negotiating partnerships with major brands. We’d love to interview her backstage at Fashion Week, except… she’s not real. She’s the world’s first digital supermodel – a cyber-generated 3D avatar designed by British photographer and visual artist Cameron-James Wilson.

This is the future of beauty and the next generation of digital pin-ups: a community of virtual humanoids that CameronJames believes will distort and challenge society’s perception of traditional icons. “As a photographer, I was taught to take away imperfections and realism with Photoshop, whereas 3D is about adding them,” he says. “In five years, I think avatars will have revolutionised the modelling world. They could be 2m tall; their bodies could look completely different. It will bring a different perspective to beauty diversity.” But as Shudu’s hologram will no doubt appear on a catwalk soon, what will be happening to us humans? What will our beauty landscape look like? Technology will be integrated everywhere, claims futurologist Dr James Bellini.

“Whether you’re shopping for a product online or ‘onstreet’, or having a procedure done at a clinic, your experience will involve virtual reality, augmented reality (AR) and mixedhybrid reality – all fused with human interaction,” he says. Scary or thrilling? We ask the beauty innovators what we can expect from the world of beauty in our lifetime, and beyond.

YOUR NEXT-GEN BATHROOM

If you’re scrolling through property sites, ignore how big the kitchen is – your bathroom is about to become a digitally fuelled personal beauty emporium.