Bunny Kinney, editor-in-chief, Dazed Beauty

How is social media influencing the beauty industry?

Social media to some extent has democratized the conversation around many parts of life and culture, but beauty is certainly a notable category. It has disrupted an old model by which publishers, editors or marketeers have previously defined the trends. Now there’s a landscape of people, particularly young people, who don’t require that in order to get their ideas or discover new ones. Through this democracy we allow for more visibility and representation of groups that might previously have been marginalized, silenced or not visible at all, certainly within mainstream fashion and beauty communications. Now brands are responding. They realize it’s important for people to see themselves and connect with people who are portrayed in media and the beauty industry.

What beauty themes are you noticing?

I think that representation, inclusivity and diversity are still fundamental to the interests and values of the Dazed audience at large. If you’re a beauty brand or publisher and you don’t consider inclusivity and representation, then you’re pretty much completely ignorant of the way the world is moving. It’s hard because it looks like it’s a trend, especially now when mainstream brands are finding ways to weave it into their narratives through advertising, but if it’s not executed authentically it may be greeted with a degree of cynicism. Sometimes representation doesn’t have to be spoken of explicitly, it should just be inherent.

The topic of sustainability has been a huge point of concern over the last few years, if not longer. Across the board we’re moving from what felt like a message about individuality and expressing yourself to what is good for the world. What I’m noticing is an interesting … I want to call it a ‘counter movement’—that’s the next phase of this individualism—whereby people are really thinking about the world around them. I think now it’s about striking a balance between one’s own desires to be better, and being aware that that is going to be part of something bigger. Now suddenly it matters what you’re doing for the world and the community you’re in. We realize we need to work together to save the future. That’s the space we’re heading towards in the next few years.

Does this tie in with generation Z values?

Young people are seeing that they are inheriting a world that is in danger of expiring and that a lot of decisions made by older generations will directly impact them, and not necessarily for the better. In response to that, we are seeing a greater sense of value and interest in having a point of view and being an activist. I feel that’s the natural by-product of starting to feel slightly existential about what we’re all here for. As a young person, if you’re seeing all these decisions being made that will impact you that can be really scary. The pragmatic and necessary response is to try to pursue a life where you can fix those problems and you can make the world better not just for yourself but perhaps for the generations that will come afterwards. The urgency of reinforcing those values is greater than ever before.

The features on Dazed Beauty really push the extremes of what beauty can look like. They include an artist who finds beauty in the grotesque and a makeup artist who explores “mutant beauty.” What is beauty through the lens of Dazed?

There’s an anti-beauty movement going on that’s looking at more extreme manners of transformation, whether that’s through cosmetics, surgery or technology. Something we’re seeing now is this alien-beauty trend, and I think that’s just a natural evolution of how people intellectualize and creatively explore any aspects of culture. People recognize beauty as a way of transformation. Being scary or ugly is part of that. Beauty is not synonymous with looking good, because looking good is a subjective idea. Beauty is not a fixed concept. There’s an artistry to what they’re doing too.