On Thursday, Nowness kicked off their #DefineBeauty week, a special program looking at the provocation and politics of attraction. They got going with Vessel, a film about the work of Dazed Beauty favourite Sarah Sitkin, the LA artist who makes uncanny human body suits, and another film called Isosceles, a meditation on the male gaze from artist Amy Gwatkin. Although starkly different, both short films probe at the edges of beauty, and ask what it means to exist within our skin.

These lines of questioning are nothing new for our sister platform. Over the last few years, Nowness's series Define Beauty has asked a selection of talented directors to explore the topic of beauty in witty, concise and powerful meditations. During the next week, we'll be releasing three new Define Beauty films in collaboration with Nowness, an opportunity to platform our favourite filmmakers together, and to interrogate what the future of beauty looks like, on film.

In the meantime, to celebrate Nowness's #DefineBeauty week, some of our Dazed Beauty team have chosen their favourite offerings from the Define Beauty archive, and shared them with you below. 

Bunny Kinney - Editor in Chief, chooses Nipples

"The shame of intimacy affects so many of us. It's something that I'm constantly battling with," explains filmmaker and photographer Matt Lambert of his provocative film: Nipples. It breathlessly unmasks the scandal and contradiction of nipples in today's society, where women's nipples have become the subject of erasure and concealment on social media; while the male is let slip.


Isamaya FFrench - Creative Director, chooses Feel The Burn

London-based director Emile Rafael restages a scene from Robert Fiore and George Butler’s (partly scripted) 1977 documentary Pumping Iron, which follows the 100-day run-up to a pair of annual amateur and professional bodybuilding competitions, Mr. Universe and Mr. Olympia.


Ahmad Swaid - Dazed's Head of Social, chooses His Sweat 

Berlin-based director Matt Lambert delves into the sensual side of sweat. Here, the American filmmaker and photographer –known for his often-NSFW work exploring sex and intimacy – asks: exactly what it is about our most-prevalent bodily fluid that has so many feeling weak at the knees?


Amelia Abraham - Managing Editor, chooses Vessel

Not strictly a Define Beauty film, but the kick off film of Nowness' #DefineBeauty week, Vessel sees filmmaker Ryan Weatrowski capture the strange physicality of Sarah Sitkin's prosthetic 'vessels' and of Sitkin's thinking around them. Sitkin's skin suits beg the question: "have you ever wondered what it'd be like to be in someone's else's body?"


Nellie Eden - Associate Editor, chooses Names They Give Me (STFU)

By providing a low-risk communication platform to anyone with a WiFi connection, the internet has brought to light the darker –sometimes crueler – side of human nature. In Names They Give Me, Marie Schuller uses footage of dancer Remy Fox, known for her provocative performance style and unapologetic approach to female sexual empowerment, to contrast with the voices of the trolls that litter comments across her social media.


Ben Freeman - Art Director, chooses My Scars

Matthew Donaldson illuminates the narrative function of scars in this stripped-back portrait of British photographer Sam Barker, accompanied by intimate reflections from his lover.

Watch more from Define Beauty on Nowness