Face places
Eyewear towns, barber streets, theatre homes and the places where face traditions live. 35 places so far.
South Asia
Living tradition, India, 1 face guideVrindavanKrishna's town in Braj, where Vaishnava devotees wear the vertical urdhva pundra tilak of clay.Living tradition, IndiaAmritsarThe city of the Golden Temple, the spiritual centre of Sikhism, where unshorn beards are part of faith.Living tradition, IndiaJaipurRajasthan's capital and jewellery city, maker of the bridal nath, the borla and other face ornaments.Theatre and dance makeup, IndiaKannur and the Theyyam countryNorth Kerala's Theyyam country, where ritual performers paint their faces to embody deities each winter.Theatre and dance makeup, IndiaKerala Kalamandalam, CheruthuruthyThe arts school on the Bharathappuzha river that trains Kathakali performers and makeup artists.Living tradition, IndiaKolkataThe city of Durga Puja, where married women smear each other with sindoor on the festival's last day.Living tradition, IndiaMon and the Konyak countryThe Konyak homeland of Nagaland, where the last men with face tattoos marking old headhunting rites still live.Style capital, IndiaMumbaiHome of the Hindi film industry, whose stars have made bindis, kajal-lined eyes and moustaches fashions across South Asia.Barber and beard culture, IndiaPushkar and RajasthanRajasthan's moustache culture, celebrated each autumn in the moustache contest at the Pushkar Fair.Theatre and dance makeup, IndiaUdupi and coastal KarnatakaThe coastal Karnataka home of Yakshagana, an all-night dance-drama of painted faces and towering crowns.Living tradition, IndiaVaranasiShiva's city on the Ganges, where the tilak and the three ash lines of the tripundra are applied at the ghats every morning.Living tradition, IndiaZiro valleyThe Apatani valley in Arunachal Pradesh, where women once wore facial tattoos and wooden nose plugs.
Southeast Asia
Living tradition, MyanmarMindat, Chin StateThe hill town in southern Chin State where the last generation of women with tattooed faces still live.Living tradition, MyanmarYangon and Myanmar's thanakaMyanmar, where women, children and many men wear pale yellow thanaka paste on their cheeks every day.
East Asia
Theatre and dance makeup, China, 1 face guideBeijingThe home of Peking opera, whose painted faces use colour to show loyalty, cunning, courage and the divine.Theatre and dance makeup, China, 1 face guideChengduSichuan's capital, home of the opera art of bian lian, face-changing, performed nightly in its teahouses.Theatre and dance makeup, Japan, 1 face guideKyotoJapan's old capital, birthplace of Kabuki and home of the maiko and geisha of Gion, with their white oshiroi.Eyewear district, JapanSabaeJapan's eyewear town in Fukui, which makes about 95 percent of Japanese-made glasses frames.Style capital, South KoreaSeoulThe centre of K-beauty, whose skincare-first looks, straight brows and soft gradient lips spread worldwide in the 2010s.Theatre and dance makeup, JapanTokyo and the Kabuki-zaGinza's Kabuki-za, the main stage of Kabuki and its painted kumadori faces.Eyewear district, ChinaWenzhouOne of China's four main eyewear production hubs, with frame factories clustered in its Ouhai district.
Sub-Saharan Africa
Living tradition, Nigeria, 1 face guideOyo and the Yoruba townsThe old Yoruba royal town of southwest Nigeria, in a region where facial marks once showed lineage and home town.Living tradition, EthiopiaJinka and the Lower Omo ValleyThe market town for the Lower Omo peoples of Ethiopia, among them the Mursi, whose women wear clay lip plates.
Europe
Style capital, France, 2 face guidesParisFashion capital where courtly beauty patches, rouge and pince-nez set styles, and the SILMO eyewear fair meets each autumn.Eyewear district, ItalyBelluno and the CadoreThe Alpine valleys of Belluno province, where Italy's eyewear industry began in 1878 and most Italian frames are still made.Barber and beard culture, TurkeyIstanbulA city of barbers, where the hot-towel shave, the trimmed beard and the moustache carry centuries of Ottoman and Turkish custom.Barber and beard culture, United KingdomJermyn Street and St James's, LondonThe London streets of old gentlemen's barbers and shaving shops, and the city where the Handlebar Club was founded in 1947.Style capital, ItalyMilanItaly's fashion city, headquarters of the world's largest eyewear group and host of the MIDO eyewear fair.Eyewear district, FranceMorez and the JuraThe Jura mountain town that became the capital of French eyewear, home of the Musée de la Lunette.Eyewear district, GermanyRathenowThe town on the Havel known as the cradle of German optics, where spectacles have been made since 1801.
North America
Eyewear district, United States, 1 face guideRochesterThe New York city where Bausch and Lomb developed the aviator and the Wayfarer under the Ray-Ban name.Living tradition, CanadaIqaluit, NunavutCapital of Nunavut and a centre of the revival of kakiniit, the traditional facial tattoos of Inuit women.