The Philosophy
of Appearance
LOOKS is a feature documentary and an education platform about how we look, how we are seen and why it matters.
Discover the film
A Smile Doesn’t Have to Be Perfect to Be Attractive
Rakesh Julka runs Butterfly Dental Solutions, a company that supplies dental clinics across India, and…
We Look at Beauty Even When We Do Not Want It
A small experiment at a science festival in Utrecht has caught the eye doing something…
Not Every Crack Needs Gold
Photo: Irina Sabatina Tomoka Tsuchida repairs broken ceramics in Paris with natural urushi lacquer, and…
Every Face Has a Signature
Mike O’Donnell is Ireland’s only full-time court artist, and in many trials his drawing is…
A Good Drawing Looks Like the Artist, Not Like Me
Gala has spent years posing for artists, which means she has seen hundreds of versions…
Discover CeraThrive technology, which supports the brain-gut axis.
LOOKS Campaign
A Perfect Smile Takes One Click. A Natural One Takes the Decision Not to Use It
Katarzyna Knurowska designs smiles that draw the eye without giving away that anything was done….
People Do Not Look Like That
Łukasz Andrzejewski photographs people in black and white, in Opole, and books two or three…
| More articles
A Museum for Stories Told in Pictures
Why LOOKS Has No Villain
Should a Face Be Corrected, or Supported? Meet Our Expert.
Orthodontics is one of the few crafts that works on a face while the face…
The Voice We Smother Is the One We Wanted to Hear
Ewelina Pachnik works on the first impression that has nothing to do with a face….
How Much of a Face Can Medicine Actually Change? Meet Our Expert.
A blocked nose does not look like a problem with appearance. It looks like a…
The Best Result Is the One Nobody Can See
Niamh Davis tattoos skin in Arizona so that something stops being visible. Almost everything else…
What is LOOKS?
Watch the short video.
| More articles
Pretty Is a Word That Means Everything and Nothing
Joanna Nowicka shoots black and white portraits in Katowice, and people arrive at her studio…
A Hat Changes the Look in Your Eyes
Ane de Cocó makes hats by hand in Spain, to measure, for people who mostly…
Attraction or Perfect Beauty? What Actually Wins?
Modern culture suggests attractiveness is mainly about flawless beauty, perfect symmetry, expensive fashion, and current…
A Week on the Corner of a Mouth
Deirdre Nicholls sculpts people from life and paints landscapes in watercolour, and the two disciplines…
Is a Smile Part of the Architecture of a Face? Meet Our Expert.
Most people judge a smile the way they judge a photograph. They look at it…
Looksmaxxing and the Trap of the Single Scale
A generation of young men has started treating their own faces like a problem to…
The Idea Behind LOOKS, and Why It Is a Film and Not a Lecture
Whether we are talking about people, products, buildings, or digital experiences, appearance quietly runs more…
Older, Better, Stronger: Rethinking How We Age on the Outside
We have been sold a strange idea about aging. It says the body peaks young…
She Took the Faces Out of Her Portraits and People Still Recognise Themselves
Paulina Hojka makes portraits out of fabric scraps, and the faces in them are mostly…
A Pink Surgery Will Not Take a Red Suction Tip
Medplus.cz started in 2006 in Havířov with three products and a catalogue that fitted on…
The Met Is Reclaiming the Bodies Art History Left Out
The Metropolitan Museum’s big 2026 show puts the dressed body at the center of art…
Few Training Methods Truly Address This Aspect of Aging. Meet Our Expert.
How often does orthopedics come up in conversations about looking young? Most talk about aging…
One Millimetre and It Is No Longer You
Monie Szabó paints portraits in oil and graphite in Gothenburg, mostly in black and white,…
TikTok Just Admitted the Filter Was Changing the Face Behind It
TikTok has started blocking its most popular beauty filters for users under eighteen. The change…
Can Brain Health Influence a Youthful Appearance? Meet Our Expert.
Almost nobody wakes up thinking they should look after their brain in order to look…
Casting Yourself: What the Movies Quietly Know About Faces
Film directors understand something about appearance that most of us never stop to articulate. When…
Nobody Has Ever Seen the Back of Their Own Head
Craig Barnard makes portrait sculptures from life, which means he spends around twenty hours in…
Without LOOKS, Important Knowledge About Children’s Health and Appearance Might Never Reach Millions of Parents
Open the social media of many dental clinics and you will often find a close-up…
People Are Pushing on Their Own Teeth to Fix Their Faces
The latest viral route to a sharper jaw asks you to do almost nothing except…
What Besides Wrinkles Reveals the Age of the Face? Meet a LOOKS Expert.
Watch any animated cartoon and one thing becomes obvious fast: the human face is one…
Some Appearance-Related Problems Can Only Be Solved Psychologically
Even many plastic surgeons admit that a lot of patients should work through emotional issues…
The Airway Is the Story Almost Nobody Tells Parents
There is a moment that happens in orthodontic offices all over the world. A child…
Why Personality Alone Is Not Always Enough
Many of us were raised to believe appearance should not matter much. Society tends to…
Who Are We Trusting With Our Faces?
There is a paradox around the industries connected to appearance. Aesthetic medicine, fitness, cosmetic dentistry,…
People Put Off the Visit for Years Because They Do Not Want to Be Judged
Izabela Wilewska spends her days a few centimetres from other people’s faces. She is a…
Why Maintenance Beats Perfection Every Time
We tend to admire the wrong thing. We praise the person who looks spectacular at…
Dr Patrick Treacy on Safety and the Future of Aesthetic Medicine. Meet Our Expert.
The documentary LOOKS features Dr. Patrick Treacy, who served as Michael Jackson’s physician during the…
LOOKS and the Biggest Problem of Modern Education: Information Without Emotion
One of the biggest problems of modern education is surprisingly simple: information alone rarely changes…
Aesthetic Clinics and the Difference Between Style and Carelessness
One of the most interesting things in modern culture is the collapse of old appearance…
Your Face Is Always Speaking, Even When You Are Quiet
You can choose your words. You cannot easily choose what your appearance is saying while…
Appearance as a Shortcut to Social Status
Physical appearance is one of the fastest ways to build social status, even if that…
Orthodontics Is Bigger Than the Smile, So Why Do So Few People Know It
Ask a hundred people what an orthodontist does and ninety nine will say “straightens teeth.”…
What Really Motivates People to Pursue Aesthetic Treatments?
The self-improvement industry loves the idea of internal motivation. We are encouraged to believe our…
Longevity Does Not Guarantee a Youthful Appearance
One of the most common myths in wellness culture is that living longer automatically means…
Attractiveness Is Not Beauty, and That Is Good News
Most people quietly sort the world into pretty and not pretty. It is a short…
Human Appearance Is Not the Same as a Book Cover
Appearance touches one of the most basic human questions: who are we, and who do…
LOOKS is also a unique audiovisual form.
30% of the multimedia is a mix of different visual techniques: 3D and 2D animation, plus elements of drawing, painting, and sculptural styles.
Explore more about the project
Go deeper into the rest of the project – the people, the ideas and the events behind LOOKS.