Arabelle Sicardi
My work as a writer and general creative focuses on the relationship between beauty and power. I am interested in exploring the bargain between beauty and politics. I write about the beauty industry, queer identity, futurity, mythology, survival, and feminist theory. I'm a genderqueer Taiwanese American based in New York. I am also extremely a Capricorn.
My Writing
Selected Clippings
I have written for teenVOGUE, ALLURE, them., ROOKIE, ELLE, Hazlitt, Dazed, i-D, Racked, Jezebel, Broadly, BuzzFeed, and more. I was BuzzFeed's Beauty Editor at the age of 21 before I decided to become a full-time freelancer.
Seductive Doom
June, 2018
The architecture of public baths is about statecraft as much as wellness. Water is transformative, a medium of both sacred conversion and political indoctrination, and it flows easily between both.
Perfume, Power, and God
August, 2016
Examining perfume’s centuries-old holy war: what’s the power of smell and how is it linked to politics? And have they always been linked like so?
Beauty is Broken
December, 2015
Beauty is failing us, because gender already has. But what keeps me coming back to it is that I still think it can be recovered. I think beauty can mean more than what it was ever meant to, that it can illuminate parts of people they didn’t know they had or deserved or even wanted.
