BEAUTY IN DIFFERENT CULTURES: Representation of women through the editorial of the fashion editorial of vougue magazine in paris, america and brazil between 2006 and 2007. Monica More PETROSKI 1 Gabriela GAMA 2 Joana CUNHA 3 Monique VANDRESEN 4 1 Universidade do Minho monica@monicapetroski.com 2 Universidade do Minho mgama@ics.uminho.pt 3 Universidade do Minho jcunha@det.uminho.pt 4 Universidade do Estado de Santa Catarina ABSTRACT This article aims to present and discuss the representation of the beauty of women in different cultures through the fashion editorials of Vogue magazine published in the United States, France and Brazil between 2006 and 2007. The purpose is to question the role of the fashion in the construction of the concept of beauty. Women's magazines seduce and manipulate the readers with an idea. The methodology is based on the fundamentals of semiotics, with emphasis on Semiotics and Discourse ‘École de Paris’, made by Algirdas Julien Greimas. You can see that the three studied societies express favoritism by the Caucasian models, but also by the classical beauty. KEYWORDS Semiotics, beauty, culture, fashion, women. INTRODUCTION (Calibri, 12 points, bold, line spacing single, space after 6 pt) Women's magazines have been much discussed in the scientific field by several researchers such as Ferguson (1983), Winship (1978), Ballast and Beetham (1993). Through fashion magazines it possible to identify pictures of a society and culture in which they operate. According Ballast and Beetham (1993), these magazines are bright objects for analysis and criticism, an understanding of awareness of a group or society. In addition, many readers are attracted by the representation of women in magazines even when the female representation is a conservative or submissive ones. According to Ferguson, women's magazines are one of the most significant institutions of our days. The images of fashion and advertising, such as the textual universe contribute to change both psychological and social codes of human beings. Women, especially, according to Wolf (1992:81) “are deeply affected by what their magazines tell them because these publications are everything that most women have access when it comes to their own mass sensitivity”. Magazines contribute to the evolution of beauty. An important tool for study of a magazine is the fashion editorials. A fashion editorial "is a composition that organizes elements in search of a style or more specifically in a global climate of the photo that reflects a style” (Joffily, 1991:103) that influences the behavior of the reader. The images published are generally the claim of body and the essential beauty. It is possible that "women identify the outside world in themselves and for themselves in the world" (Ballast and Beetham, 1993:30). So the media is an important mean of communication to observe the habits and customs of a society as well as identify