Spend an hour in the Museum of Enduring Beauty
Foot binding, neck rings, lip discs
Muzium Kecantikan, on the top floor of the Muzium Rakyat on Jalan Kota, on the hill below St Paul's. One floor, one subject: what cultures have done to bodies in the name of beauty.
Why it's unique
This is a museum entirely about body modification: foot binding, neck rings, lip discs, tooth filing, tattooing, corsetry and skull shaping, arranged as a comparative argument about what different cultures have called beautiful. It opened in 1996 on the top floor of the Muzium Rakyat, the People's Museum, in the old Historical City Municipal Council building.
Museums of tattooing and of costume exist in many countries. A state museum whose entire premise is that beauty standards are historically contingent, told through what people have done to their own bodies, does not have an obvious counterpart, and the case for that is stated here at national strength rather than global. What you get for an hour is a single sustained argument rather than a collection.
Before you go
It is on the third floor and most visitors stop at the first two, which are a governance museum and a kite museum, so any queue is other people's mistake.
The foot-binding section pairs directly with Wah Aik Shoemaker, fifteen minutes' walk away: see the X-rays here, then go and hold the shoe. The displays are unvarnished 1990s museum practice, which is part of why it lands. Entry is cheap and it opens daily, roughly 9am to 5pm, with no booking.