Cleopatra wore kohl, an eyeliner made from ground-up minerals. A relief in the tomb of the Egyptian nobleman Ptahhotep, who lived around 2400 B.C., shows him getting a pedicure. The search for beauty spans centuries and continents. Perhaps we are truly human when we come to believe that beauty is not so much in the eye, as in the heart, of the beholder. In fairy tales, only the pure of heart could discern the handsome prince in the ugly frog.
Enigma meaning full#
"She has a low forehead, a dull grey eye, a vast pendulous nose, a huge mouth, full of uneven teeth…Now in this vast ugliness resides a most powerful beauty which, in a very few minutes, steals forth and charms the mind, so that you end as I ended, in falling in love with her." "She is magnificently ugly," he wrote to his father. Silas Marner, Adam Bede, and The Mill on the Floss were behind her. Henry James met the English novelist George Eliot when she was 49 years old. With luck, the more we live and embrace the wide sweep of the world, the more generous our definition becomes. In an era of feminist and politically correct values, not to mention the closely held belief that all men and women are created equal, the fact that all men and women are not-and that some are more beautiful than others-disturbs, confuses, even angers.įor better or worse, beauty matters.
Studies suggest attractive people make more money, get called on more often in class, receive lighter court sentences, and are perceived as friendlier.
Enigma meaning skin#
From the Txikão warrior in Brazil painted in jaguar-like spots to Madonna in her metal bra, humanity revels in the chance to shed its everyday skin and masquerade as a more powerful, romantic, or sexy being.Īt its worst, beauty discriminates. I can pass on your genes."Īt its best, beauty celebrates. "It's a billboard saying 'I'm healthy and fertile. "Beauty is health," a psychologist tells me. Science examines beauty and pronounces it a strategy. "What they are asking for is high cheekbones and a stronger jaw." "People come to me and say: 'Doctor, make me beautiful,'" a plastic surgeon reveals. "Beauty is truth, truth beauty," wrote John Keats, although Anatole France thought beauty "more profound than truth itself." Philosophers frame it as a moral equation. We know it when we see it-or so we think. "By whose definition?" he snaps.ĭefine beauty? One may as well dissect a soap bubble. "I'm doing a story on beauty," I tell a prospective interview. What is beauty? We grope around the edges of the question as if trying to get a toe-hold on a cloud. Jeffry meets the edgy, almost belligerent, tone with a composed murmur. Faces fall and tears well as the refrain "You're not what we're looking for right now" extinguishes the conversation-and hope.Ĭonfronted with this, Rebecca from Providence tosses her dark hair and asks: "What are you looking for? Can you tell me exactly?" (Don't give up a sure thing like a well-paying Wall Street job for this roll of the dice, Jeffry advises.) Marsha from California wants to check out the East Coast vibes, while Andrea from Manhattan wants to know if she has what it takes to be a runway star. I've always wanted to be a model," Jessica says, beaming like a klieg light. "Do you like the camera?" she asks Jessica from New Jersey. A beginning model makes $1,500 a day those in the top tier, $25,000 stratospheric supermodels, such as Naomi Campbell, four times that. In a year, Jeffry will evaluate several thousand faces. "You know, the skinny girls in school who ate all the cheeseburgers and milk shakes they wanted and didn't gain an ounce. She's looking for youth: 13 to 19 years old. Jeffry is looking for height: at least five feet nine (1.8 meters).
Outside, young hopefuls wait for their big chance. Inside agency headquarters in New York, exquisite faces stare down from the covers of Vogue, Glamour, and Harper's Bazaar. As a scout for Ford, one of the world's top model agencies, Jeffry scans up to 200 young women every Thursday afternoon.
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