The New New Face

The New New Face

Madonna - Gaunt Body, Plump Face

Since Botox is now really just for 20 somethings that party too much, what the real beauties are going for is the New New Face...softer, plumper, fuller and babylike.

This New York Magazine Article has all the details.

In the end, the science of beauty seems to point to a few general parameters: We tend to like large eyes, high cheekbones, a small nose, a large smile, and a small chin. What the scientific literature doesn’t mention is that we like it all to be as young as possible. This wasn’t always the case. The Gibson Girl ideal of the early twentieth century, writes Daniel Delis Hill in Advertising to the American Woman, had the features of a mature, fully formed woman: “heavy lidded eyes accented with thick lashes; fine, high eyebrows, pronounced cheekbones and firm jawlines.” In the forties and fifties, the most successful models of the day—Dovima, Lisa Fonssagrives, Suzy Parker—were elegant, haughty, aristocratic, especially when photographed by Irving Penn or Richard Avedon. The sixties and seventies brought a sea change that created a younger beauty ideal, but the aesthetic was more casual than adolescent.

But in the last ten years, perhaps with the coming of Britney Spears, the age of the ideal has dropped precipitously. Now both fashion and celebrity magazines are filled with images of teenagers—whether they’re Eastern European models or tanned California reality stars. Their faces are plump and dewy and flushed with youth. As thin as their bodies are, they still haven’t entirely shed the baby fat in their faces. This, it seems, is what women in their forties and fifties are now after: baby fat.

Recently I had dinner with an elegant friend of mine, a lady of a certain age, who despite her 90 pound body, had a lovely, glowing and I noticed quite plump and youthful face. She looked gorgeous.

Unfortunately, I'm still so old school that I've skipped the botox and gone straight to gourmet cuisine and fine wine: Past a certain age, to paraphrase Catherine Deneuve, it’s either your fanny or your face. And believe me...I've got the derriere to prove it!