While waiting for a connecting flight from Paris to Bulgaria where I presented a six-hour course on cosmetic dentistry, I was instantly struck by the October 2010 model the editors chose to be on the cover of French
Vogue. Or to be More precise, the only part of her face that was not covered by a mask was her gapped tooth smile. The profound visual statement the editors of this huge issue were making was that the new trend of beauty is indeed changing.
Marking a shift from the staid trends in fashion models who often showcased perfectly aligned faces with straight white teeth, the fashion and entertainment industry is changing again and is now celebrating the uber-natural. This year, there is no doubt that we have seen more models either with a natural gap between the centeral incisors or a dentist produced gap. In the 1950s Brigitte Bardot pioneered the idea that natural is beautiful and flashed her gap-toothed smile.
Even today, Lauren Hutton refuses to have her gap narrowed and has had an increase in work within the past year thanks in part to her diastema, the dental terminology for gap teeth. I question if we are yet again altering our appreciation for what is beautiful... or if this is a trend being promoted only by fashion and entertainment industries.
What often drives trends in beauty is the desire to be one of the elite. Going back to the Elizabethan era, Desmond Morris discusses in his book "The Naked Woman" how blacked teeth became fashionable because only the wealthy could afford sugar which ultimately would cause ones teeth to rot and discolor. It became a status symbol to have black teeth like the Queen because it showed that one could afford the sugar candies.
Today we look at high fashion magazines, movies, and TV to dictate what is beautiful and in 2010, diastema was everywhere. We saw gap-tooth actress Anna Paquin from "True Blood" on the cover of September's Rolling Stone magazine, music icon Madonna led a fashion campaign for Dolce and Gabbana, and rising models Georgia Jagger, Jessica Hart, Ashley Smith, and "It" girl Laura Stone graced the covers of magazines and couture ad campaigns.
New York City's Mercedes Benz Fashion Week was abuzz in Spetember with casting directors flocking to models with gap teeth. Fashion designer David Delfin, who had a space created in his front teeth as a metaphor for the separation he was feeling for his diseased father, had named his spring 2009 collection "Diastema."
Assessing this new trend of keeping gap teeth in tack or even having front teeth separated by a Dentist is "America's Next Top Model" cycle 15 runner-up Chelset Hersey. On the Septemeber 22, 2010 episode, Hersey had .25mm shaved off both front teeth per Tyra's recommendation. Interestingly enought, Tyra had the opposite procedure done to cycle 6 winner Danielle Evans, just a few years ago.
With changing trends and the desire to have the "in" look, our society has been overly concerned with media smiles and trying to copy them without regard to how their individual appearance may be different front he person they would like to copy. The best cosmetic dentists and plastic surgeons never tell a patient they could look better unless the patient wants a new look or seeks and opinion about how to change his or her appearance.
Although the gapped-tooth look had not yet come to Bulgaria, I did notice while sightseeing that there seemed to be a universal agreement that earth-tone makeup should be evenly applied to the entire face. I thought at first these young women were actresses in a play, but as I continued walking I realized that the stage would have to hold a cast of thousands if this were true.
If society's concept of body types and facial appearances has does change over time, it has appeared to me that today's concept of self-image is certainly about "self"... and that "self" wants to stand out as never before. Hence, casting directors for the Paris, Milan and New York runways are looking more and more for models making a statement about their bodies as well as their smiles. Tattoos, different shaped noses, crooked teeth and now, gapped teeth seem to be in demand.
In recent years I have seen an increase in demand for more natural looking veneers. The concern is that patients don't want their teeth to look too perfect and "chicklit" like. So many more consumers now want their veneers to have all the characteristics of natural teeth, blemishes and all. But don't expect to see consumers staying away from the orthodontist...fashion and trends in society are just that, and for most of us we depend on conservative opinions as to what our appearance should look like to be successful.
And this conclusion is backed by thousands of studies of what it takes to be successful in both the business and social world we live in. So if the desire for gapped teeth sticks around long enough to be more than just a trend, then I expect to see a full shift toward natural beauty of all kinds evolving into our culture for years to come.
