"OMG, I love your lips!"

I don't want to be perfect, I want to be an individual".

- Kelly Osbourne.

A few days ago, while walking to the grocery store in my grand mother's locality to get some cheese and crackers (oh yeah, good stuff), I met an old friend of a friend. We basically chatted for a while and made plans to meet up the next day. And when we met, we somehow got onto the topic of Abbey Lee Kershaw tumbling on the McQueen runway quite a while back. We got onto discussing the industry's extreme expectations of skinniness, thus provoking such cases. Nothing new or unheard of. Then, in all randomness, she pointed at my face and went all "OMG, I love your lips!". I have full lips and this, apparently, excited Alaia (yeah-huh, like Azzedine. I have the coolest freinds) beyond all reason. I got to thinking about conventional beauty standards and the plastic-fantastic syndrome that has undeniably swept the beauty world, affecting women across borders, of all ages, races and incomes.

The recession and the dysfunctional economy of today has obviously, adversely affected fashion. And not in a good way. Revered labels such as Luella, Lacroix, Phi and Gianfranco Ferre lost their financial backings and the industry was set in a state of turmoil. The A/W 09 runways just proved the point. The runways were seas of grey, camel, beige and blah. Of course, I'm not generalizing but the much loved couture spectacle was without a doubt gone. However, with the recession, as Nicholas Seeley rightly said, we are beginning to welcome the age of the Modern Beauty. With a newfound (and somewhat forced) frugality thrust upon us, we are forced to take a step back and appreciate that which is idiosyncratic and individual.

The last decade saw the slow demise of the aforementioned individualistic beauty, what with the onslaught of plastic surgery. Don't get me wrong, I was flattered that Alaia thought I looked nice, but this is a broader topic. I have never held anything against women who opt for cosmetic procedures, because really, it's their choice at the end of the day. I do, object, however, to the fact that Botox and suchlike portray the fact that only one idea of beauty exists. And that, I cannot agree with.

Walking down a street in any urban city these days, and you'll be catapulted into the world of duck lips, tiny butts, seemingly frozen faces and 50 year old women with 25 year old boobs. It's just so dull! Whatever happened to some slight imperfections being the beauty of a person? It would seem strange to me that women pay astronomical amounts to look the same as their friends and sisters and cousins. Money that could have gone into, say, buying a fabulous pair of Louboutins.

Again, don't get me wrong, I am not suggesting that we pick up anybody who looks completely plain and put them on the runway and in ad campaigns and proclaim them goddesses, because frankly I'm much to shallow for that. And I'm not going to put up a facade and lie and deny it. But I believe that recession, which is making us all reexamine our spending habits, is also making us think about our values.

How does this "standard of beauty" come about? Well, I'm no professional, but I'd suppose it's because when one woman is lauded for her good looks, everybody else wants to look the same. This becomes the mould and it's imitated over and over and over, giving way to a sea of identical faces.A sea of unoriginality, of bleak and somewhat ubiquitous faces. Faces like those of Madonna and Cindy Crawford, which garnered attention in both the fashion and the mainstream world, became such standards and anyone and everyone went on to copy these faces obsessively. But what about women who were "unconventional" but changed the idea of "a beauty" forever? Like Brigit Bardot, Jean Shrimpton and Jane Birkin? Or in more recent times, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Kelly Osborne?

It's infuriating when gorgeous people put themselves down simply owing to the fact that they don't look like frozen plastic.

"Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary."

- Cecil Beaton

Take for example, perhaps the most overused example of the unconventional, yet hugely successful and finally accepted, Kate Moss. When she walked Alexander McQueen's runway for the first time, longtime editors and critics wondered and gawked at the 5 feet 6 waif with the scrunched up nose, generous sprinkling of freckles and the alluring yet imperfect smile. The black and white pictures captured by Corinne O'Day for The Face in 1990 probably justify her innate gorgeousness the best.

And Erin O'Connor who was told time and again to get a nosejob and Abbey Lee Kershaw with her totally imperfect teeth. They both managed to have extremely successful careers. Or even Sarah Jessica Parker, to give a more contemporary example!

"Maybe men and women aren't from different planets as pop culture would have us believe. Maybe we live closer to each other. Perhaps, dare I even say it, in the same zip code."

- Sarah Jessica Parker

In India, as in most other Asian countries, beauty is closely linked with fairness. The market is flooded with a multitude of "fairness creams" which guarantee everything from a "dark" person getting a job to getting a guy to saving the world. The obsession with fair skin goes back centuries. While most western countries embraced the idea of tanning and nice, browned skin, Asian countries, colonized over and over by the whiter race, became majorly complexed about their skin color. I have "fair" skin for an Indian and so, coming from North India, that's fairly common. People keep claiming that I look nice BECAUSE I'm fair, something I highly hate. I mean, I'd LOVE to have fabulous, golden brown skin and use bronzers and all that shiz. But I have been given pale, colorless, blah skin. It just goes to show how beauty stereotypes can overtake at such a scale, that people forget what was so special about that look in the first place.

"Champion the right to be yourself, dare to be different and to set your own pattern; live your own life and be your own star".

- Wilfred Peterson

Modern beauty promises gorgeousness to girls of all races, hair colors and imperfections. Imperfection, as Nicolas Seeley said, emanates character. And Francis Beaton said, and I quote "there is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion". The uniqueness makes a person HER. Differentiates her from the crowd. Whether it's flaming red hear or a mottling of freckles. Vievienne Westwood, a woman who probably is the culmination of all this is idiosyncratic, said "posture is the first asset. What really touches me is a woman who is chic and knows herself, who takes the time to look good and show off her best assets".

So maybe we all got a bit carried away with the nip tuck revolution. Maybe we all started wanting to look deflated and plasticized. Maybe we all embraced "the boobs made in the time of boom", but now that we have a chance to resurrect it, let's do it. Modern Beauty is for all.

I'm going to end this with perhaps the most overused quote ever (only second to idiotic 13 year old girls wearing pink and typing in "fashions fade but style is eternal", thinking they're the smartest, most original things around, being the first to discover this gem of truth. Okay, end rant)-

"In order to be irreplaceable, one must always be different."

- Coco Chanel