i do find it slightly unsettling that the overall “trend” in biological beauty leans toward the juvenile – why do we idolize child-like features?
I agree these girls are eerily beautiful, but to me it’s weird that most models have the bodies – and now, faces – of children.

i do find it slightly unsettling that the overall “trend” in biological beauty leans toward the juvenile – why do we idolize child-like features?
I agree these girls are eerily beautiful, but to me it’s weird that most models have the bodies – and now, faces – of children.

I actually used to hate this extra terrestrial look, however, I do like Gemma quite a bit. Her look is more versatile than someone with notably more alien features.

not being a pederast, it doesn’t really do it for me. I mean, it does, until I think about it, and then it creeps me out. regardless, I prefer the more glam, womanly beauty of the 80s/early 90s supermodels.

I’m over this whole alien babydoll “trend.”
It’s time for women to look like women, men to look like men if they wanna model.
High-end fashion is serving a more tailored, quality look….I don’t see how 12-18y.o. girls can be evolved if they look, talk and act like babydolls, alien or not!!
I’m totally understanding why designers (advertisers) & magazines are using celebrities more….

I love it nd think that they are the heights of beauty but that may be because I look similar…though less extreme I definitely have a baby doll look about my face.

Naturally enough, a call has gone out for models to suit the new interplanetary look, that is, for women who resemble aliens. The latest types to find favor with designers have tiny heads, upturned noses, enormous eyes and undeveloped chins. They are said to ”look 50′s,” as do many of the season’s clothes. If so, it is not the 1950′s of ripe cinema goddesses but the decade of the adorable Z-movie geeks who appeared in films like ”Plan 9 from Outer Space.”
To a baby boomer, the Australian Gemma Ward, the Canadian teenager Heather Marks or the current Italian Vogue cover girl Lisa Cant also bear some resemblance to the waifs painted by the kitsch master Margaret Keane, as well as to subjects favored by the painter John Currin, whom some might call the Margaret Keane of the Whitney Biennial set. A younger eye might see references to Japanese manga characters like Major Motoko Kusanagi or to the creatures turned out by Pixar Animation Studios. Other models have a more direct way of describing fashion’s new favorites, girls who seem to be garnering all the jobs. They call them ”the bugs.”
- Guy Trebay, NYT March 4 2004

Masha looks like she has Graves disease, a type a hyperthyroidism whose characteristic symptom is bulging eyes.

lol lala. one thing i think is though its almost played out now-a-days its definitely a different look. when you see the girls on the street, or even non-models with similiar features, its far from gorgeous but – especially in editorial shots – it is very interesting to look it. they do look alien but it makes you pause and look at the ad. i am excited for a return to most typically beautiful models though. though i’m not the biggest catherine mcneil fan i think she represents the tides turning back in that direction, yay!

I think they are gorgeous, they look great on the catwalk an in editorials too . But they are not sexy.

i prefer more womanly women, with interesting, strong, almost exotic faces – old-school glamazons. these alien girls make for interesting editorial, but i would never ever EVER want to look like them. they do not make me want to buy clothes, they only make interesting photographs.

It’s evolutionary. For a species to survive, it has to reproduce. Blonde hair, estrogen- saturated features (narrower chins, wider eyes), and hip-to-waist ratios all signal fertility, as does youth in general. Though it is interesting how extreme the recent incarnation of this is…but it does fit with society’s current youth worship.

i totally agree with Magda; this is about evolution – it’s very much programmed instinctively for us to be attracted to larger eyes, high cheek bones, etc. These are the same instincts that make us want to care for babies and therefore assist us in continuing the species. (same is true of all baby animals). When you see a teenager or young adult with those same features, it associates automatically with innocence, and while someone in a fashion audience might be intimidated by a strong-jawed more fierce looking model, these girls’ faces are far more inviting. They make the clothes look pretty; but a woman watching knows she can make them look sexy.

I agree totally, they are invinting and fresh and they are pretty much blanks, it’s like the clothes they are wearing are waiting for us to give them a sense of reality. Those old supermodels “used” the clothes, sucked the personality out of them, there was nothing for us the audience to discover.

All of this might make sense if most people actually thought these features were attractive, and not just those interested in fashion and the industry.
Ask your standard man (or woman) on the street what they think of these girls outside of the runaway/editorial environment. I don’t think you are going to find many who find them sexy, or attractive.
Or who want to reproduce with them. And isn’t that the point of evolution anyway?

Laura,
I think part of what’s so interesting about the trend is that their features are so typical of what humans evolved to look like, what defines facial features as human, and what society generally considers attractive…
that they start to look freakish to many people, even totally nonhuman, e.g. “alien”.
I think that anyone on the street would think that similar feature were attractive if they were less exaggerated.
I think the fashion world’s interest in them is an example of how fashion people like everything everyone else likes in a more extreme way: higher heels, thinner bodies, etc.

You’re right, AFG. I guess my point is that they are so far “evolved” as to actually be devolved.
Your average person would pick your everyday “pretty girl” to reproduce with first making these scary alien babies die off.
But anyway, I find the look creepy and bizarre and have always preferred the supermodels of the 90′s.

It just reminds me of when Persian cat breeders let there be a little to much inbreeding to get that flat faced look, and the then cats can’t breathe through their noses. It’s just a little too mich.

Her eyes are spaced so far apart that it looks strange and even unreal. No offence it looks like she has a disease or birth defect or something. Something just doesn’t look normal, it’s creepy. Me personally, I prefer the more natural looking women on the runway. Pls send the aliens back to mars!

Big bright eyes and all the other youthful characteristics these models have are what many would want in themselves.
“i wish i had brighter eyes, better skin, a smaller chin, youthful glow ect..” is not uncommon for people to want these things.
all these characteristics on one face SHOULD be the face of perfection,
yet, sometimes perfection is imperfect looking.

she’s not that dissimilar looking from an olsen – and in my book that’s synonymous with runty, freakish and emaciated – perhaps miss masha at least has the height gene working in her favor

Who is the ‘we’ that think they’re gorgeous?

i think the babydoll look is really pretty!

first, lily donaldson looks pretty normal, she is not an alien or a bug!!!!!
Gemma looks like she has trisomy x, a genetic abnormality where girls (who are normally XX, boys are XY) have an extra X chromosome (XXX). Gemma is cute and all, but it is very distrubing when fashion models look like they have genetic or hormonal abnormalities. I’m all for the “interesting/unusual/different” look, but it becomes problematic when it’s taken away from a fashion phenomenon and taken as a standard of beauty.

Many of you are commenting on how you wish the fashion industry would have women that are “normal-looking” as opposed to “alien-like”. Well, what if “alien-like” IS normal to them? Who are you to decide the “norm”? I have very large eyes myself, and I’ve hated them all my life. Yet, people are always telling me what beautiful eyes i have. Sure, walking down the street people may take a longer look cuz they’re UNIQUE, but that doesn’t mean they’re abnormal or a birth defect. God made us all beautiful and in the likeness of Him. You may not personally be attracted to these women, but there are people out there that are and that doesn’t mean there is something wrong with making them a subject of fashion.