Posted on 10/25/2010 4:56:34 PM PDT by nickcarraway
It wasn't until Aguirre noticed iconic gap-toothed model Lauren Hutton in the pages of her favorite fashion magazines that she realized her smile was not only unusual but maybe even beautiful.
"I guess I've always thought of it as a cool thing," says Aguirre, 48, of Concord, Calif.
These days, so does the beauty industry. Gap-toothed models were all over the runways at this season's Paris Fashion Week. Instead of fixing their teeth, some of Hollywood's freshest faces, including Anna Paquin and Elizabeth Moss, proudly sport a midline diastema, the dental term for the gap. And, last month, on "America's Next Top Model," host Tyra Banks sent a 22-year-old contestant from Boise, Idaho, to the dentist to widen her gap. The beauty blogosphere has been buzzing ever since. Men sport the gap, too, but culturally, there has always been a mystique about diastematic women. In Ghana, Namibia and Nigeria, a gap in women's teeth is a sign of beauty and fertility, says Bernice Agyekwena, a Ghanaian journalist and Gates Fellow of African Agriculture at the University of California-Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism.
"Some women even go to the extent of creating an artificial gap in their teeth because they want to meet the traditional standards set for African beauty," she says.
In the Western world, our fascination dates to the Middle Ages, when Geoffrey Chaucer wrote in "The Canterbury Tales" of the gap-toothed wife of Bath and her lustful ways.
But experts believe our new interest in the diastema represents a backlash against unattainable beauty standards and an obsession with perfection.
"I think for so long the look was cookie-cutter beauty, and it doesn't stand out," says Heather Muir, beauty news editor for Allure magazine in New York. "We're shifting to a more quirky beauty, and I think that includes women who have very fair skin, many freckles, or frizzy, big hair."
Two gap-toothed models in particular, Jac Jagaciak and Lindsey Wixson, caught Allure magazine editors' eyes recently on the Paris runways, Muir says. She also calls attention to recent ads by Chanel, Marc Jacobs and Miu Miu. All feature models with gaps between their teeth.
"This could be a confidence booster to a lot of girls out there who are 12 or 13 and mortified because they have a gap," she says. "Now's the time to let whatever is interesting about your look shine through. Embrace it."
For the most part, dentists agree. "From a clinical standpoint, there's no advantage to closing it," says Tim Patel, a Walnut Creek, Calif., dentist and assistant clinical professor at the University of California-San Francisco's School of Dentistry. If the gap is small, Patel may suggest fixing it to avoid periodontal issues down the line. Food can get stuck in there, after all.
"Obviously, I like to see perfectly straight teeth with no diastema," he says. "But if patients like it, I certainly don't try to encourage them to change it. By and large, it's an aesthetic issue."
Sylvia Lan, of Santa Clara, Calif., has always embraced her diastema. So have the lovestruck men who mention it before asking her out.
"They seem to think it's sexy," says Lan, a 40-something who works in sales. "Go figure. Instead of looking at my chest, they're looking at my teeth."
Les Blank's interest in gap-toothed women began in the eighth grade with a smiling beauty he admired from a distance. In 1987, the El Cerrito, Calif., director made "Gap-Toothed Women," a documentary homage to gap-toothed women living in the Bay Area. Hutton is also in the film. "They have an attractive, outgoing personality that's warm and vital," says Blank, who interviewed 100 women for the film. "The whole world is so full of artifice that I think people just want to see something natural and real."
"I'D HIT IT"!
But either way it makes fer good spitin’!
Believe it or not this is a genetically controlled condition ~ and if you've ever paid for a child's braces you can imagine what that's like because the minute everything is perfect and the braces come off the teeth go on about their business.
I've got a tooth that's taken about 50 years to do a total rotation ~ and yet it's still crooked ~ has its own axis!
Jessica Paré, who plays the role of receptionist Megan, on set in Los Angeles.
Photograph by James Minchin III
Highly illogical. I wonder what is wrong with her chest.
I had mine bonded.
I used to be able to put a nickel between my front teeth - no one ever took it as sexy as far as I can recall...
A larger than normal frenulum is a typical cause...often requiring a frenectomy...
A frenectomy (also known as a frenulectomy or frenotomy) is the removal of a frenulum, a small fold of tissue that prevents an organ in the body from moving too far. It can refer to frenula in several places on the human body. It is related to frenuloplasty, a surgical alteration in a frenulum.
A frenectomy can also be performed to remove a section of tissue (the frenulum) that attached to the gingival tissue between two teeth.
Now that sounds downright annoying!
And a darn unpleasant oral surgery procedure with which to assist.
So if a client of your teeth files a complaint, they can recover money?
Yep...but only if the teeth have skipped town.
heh
“It’s possible that there is a link between the gene that produces a gap in the teeth and a factor directly affecting fertility. “
This poor woman has gapped teeth. She was unwilling to be photographed with such a deformity.
How do they know if the runway models have gapped teeth? Every runway model I’ve ever seen had an angry, snooty look on her face and certainly wasn’t cracking a smile.
I would marry this gal.
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