Why the Wrong Face?
The New Yorker’s Jia Tolentino on the face of the decade: “The face is distinctly white but ambiguously ethnic—it suggests a National Geographic composite illustrating what Americans will look like in 2050, if every American of the future were to be a direct descendant of Kim Kardashian West, Bella Hadid, Emily Ratajkowski, and Kendall Jenner (who looks exactly like Emily Ratajkowski). ‘It’s like a sexy . . . baby . . . tiger,’ Cara Craig, a high-end New York colorist, observed to me recently. The celebrity makeup artist Colby Smith told me, ‘It’s Instagram Face, duh. It’s like an unrealistic sculpture. Volume on volume. A face that looks like it’s made out of clay.'” The Age of Instagram Face. And it’s a trend that’s fun for all ages. “Thanks to injectables, cosmetic procedures are no longer just for people who want huge changes, or who are deep in battle with the aging process—they’re for millennials, or even, in rarefied cases, members of Gen Z. Kylie Jenner, who was born in 1997, spoke on her reality-TV show ‘Life of Kylie’ about wanting to get lip fillers after a boy commented on her small lips when she was fifteen.” (Kylie Jenner is also the youngest self-made billionaire on earth, although self-made ignores the role of her plastic surgeon. But who am I too judge? I don’t do Instagram Face, but I definitely do Ageless Head Logo.)