Much like her shiny hair and warm eyes, the space between Geneva Aguirre’s front teeth has always been a part of her look. When she was little, Aguirre used to stick a flavored toothpick in the gap — just because it would fit and no one else could do it. It made her unique.
It wasn’t until Aguirre noticed iconic gaptoothed model Lauren Hutton in the pages of her favorite fashion magazines that she realized her smile was not only unique, 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. Gaptoothed models were all over the runways at this season’s Paris Fashion Week. Instead of fixing their teeth, some of Hollywood’s freshest faces, like 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 back to the Middle Ages, when Geoffrey Chaucer wrote in “The Canterbury Tales” of the gaptoothed 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 gaptoothed models in particular, Jac Jagaciak and Lindsey Wixson, caught Allure magazine editors’ eyes this month 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.
Les Blank’s interest in gaptoothed women began in the eighth grade, with a smiling beauty he admired from a distance. In 1987, the El Cerrito, Calif., director made “Gap-ToothedWomen,” a documentary homage to gaptoothed 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.”
