Also Camille Cottin in Call My Agent- so hot! Thank you for this, what a great piece. I had always wondered about a nose job but have seen so many weird and creepy ones that I am now content with my ancestral bump (I just try and avoid train window reflections which seem to make me look like Gerard Depardieu). Can I also just whinge that the same standards do not seem to apply to male actors!
my feelings about my own nose (a bit 'too' long, somewhat fleshy) were further complicated by the fact that I don't particularly care for the set of ancestors I got it from. Odd because I love the other set's noses, some of which look like they came straight off an Achaemenid-empire coin.
If someone had asked me at 15 or 18 or even 20 if I wanted a nose job, the answer would have been a resounding affirmative. Now, decades later, I'm glad I never had the money to do it, not least because I now have nieces growing up and I feel like I owe it to them to model some level of self-acceptance regarding appearances. It might be ugly but it's MY ugly.
I too share a, once unwelcome, bump on my nose, but as I stride towards 40 I’m pleased to say that while I don’t necessarily love it more, I worry about it less. Having children has helped me to model more self-love, but the clincher came with watching the entire series of Peaky Blinders for the first time in my life this year… with glee I noted that every single woman that Tommy bed, had a nose that looked different from the other. Each had bumps or broad bridges, and each were BEAUTIFUL, bad bitches. And if it’s good enough for Tommy-fookin-Shelby, it’s good enough for me 😘
I can’t remember where I read this, but the author wrote that they learned to love their nose, because it was the evidence of all of their ancestors in her face, or something to that effect. I loved that. The idea that it’s not your nose… it’s this mysterious, lovely, conglomeration of all the people before you that made you who you are. And it’s easier to love someone else’s unique nose than our own.
Lot of girls in my high school class got a nose job at 16. It was a right of passing in some respects. They all went to the same plastic surgeon so all of them had the same exact nose....the Tresley nose I called it. They age poorly. Apparently he didn't care if they fit your face as the perfect little ski slopes drooped more and more over the years. Whoopsie.
I really feel that. I never had any thoughts about my nose, it was just...there. And then when I was about 13 or 14 we had a class in school where we each got a photo of one of our classmates and had to describe it (broadening our vocabulary) without using the persons name and the guy who had my picture said "the nose looks too big for the face" or something to that effect and I was mortified. From then on I was uber-conscious of my nose and it took me decades to get over it. Now I'm 35 and I still sometimes catch myself turning a certain angle in photos or stuff like that.
But looking at fabulous women with none-standard noses helped me too and now you're one of them for me!
There are so many little things we are shown over and over again as “imperfect” that help women disappear into the silent, amorphous, pleasing blob of “pretty”. We can spend our whole lives hating ourselves, when what we should be hating are the invisible systems that keep us this way.
I don’t have an unconventional nose but I do have an unconventional face! And agree,accepting its character as well as having the respect of thousands of ancestors that lie in it,has been so freeing. Loved reading this.
I do feel this so much. I have the same nose... and everyone seems to love it except myself. I've been looking at fillers but I'm terrified about the second side effects. Hopefully there'll be a point when I am like: ah, I love it now!
Oh I loved reading this. I’ve been thinking so much recently about the homogenisation of women. Everyone looking the same with small noses, big lips, the same make up… It’s uninspiring and not something I want to look at. All hail the individual let a dazzling personality take centre stage
Sofia is so striking and elegant - I do love that she kept her nose after Anjelica Huston told her not to change it, and proceeded to pass on the favour by giving a teenage Kirsten Dunst the confidence to refuse to get her teeth straightened (not about a nose but still). Like a spiritual lineage of unconventionally-featured ladies keeping each other out of the surgeon's/cosmetic dentist's chair.
Also Camille Cottin in Call My Agent- so hot! Thank you for this, what a great piece. I had always wondered about a nose job but have seen so many weird and creepy ones that I am now content with my ancestral bump (I just try and avoid train window reflections which seem to make me look like Gerard Depardieu). Can I also just whinge that the same standards do not seem to apply to male actors!
😘
my feelings about my own nose (a bit 'too' long, somewhat fleshy) were further complicated by the fact that I don't particularly care for the set of ancestors I got it from. Odd because I love the other set's noses, some of which look like they came straight off an Achaemenid-empire coin.
If someone had asked me at 15 or 18 or even 20 if I wanted a nose job, the answer would have been a resounding affirmative. Now, decades later, I'm glad I never had the money to do it, not least because I now have nieces growing up and I feel like I owe it to them to model some level of self-acceptance regarding appearances. It might be ugly but it's MY ugly.
Camille Cottin is a great nose role model, I think. Truly distinctive.
Another frenchie here to tell you that your nose is perfect. Très très chic, même!
Merci beaucoup!
I too share a, once unwelcome, bump on my nose, but as I stride towards 40 I’m pleased to say that while I don’t necessarily love it more, I worry about it less. Having children has helped me to model more self-love, but the clincher came with watching the entire series of Peaky Blinders for the first time in my life this year… with glee I noted that every single woman that Tommy bed, had a nose that looked different from the other. Each had bumps or broad bridges, and each were BEAUTIFUL, bad bitches. And if it’s good enough for Tommy-fookin-Shelby, it’s good enough for me 😘
Hahaha I love that!
your profile would’ve been imprinted on coins in the roman empire - that’s how fabulous it is. today, too! if we still used, you know, coins.
Hahaha <3
I can’t remember where I read this, but the author wrote that they learned to love their nose, because it was the evidence of all of their ancestors in her face, or something to that effect. I loved that. The idea that it’s not your nose… it’s this mysterious, lovely, conglomeration of all the people before you that made you who you are. And it’s easier to love someone else’s unique nose than our own.
you might be thinking of Bella hadid's quote which was "i wish i had kept the nose of my ancestors, I think I would have grown into it.”
Lot of girls in my high school class got a nose job at 16. It was a right of passing in some respects. They all went to the same plastic surgeon so all of them had the same exact nose....the Tresley nose I called it. They age poorly. Apparently he didn't care if they fit your face as the perfect little ski slopes drooped more and more over the years. Whoopsie.
I really feel that. I never had any thoughts about my nose, it was just...there. And then when I was about 13 or 14 we had a class in school where we each got a photo of one of our classmates and had to describe it (broadening our vocabulary) without using the persons name and the guy who had my picture said "the nose looks too big for the face" or something to that effect and I was mortified. From then on I was uber-conscious of my nose and it took me decades to get over it. Now I'm 35 and I still sometimes catch myself turning a certain angle in photos or stuff like that.
But looking at fabulous women with none-standard noses helped me too and now you're one of them for me!
Honoured!
There are so many little things we are shown over and over again as “imperfect” that help women disappear into the silent, amorphous, pleasing blob of “pretty”. We can spend our whole lives hating ourselves, when what we should be hating are the invisible systems that keep us this way.
I don’t have an unconventional nose but I do have an unconventional face! And agree,accepting its character as well as having the respect of thousands of ancestors that lie in it,has been so freeing. Loved reading this.
I do feel this so much. I have the same nose... and everyone seems to love it except myself. I've been looking at fillers but I'm terrified about the second side effects. Hopefully there'll be a point when I am like: ah, I love it now!
Oh I loved reading this. I’ve been thinking so much recently about the homogenisation of women. Everyone looking the same with small noses, big lips, the same make up… It’s uninspiring and not something I want to look at. All hail the individual let a dazzling personality take centre stage
really loved this
Sofia is so striking and elegant - I do love that she kept her nose after Anjelica Huston told her not to change it, and proceeded to pass on the favour by giving a teenage Kirsten Dunst the confidence to refuse to get her teeth straightened (not about a nose but still). Like a spiritual lineage of unconventionally-featured ladies keeping each other out of the surgeon's/cosmetic dentist's chair.