To be beautiful was once a notion as objective as it was unattainable; a symphony of prescribed features and proportions dictated by the collective swirl of political, cultural and commercial agenda. The democratisation of the media, for all its perils, has in turn, liberated the once narrow doctrine. The esoteric nature of how we consume information today has obliterated the singularity of the beauty code. Where once it was about emulating a familiar look that fit neatly in a box, beauty has become elastic, subjective and textured. Today’s gaze is panoramic and sees beauty in a spectrum of silhouettes, sizes and colours. No longer a one dimensional concept, beauty has deepened as well as broadened. It’s not enough to have balletic limbs and cut-glass cheekbones. No longer a paradigm informed by an exalted few, modern beauty is a mosaic who sees itself as more than the sum of its parts. It is a more discerning optic that considers elements seen and unseen; the intangible pieces of a person that may transcend the aesthetic but make them beautiful nonetheless. To have beauty is to have what others don’t, to possess a freshness that cuts through the monotony, a radiance of the self rather than a projection of the generic. The way legendary editor Diana Vreeland saw it, the beautiful people were those who “feel completely free in this world and in their lives”. We’re not talking of ego or civil liberties but a freedom of self; freedom to embrace the very idiosyncrasies that make one unique. Beauty has and always will be a question of perception but now, at least the eyes through which we see it are our own. -TF