Photo: Alvaro Villarubia

I recently had a fashion memory unlocked from 1992. It was triggered by a reference to Spanish actress Rossy de Palma in a blog post I read called Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down which is the name of a Pedro Almodovar film. He is responsible for launching the acting career of de Palma by casting her in his films in the 1980s.

This is what I recalled: I was sitting in my bedroom flipping through the latest issue of Vogue and found myself fascinated by an editorial called Gypsy Soul that featured Claudia Mason, the guys from Extreme – yes, as in More than Words and I apologize if you spend the next two days with that song playing in your head – and this strangely exotic creature, the likes of whom I had never seen before. She had the most unusual nose, and it was played up in profile shots where she’s kissing the head of a donkey. This was my introduction to Rossy de Palma.

I stared. And I stared. I had never before seen anyone like this in Vogue or any other fashion magazine for that matter – not hard to believe as I was also still reading YM and Seventeen – and to be honest, I was confused. How was I supposed to feel about her inclusion alongside the gorgeous Claudia Mason and the other models with perfect profiles – was Anna Wintour playing a trick on me? Before you yell at your monitor ‘What the heck was the matter with you?’ let me remind or describe what diversity meant back then.

Diversity was Cindy Crawford. No, I haven’t forgotten Iman or Yasmeen Ghauri or any of the other richly featured beauties who broke the mould. But they didn’t have commercial success back then, and unless you were able – or allowed as it were – to transform your name and image into a brand you were essentially a non-entity at the end of the day.

Cindy Crawford has brown eyes and brown hair. And a mole. She arrived on the scene at the tail end of an era that still considered Christie Brinkley, Kim Alexis and Cheryl Tiegs to be the epitome of American beauty – all blonde, blue-eyed with the kind of Stepford Wife smile any star quarterback would be proud to bring home to mom. I have brown hair and brown eyes. While I never disliked what I was born with, I was aware it was not the popular ‘ideal’ and had wished I’d gotten my dad’s hazel green eyes instead as my brown held no cache. Case in point – who was prettier in Charlie’s Angels? Farrah Fawcett or Jacklyn Smith? Jacklyn Smith of course. But who was the nation going mental over? Farrah. Not that she didn’t deserve it but she had more competition than was ever acknowledged. And this continued until America was ready to accept a Cindy as their girl (after a few years of airbrushing out the mole).

As with all cultural transitions, there can be bumps. Some people take a while to get up to speed. One day I found myself having lunch with a guy and a girl at my new high school. They were a couple and although it was a bit awkward to be invited to eat with a couple I didn’t know I appreciated the welcoming. Unbeknownst to me, my lunch was about to be spoiled. Somehow the topic of Cindy Crawford came up and the girl, a blue-eyed blonde, exclaimed loudly ‘How comes she’s so popular? She has BROWN EYES AND BROWN HAIR!” Her face was contorted into an expression of extreme disgust. The boyfriend quietly chastised her for being so insensitive which I appreciated, but I did wonder if he agreed with the sentiment.

I should mention that I’m not forgetting Janice Dickinson, the first model to call herself the first supermodel. Yes, she was a good model and a big model and she shared the spotlight with dark beauty Gia Carrangi. But did she have commercial success? Did the corporations want her face to represent them in big campaigns? No, their money was on the blue-eyed blondes. Like Jerry Hall.

Back to Rossy. Seeing her non-perfectness celebrated in the fashion bible that is Vogue all those years ago was a real awakening for me, and I imagine countless others. It went against everything I’d been told by society and the media about what was beautiful. It may still be an extreme exception to the ‘perfection’ rule society is now rigidly adhering to (and ironically so in light of the latest phenomenon – the ‘pillow face’ which is hardly perfection unless you think alcohol bloat is sublime). But just when we think the world has completely lost the plot, we can look to the rare and unique beauty of Rossy de Palma. And revel in our diversity.