Meanwhile, in Japan, a new fashion has women paying to have their straight teeth purposefully disarranged.
A result of tooth-crowding commonly derided in the United States as “snaggleteeth” or “fangs,” the look is called “yaeba” in Japanese or “double tooth.” Japanese men are said to find this attractive: blogs are devoted to yaeba, celebrities display it proudly, and now some women are paying dentists to create it artificially by affixing plastic fronts to their real teeth.
“It’s not like here, where perfect, straight, picket-fence teeth are considered beautiful,” said Michelle Phan, a Vietnamese-American based in Los Angeles, who wrote about the phenomenon on her popular beauty blog. “In Japan, in fact, crooked teeth are actually endearing, and it shows that a girl is not perfect. And, in a way, men find that more approachable than someone who is too overly perfect.”
Here is more, thanks to Jack Kessler for the pointer.
Crooked teeth are more difficult to keep clean.
Enjoy gum disease and attendant heart conditions, I guess?
Similar to buying faded or torn jeans…..
I’ve known many women who thought that David Bowie was more attractive before he got his teeth fixed.
Soon Japan will be importing British dentist for the real thing.
Surprised they couldn’t find a cheaper and easier way to not look perfect.
snaggleteeth are common in children whose adult teeth are starting to come in. i’ll leave the implications to the reader to decipher.
Oh, Japan, you’ve done it again.
I thought Japan had finally exhausted their ability to surprise me with the weird things they seem to revel in as a culture.
I was wrong.
“not like here” ummm…with all due respect you guys are completely out of the loop.
when two of the top 5 western models have massive gap teeth: http://models.com/model_culture/50topmodels/top50.cfm?fnumber=5&lnumber=1
see vogue covers much?
http://www.talentmanagement.com/assets/wp-uploads/2011/03/georgia-jagger-x-vogue-british.jpg
and: jess hart?
http://ficdn.fashionindie.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/c101c6c96cslaugh.jpg.jpg
its a different imperfection (arguably more imperfect) and has been a trend for at least a few years in the super-module world…
finally, more info than you probably need! http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/beauty/dont-mind-the-gap-20101019-16rs2.html
Good work digging up a bunch of women that none of us have heard of or care about. What was your point again?
Yeah, seriously: those girls you linked are ugly.
Japan is the vanguard, this is the first step towards a post-post-industrial society, shunning physical beauty. Next comes the non-bathing and the untrimmed body hair…
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
A lot of East Asian women don’t shave their legs because their hair is so fine as to render it largely unnecessary.
Uhm… surely you must be joking.
A lot of East Asian women don’t shave, that’s true but I can tell you from personal experience THEY SHOULD.
Re: non-bathing, etc., France is ahead of the curve, then. (I know that’s just a stereotype.)
It is to make men less intimidated of them so they can actually find a guy in what is a very neutered culture.
“perfect, straight, picket-fence teeth”: less picket fence, more a row of polished marble tombstones.
I don’t want a girl that looks like Godzilla.
Le mot juste is “decadence.”
Frankly, this isn’t true. After reading the article I asked 40 fashion conscious Japanese girls, all in their late teens and early 20′s, not a single one had heard of it.
This is a case of probably one person doing it for some reason and the rest of the world blowing it out of proportion because the story came from Japan, so they can say “ohhhh, those crazy Japanese.”
Little fangy canine teeth — often with no other teeth visible — have been common for a decade in anime and manga depictions of girls intended to look sassy, especially those with catgirl/neko musume influence in their character designs. Image below is of Fear Kubrick, a character in a TV show currently running in Japan. Note that the hairstyle mimics cat ears. (WARNING: image may be NSFW on account of panties. Oh, Japan…)
http://www.zerochan.net/766972
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