Kelly is a Fashion Goddess Now!

Patrick's friend (and I hope I can say mine too?) Kelly was featured on What Not To Wear tonight! She went from a wacky 14-year-old to a beautiful 24-year old in just one hour! Well, our time. Anyways, it was fun to watch her beauty emerge and to see her realize it. I hope she believes it too.

The show's premise, or its promise maybe, is that deep down, everyone can be beautiful. Physically, that is - no claims of inner beauty compensating for plainness here. Is that true? It's certainly amazing what a little bit of make-up can accomplish. But does that improvement matter? In December the Economist printed an article arguing that not only are beauty and success correlated, but so are beauty and intelligence. The article cited both biological and economic studies, and repeated claims I've heard elsewhere that beauty is our interpretation of good genes showing themselves off. So good genes also include intelligence. Hrm. That's tricky stuff - pretty dangerous, if you're going to start discarding all the Plain Janes and Joes in your life. And daunting for those of us who aren't at the top of the beauty pile. Does that mean we're defective? (Maybe I shouldn't have kids after all.)

Perhaps that's why we all want to be beautiful - we want to show off what good people we are deep down inside. All the way down, in our cells. And I guess, because I'm a softie, I believe that most people do have something good to show off (even if we also have plenty bad to show off). Humans have an incredible capacity for doing wondrous things. So maybe touting our beauty is a starting point for highlighting the other good things we have to offer. Or maybe I'm just trying to rationalize buying a new wardrobe.