Girl Talk

Jade Seah reflects on what beauty means, and how her definition of the word has changed over the years.

- Jade Seah

I read my first fashion magazine as an impressionable prepubescent girl (it was Go – anyone remember that?). I remember looking wistfully at the stunning, perfect faces of the top models of that era: The likes of Celia Teh, Jessie Leong and Shirley Yee ruled the roost then, with their piercing gazes and razer-sharp cheekbones.

At 12, I hardly felt “beautiful”. I was tall and gawky with a softer facial bone structure, had the beginnings of teenage acne, and a nose that was slightly too large for my face (studies have found that the nose may grow faster than the rest of the body during puberty).