Why all the beautiful people want to be ugly

A WHOLE new significance has attached itself to the term jolie-laide (roughly translated as ''prettily ugly'') as Parisians adapt chameleon-like to a bizarre new trend. The drift of this latest style revolution is: those who have misshapen, pronounced or otherwise unconventional physical attributes are now proclaimed great beauties. And classical good looks - among those in the know - are apparently on their way out. In true Parisian form, the ''new ugliness'' movement began in the atelier of a designer, Jean Pierre Gaultier. With a record of preferring beautiful but quirky models, he has gone one step further. Among the muses who have launched his most recent collections are Stella, an overweight make-up artist whom he spotted behind stage; Evelyn Tremois, a 76-year-old grandmother who won a public competition Gaultier held at Galeries Lafayette; a bald model with a tattoo on her scalp and a permanently sour expression on her face, one Eva Salvail; and Rosy de Palma, a Spanish actress of statuesque proportions who possesses the most extraordinary Sephardic nose. Such characters joined a host of other assorted weirdos for the launch of Gaultier's new perfume - a strikingly unusual crew for the rarefied world of French fashion, where physical perfection has traditionally held sway. So what on earth is happening? And why is it happening now? Noelle Chatelet, author of Trompe L'Oeil, a book examining the increased demand for plastic surgery among French women, suggests: ''In some areas of French society the full ironic circle has been turned. ''In a society blessed by looks and beauty, the only way to get yourself noticed nowadays is to make yourself ugly.'' France being France, however, there are only certain types of ''ugly'' considered chic. It is no good being just plain: you have to be remarkably odd-looking in order to succeed. Rossy de Palma, with her pale bony face, epitomises the movement. As does Eugenie, another Gaultier model, with a jutting jawline. AT Jean Paul Gaultier, the spokeswoman is loath to use the word ''ugly''. ''I think she is beautiful, don't you,'' she says, considering a photograph of the majestic Stella. She also thinks that Kylie, another Gaultier favourite, is ''beautiful''. Each to his or her own: Kylie's hair is albino white, and her long hooked nose droops over a sulky mouth. The spokeswoman says her boss ''likes character''. What does she mean by this? ''Oh, a long nose, a strange mouth, people who are smaller than normal, or taller. It's just Jean Paul. When he has castings, he always chooses the people who have an interesting look.'' She said for one show he went to a lookalike agency and hired an elderly man who was a dead-ringer for Jacques Cousteau. He, like so many of the Gaultier models, was blessed with an enormous nose. It seems this particular trait, more than any other, guarantees a place among the ranks of the most revered of Paris' new uglies. A high-profile national campaign for Bata shoes features models with pronounced proboscises. And Frederick Leonard has named his new model agency Cyrano, after Rostand's literary creation, the poet and thwarted lover Cyrano de Bergerac, who was renowned for his incredible nose. ''We have a lot of big noses,'' confirms Leonard, whose agency specialises in unusual looking models. ''We also have fat models, thin ones, very, very small ones and giants. ''We don't like to use the word 'ugly'. We think these people have their own kind of beauty. A year ago it might have been harder for us to build the business, but now it is a good moment. The mentality of the French people is changing. ''We have always been obsessed with beauty. Traditionally we have never liked difference; we are very conservative. But now the French seem to be bored with that physical perfection. ''Fashion houses have come to us with inquiries for shows. They come and look at our books, they see faces they didn't know existed - and they want them. ''After the supermodels we had the waif look. Now even that is boring. What sells today is something much more quirky.'' Even the more mainstream agencies are finding they are under pressure to supply models who in many eyes would be considered ugly. ''This year people are looking for personality,'' says Eric, a booker at Paris's City agency, which represents the shaven-headed Eva. ''They are tired of perfection. They want a new kind of look. Eva is extremely busy. Five years ago it would have been much harder for someone like her to find work.'' At Elite, another Paris agency, Didier Fernandez confirms the trend. ''We have girls like Janine Giddings, who is not a traditional beauty, but she is launching a new perfume for Saint Laurent. ''People are more open. Magazines like Harpers Bazaar have started taking risks, using girls nobody wanted in the past. Fashion houses like Chanel will always go for classically beautiful girls, but there's a trend for ''difference'' among underground designers which is beginning to affect the mainstream.'' There must surely be a fear that the obsession with chic ugliness will offend those who have the misfortune to be born misshapen. There is the whiff of the sort of circus mentality reminiscent of Victorian freak shows. Leonard said there had been a number of inquiries about dwarfs for catwalk appearances. Those of sensitive disposition will wonder if this can be right. Yet France's Association for People of Small Size has, perhaps surprisingly, given the trend its blessing. The view is that it will help integrate those who have always been regarded as outsiders. And perhaps this will be the case. Certainly there will be a degree of gratitude for relief from the breathtaking perfection that has hitherto characterised Paris fashion. What joy to compare yourself with a model and discover that it is she, not you, who is lacking. It is also good to know that at long last the French have acquired a sense of humour. Whether the trend will be etched beyond the catwalk remains to be seen. Fernandez shoots this suggestion down in flames. ''It won't catch on,'' he says. ''Ordinary Parisians like beauty. Ugliness isn't really Paris, is it?''