By: Derick Zhang

What makes a man handsome now is different from what people used to depict. Before, the most famous western icons of beauty were blue-eyed Caucasian movie stars like Brad Pitt or Leonardo DiCaprio who are the ones that usually come to mind. No matter in Hollywood or a small town in the middle of nowhere, people have only one view of beauty.

However, nowadays it’s different- very different. Things that are trending now are things like gender-fluid looks, ultimate Indian fashion statements, and Gen Z and Millennials’ styles. Another style that now dominates is plus-sized models, who are mainly seen on internet platforms like TikTok and Instagram. Gen Z’s very new type of fashion was mainly led by K-Pop culture and now there is more diversity among models. Now male supermodels are slowly, but steadily catching up in success and power to their female counterparts. Some Black supermodels like Tyson Beckford are making their mark on the fashion world. Some even came from a pocket-change wage to a booming success like Sean O’Pry who was from a small town in Georgia and came to New York City with a tiny bit of money in his pocket. He’s best known for being chosen by Taylor Swift to be in her music video “Blank Space” in 2014 which is where his career took off. He was in multiple front pages of magazines and had millions of fans.

We are all human and are all 99.9 percent the same in DNA, so are we going to let that 0.1 percent make a huge difference? Currently, the answer to this question is “Probably not” though there is much to do to make the catwalks full of different people with different styles. We are making slow, but steady progress. Instead of one type of “perfect” let’s embrace ourselves and diversify.