Teeth as Resistance
By Lauren CochraneIn the current series of The White Lotus, much has been made of the meeting of two characters, Chloe — played by Charlotte Le Bon — and Chelsea, played by Aimee Lou Wood. “I love your outfit,” says Wood on their first meeting. “Thanks,” responds Le Bon. “I love your teeth.”
Wood’s teeth — big, what some might call ‘buck’ — are part of her calling card, a talking point since her break-out role in Sex Education as the sweet, if occasionally daft, character also called Aimee. But, if back in 2019, she was something of an exception, then that’s no longer the case. Ayo Edebiri shares Wood’s teethy look — and they’re front and centre on the poster for her latest film Opus, out this week. Or there’s Margaret Qualley, whose gappy smile was the perfect foil to her supposed perfection while playing Sue in The Substance.
The teeth of these women are far from remarkable — in an average day, we’ll all encounter many different sets of gnashers with every smile we see. But they do stand out from what is increasingly becoming the norm, or at least the aspiration: bright, white and straight teeth. What was once called a ‘Hollywood smile’ is now available outside of the A-list — and beyond America. Even so-called ‘British teeth’, a tired trope played out everywhere from The Simpsons to more recent memes, might soon be a thing of the past. That’s thanks to the rise of so-called ‘Turkey teeth’, aka a set of new veneers put in place in Turkey, for around £2000, a tenth of the price of the same procedure in the UK.
In that context, Smiles like Wood’s and Edebiri’s could be seen as a revival of an ‘all teeth are equal’ tradition in aesthetics. Lauren Hutton became a much-loved model in the seventies due to her distinctive gap toothed grin and Kate Moss’ so-called snaggle tooth – which she described as “gangly” – made her stand out from the All-American teeth of the supermodels in the nineties. The 2000s had a glut of celebrated models with teeth that were non-Hollywood – from Lara Stone to Slick Woods, and Georgia May Jagger, who Wood has credited as an inspiration, when she became the face of Rimmel London in 2009. “All of a sudden it went from me being goofy to, ‘Oh, you’re a bit of a model, aren’t you?’ I want to thank Georgia May Jagger for representing the buck teeth,” she said earlier this month.
More recently, there’s been a push to add diversity to the teeth we see in the public eye. There was Martin Parr’s Gucci lipstick ad in 2019, which showed the snaggle teeth and gaps in the mouth of musician Dani Miller, and prompted lots of opinion pieces. Edebiri’s choice to wear teeth jewellery on the red carpet this year, meanwhile, champions this feature, rather than obscures it. And then there’s Myha’la’s teeth – pointy on both sides of her smile. In 2024, in a shift that not many would expect, they starred in a Colgate campaign, a big co-sign that an ‘all teeth are beautiful’ idea is back.
But that was before Trump returned to the White House, along with women who subscribe to the Republican look: big hair, lots of blusher and lip liner. In this culture, bright white straight teeth are part of the uniform. To go the other way, then, feels like resistance. It pushes against a homogeneity of beauty – one that by its very definition shuns diversity – and instead embraces uniqueness and individuality.
In an interview at the start of 2024, Edebiri said that while her dentist implored her to get Invisalign to straighten her teeth she “won’t allow myself to….I want to look like myself. I want to look like my parents…I want to look like Black people who are from Boston.” Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, in response to comments about her teeth in The White Lotus, Wood also said her choices were about self-expression: “All I ever do is take the piss out of myself. Even the way [White Lotus fans] are talking about me and my teeth — that I don’t have veneers or Botox — it feels a bit rebellious.” While there’s a lot to unpack there – namely how faces with beauty tweakments are now the norm on TV – maybe there’s also a grain of hope. That, sometimes, just by flashing a smile, we might be able to resist.
Lauren Cochrane is Senior Fashion Writer of The Guardian and contributes to publications including The Face, ELLE, Service95, Konfekt and Mr Porter. Based in London, she writes about everything from catwalk shows to footballers’ style and the linguistics of Love Island. She is author of The Ten: The Stories Behind the Fashion Classics. You can read all of Lauren’s writing on Something Curated here.
Header image: Aime Lou Wood in White Lotus courtesy of HBO.