Last month, introduced Sophia Hadjipanteli to the world. The 21-year-old Greek-Cypriot model has garnered an Instagram following of nearly 170,000 thanks to her bushy brow (not brows) and her hashtag #UnibrowMovement.
The University of Maryland student has become the latest spokesperson for subverting norms of body hair after accidentally tinting her naturally blonde eyebrows black. Rather than reaching for the bleach, she decided to embrace the trend and hasn’t looked back, copping a lot of negative feedback in the process.
“People say it’s disgusting, it’s like what is disgusting about hair on your face, or anywhere?,” she told . “You are probably across the world right now, you will never probably see me in your life.”
Hadjipanteli says she has decided to embrace the eyebrows she inherited from her Greek-Cypriot father, and pay homage to her culture. “If I were to look at my grandmother, my aunt, all of my uncles, like my brother, they had a unibrow like no problem. It wasn’t even a thing. That’s what inspired me. It was my family I think and my culture,” she said. “I think a lot of Middle Eastern people, anyone really, could relate to being hairy and always being told to take it off.”
There’s no doubt that Hadjipanteli’s effort to destigmatise facial hair and make bushy eyebrows relatable is admirable, however I’m a little wary of this #freetheeyebrow message coming from a woman who is still extremely beautiful and conforms to all other Western beauty conventions.
Hadjipanteli’s #UnibrowMovement is the latest moment in a long history of fashion celebrating unquestionably beautiful women, with that one little ‘quirk’.
When US model Lauren Hutton embarked on a fashion career in the 1960s, she initially used wax to hide the gap in her teeth but soon decided to embrace the imperfection. One of the most famous American models in history, Hutton has appeared on the cover of Vogue and was celebrated as a down-to-earth, “”.
Hutton paved the way for a wave of runway stars such as , embracing what orthodontists call “midline diastema”. Yes they’re featured in fashion spreads gap teeth and all, but they’re still beautiful, blonde models and probably not “just like us”.
Lauren Hutton in Vogue in 1976 Source: Conde Nast Collection Editorial / Getty Images
Take Cindy Crawford’s iconic mole. Sitting just above her left lip, it highlights her perfect features in a way that it’s not even called a mole anymore. When it’s on a woman like Crawford, it’s called a . I have a beauty mark, too, but it’s on my back and requires a yearly check-up from my doctor. Like , these models’ “imperfections” are only celebrated when they are part of a bigger package that still fits within society’s Western beauty ideals.
We can applaud Hadjipanteli’s #UnibrowMovement for turning facial hair conventions on its head. But when it comes down to it, it’s a social movement that, for the most part, only privileged, cisgender, white women can participate in.
Hadjipanteli has the luxury to embrace her full brows, like , but women from ethnic backgrounds, trans women, or women with hormone conditions like who go through long (and very expensive) hair removal procedures are unlikely to be encouraged to embrace their mono brows or chin hair any time soon.
Until they are, I’ll be holding on to my tweezers.
