By Lucy Maguire
“I can’t believe the impact my teeth are having!” Wood said, speaking on UK talk show The Jonathan Ross Show a few weeks ago, after fellow guest Stephen Fry commended her for keeping her gappy, slightly protruding natural smile, which was met with applause. “I can’t believe I was bullied for them throughout my teen years and now people are in the audience clapping.”
The current fascination with Wood’s imperfect smile speaks to a broader trend: over the last five years, since pandemic remote working forced us to look at ourselves for hours a day on Zoom, and short-form video skyrocketed, giving rise to dental content on TikTok, we’ve become pretty obsessed with fixing our teeth. And while Wood and others like model Georgia May Jagger are celebrated for their imperfect teeth, they are also aligned with many other beauty standards like thinness and whiteness, and won’t move the needle on dental beauty standards for the average person, says Alex Peters, senior beauty director at Dazed.
