Beauty: The next big thing - freckles

Published on Thursday 28 August 2008 15:17

THAT'S right, freckles. Previously looked upon as a skin decoration only marginally more welcome than acne, freckles are having their moment in the sun, as it were. Style bible Vogue has declared in its September issue that freckles are sexy – so sexy, in fact, that they should be "fetishised, embraced, touched, kissed".

Which is good news for those with traditional Celtic colouring, who up until now may have feared that their ginger hair, blue-white skin and scattering of brown spots across their face and upper torso would hinder their chances of ever being entertained in this manner. No more covering up with cardigans and big floppy hats when the sun comes out for them – no, the more uneven clusters of melanin they can get to appear all over their skin, the better.

It's good news for freckly celebs too. Now Julianne Moore, supermodel Lily Cole, Sex and the City's Cynthia Nixon and Sarah Ferguson can all wear their freckles with pride – and glossy-magazine art departments can spend less time airbrushing them out of cover shoots. Mind you, the scars run pretty deep. Moore was called Freckleface Strawberry as a child, and even went to the lengths of writing a children's book of the same name about a little girl trying to get rid of her freckles. It may take a bit more than an article in Vogue to get her over this one.

Still, it's a start. Those of you without freckles, who find yourself tragically outmoded this autumn, should not be tempted to fake the look unless you want to look like Wee Jimmy Krankie. No, you'll just have to wait until the wheel of fashion turns again and your own complexion is 'in' – and in the meantime, reflect on the wise words of Natasha Bedingfield, that "a face without freckles is like the sky without the stars".