“They are under great pressure to maintain their attractiveness and suffer more when it diminishes,” she says. “People who have been very attractive all their lives get a great shock when things level out in their 50s and 60s.” And, she says, there are other disadvantages – “though ones that most of us would be quite happy to put up with”, as she wryly adds. Ellis, the scout for the model agency Models 1, says that individuality is more important on the catwalk than sanitised and conventional prettiness “A potential new star has to stand out and be striking. There has to be something about her that is appealing, something that makes me stop and turn around in the street. Perfect features are not a prerequisite, irregular features also work.” Sadly, of course, this doesn’t mean that everyone with a wonky nose or jug ears can find a niche on the catwalk.As Aric Sigman points out, however, even for the distinctly un-pretty there are a few other attributes guaranteed to increase attractiveness, especially for men: “Power, authority and hard cash are immensely attractive to the bulk of the population.” And, says Kate Fox, the beautiful don’t have it all their own way; they get their come-uppance when their looks start to fade.

Female voices can convey a phenomenal degree of attractiveness, as can body language.”Curiously, in the modelling industry, bastion of beauty, standard good looks are not necessarily an advantage. “In our culture looks have been exaggerated and accentuated far beyond their natural significance. We forget other factors that we can’t see, like the voice – if we are lookist, we are also soundist. His inner beauty came out.”Desirable as “inner beauty” may be, the problem, of course, is precisely that it is inner It’s invisible. Most of us, given a choice between the purely superficial looks of Cindy Crawford or the more deepseated virtue that was Mother Teresa’s, would not hesitate in going for the beauty that is merely skin-deep.”Visual beauty is probably the most important element in attraction,” says psychologist Aric Sigman. And because of that he started walking and talking quite differently. “You can do so much with plain features!” One of her clients was a plain-looking lawyer who didn’t pull in the clients.

“People didn’t respond to him because he wasn’t good-looking First of all he got new glasses. Then, because he had a balding head and hairy neck, he had his neck waxed. Then he changed his clothes to something more modern and professional. “The bias for beauty operates in all social, work and educational situations.”Attractive children are not only more popular, but teachers have higher expectations of them, which improves performance. Good-looking people have better chances of getting jobs and higher salaries. And there is also a deep-seated if illogical conviction that what is beautiful is also good – that the good-looking must have other desirable assets.”Mary Spillane, the founder of CMB image consultants, also acknowledges the desirability of beauty. “As we close this millennium, whether we like it or not we have become part of an incredibly visual age,” she says.