It’s been long overdue, but considering
I use this face so much in showing ideal spatial proportions, it’s worth giving Australian
male model Jordan Barret an episode of his own. Jordan comes from the humble coastal town
of Byron Bay, Australia. If you’ve never been to Byron, this place
is quite literally what the rest of the world thinks all of Australia is like. Beach blonde surfers, pristine beaches and
lavish beach houses. I won’t lie in saying a lot of Australia
is like this, but the people of Byron are especially laid back. Plus, you can catch Chris Hemsworth and a
number of famous celebs running about. Apart from the obvious tourism ad, this background
context is important in explaining part of Jordan’s appeal, especially internationally
as a free spirited icon. Firstly, lets breakdown his aesthetic appeal. While his face is handsome and proportionate
it’s also very androgenous which gives him the pretty boy look that matches so well with
his personality. What I mean by this is that his face looks
very similar to a number of masculine female models, the closest of which I can think of
is Kelly Mittendorf. Normally I would compare a male face to another
male but for this video Kelly is a better analogue to show what each other lacks that
makes their faces subtly different. Jordan’s jaw inclination is a lot shallower
while Kelly's is more obtuse. Jordan’s jaw has a feminine shape whereas
Kelly’s has a masculine one. In fact all of Kelly’s face is tall but
wide throughout, being virtually rectangular and very masculinely dimorphic. Being a woman, this is uncommon and is what
gives her a unique appearance, much like Karina Kapoor or Angelina Jolie who are also celebrated
as beauty standards despite having a masculine, squared off face shape. Jordan on the other hand also has a wide,
proportionate jaw, but it’s shape and appearance are feminine by Mommaerts 2016 study on male
jaws. Part of this is due to how short and compact
his face is which is actually a feminine dimorphic trait. For instance, the gonial angle, or the jaw
angle is around 140 degrees, which is on the feminine end and beyond the ideal 130 proposed
by the study. Although this ideal, as found in the paper,
is a more feminine angle, because as it turns out, women prefer more feminine pretty boy
jaws, over strong drill sergeant jaws of less than 130. This is a big generalization but there is
truth to people preferring the most average bell curve gonial angle of 130, rather than
90 or 150 which are on either ends of the masculine feminine spectrum and don’t reflect
a koinophillic face. All of this was covered in the defining beauty
video on jaws, so visit that for more context. For posterity, Karina Kapoor’s jaw is virtually
90 degrees which is very masculine and Kelly’s is roughly 130 which is still below the quote
on quote feminine ideal of 135 for women. There’s also an article write up on female
jaw aesthetics at the qoves site. Before we move on from the jaw, because it
is a very big part of his appeal, I should also mention the jaw width (bigonial width)
is basically 1:1 with his facial width (bizygomatic). Mommaerts paper suggested that the jaw width
should be 90% of the facial width and if you’ve been following the channel for a while now,
virtually every attractive face passes this criteria, male or female. Having a wide jaw is necessary for producing
a hollow cheek look and no amount of leanness can emphasise the ogee curve, which is this
line here from the cheek to the mouth, if there isn’t something beneath it to provide
visual contrast. I’ve also covered this concept in detail
using Bella Hadid as an example in Episode 1 of Analyzing celebrity faces so visit that
too after. The last point I want to make about his lower
third that many might miss is just how wide his neck is. Browsing Tiktok, as 1 in 3 people do apparently,
I came across a man with similar bone structure, but his neck is a lot skinnier which makes
the head look like it’s floating. In Jordan’s case it’s the same width as
his face even though he’s stated that he doesn’t need to work out and is very lean
anyway, so he’s genetically gifted in that regard. Anyone can widen their neck through muscle
hypertrophy. but it would benefit men the most, having
the wider faces of the two in balancing their proportions. Moving up to the midface, Jordan is basically
the gold standard for facial width to height ratio. This is a concept that’s talked about on
the channel all the time and is studied extensively in scientific literature as it has a strong
influence in how we perceive people initially. Research shows that faces with wider, more
vertically compact midfaces are seen as more masculine and dominant whereas the opposite
holds true in taller, narrower faces. Part of this is due to wider midfaces typically
stretching the eye canthus out further to create intimidating, deep set eyes. A good counter to that argument might be former
basketballer Marko Jaric but if you look closely, his eyes are still wide with appropriate exposure,
but only appear beady because their interpupillary distances are small. In other words, they appear too close together. That’s a more niche problem to have, with
most people having appropriate spatial proportions anyway. Jordan’s eyes are also hooded which is great
for making them appear even narrower and more masculine. They also have a slight positive canthal tilt
which means that the eyes slant downwards. Narrower eyes have less rotational symmetry
but his come to be around 5 degrees which is the Caucasian average. Unsurprisingly Keating 1985 found that men
with smaller, masculinized eyes are perceived as more mature or more socially dominant. What I’d like to point out in this candid
shot of him are some of the cosmetic flaws that even a top tier male model has in reality
that are hidden in a posed shot like this. Lighting does matter and In this photo, his
cheeks aren’t nearly as defined or hollow, his skin tone has some erythema at parts (skin
redness) and there are small blemishes and age lines forming, especially near his paranasal
and mouth. Also, the harsh lighting exposes some of his
submental from the front, which is obviously not something you would ever be able to see
if he’s posed and ready for a shoot. He does smoke, drink and live on a few hours
of sleep from his interviews and social media, so its dubious how well his skin will age
at least, especially being very pale and focused heavily on tanning as part of his modelling
look. As explained in the last video, sun damage,
with the amount of hours Jordan gets if you follow his social media has very adverse effects
on skin ageing, especially those with less melanin. Dr Sony Sherpa has written an article on choosing
sunscreens and their limitations over at the QOVES website to checkout. In the posed photo he looks drastically different. The photo quality is granier, likely added
in post production because this isn’t 1990 anymore, which reduces the appearance of skin
blemishes. Also, the photo has a clear retro filter on
it judging by the off-black colour of his jacket and the red of the background. This would likely be a colour look up table
in Photoshop which individually changes colour values to whatever you’d like rather than
a basic instagram filter which just changes everything to a few shades darker or lighter. That would be my guess for his tanned skin
tone. Lo and behold this is the original shutterstock
image and this is the one from his Project Zero profile page. Still very handsome but the skin colour is
overexposed and shiny which is more of the editors fault than his. Lastly, in virtually all of his candid photos
on the red carpet he doesn’t have hollow cheeks so he’s very clearly posing here
by sucking it in slightly, clenching his jaw and resting his tongue on the roof of his
mouth which is a common technique to get the blue steel look. Something fewer people would notice is how
he deliberately keeps his head level and creates space with his body because that accentuates
his jaw width more. Had he not done this, his jaw would blend
in with his neck and we wouldn’t be able to demarcate where it begins to fully appreciate
it. All small things that he and most models do
to look otherworldly attractive. One thing that I noticed about him in making
this video is that his transverse proportions are not ideal, as is common with people with
very wide faces at the outer fifths. It’s rare for the eyes to be too close together
but it is common for the eyes to be too far from the facial boundary, especially when
the face in question has a lot of extra mass pushing it outwards further in the form of
zygomatic projection. Jordan’s very high set cheekbones add a
lot of extra width to his midface which furthers his facial width to height ratio in appearing
more aggressive. Using Powel Et al’s method of measuring
cheekbone prominence, his most prominent part is very far outwards laterally from his eyes,
which is still desirable because for most people the cheekbones project forwards rather
than out. This outward projection again helps to define
his ogee curve which is a sign of youth. Another striking feature on Jordan are his
eyebrows. Thick eyebrows are a sign of virility and
for someone who’s naturally pale, blonde and blue-eyed having dark eyebrows is a striking
feature that goes against the norm which modelling loves. A better example would be Cara delavigne. Also, his eyebrows strongly extend past the
alar to canthus line whereas for most people that i’ve seen, it barely touches it or
thinly tapers off. This is one of the guidelines created by Yalcinkaya
Et al 2014, but there are numerous studies on ideal eyebrow proportions to cover for
a future video. According to Morgilski and Welling 2018, 1000
participants rated faces with thicker well kept eyebrows as more attractive. In fact I quote: both eyebrow thickness and
jawbone prominence were more important than cheekbone prominence and eye size when ranking
faces for attractiveness.’ This is unsurprising as eyebrow thickness
is a sign of circulating testosterone and desirable grooming qualities. The study also noted that eyebrow thickness,
face height and jawbone prominence were the more important factors in attractiveness,
all of which are things that Jordan’ face excels in. While there are a number of proportion tests
that we could cover, that would be beating a dead horse. His face is very proportionate and close to
the ideal masculine shape for modern men. It has a strong mix of feminine and masculine
features and isn’t overly to one side or the other which is what makes androgenous
faces such as his so unique to look at. Instead, the bigger change to his appearance
over the years has been his skin tone. When Jordan started off, he was very pasty
and pale, looking like 2012 Justin Beiber in the Boyfriend Music video. Nowadays, a portion of his time is spent tanning
to maintain the look. It’s part of playing up his persona as a
laid back Australian surfer on the international market and quite honestly being tanned does
make a difference in his shoots when it's done correctly. In fact his editors go far to play up this
role as much as possible, trying to mimic the skin flushness caused by the hot sun (erythema),
the fair blonde locks turning darker with greater eumelanin production and skin graininess
which is a sign of sun damage. When done incorrectly he looks incredibly
sunburnt as his skin fights back. It’s important to identify the ways the
modelling industry can make models look better through posture, posing and editing, while
also recognising that it takes a certain level of bone structure and proportion to make it
in the industry.
