First of all, let me say that every girl can be attractive. "Oh," you say, "it's easy enough for you to talk, you're a model." Of course, you are right. I am a model. As I pointed out before, I was not born a model. I had to make the best of what I had, just as you are doing. I had to experiment. I had to discover what was most becoming to me, to find out what weight was suitable for my figure, to find out which way my hair looked the most flattering, to slick up my makeup and to improve my posture. Things were not always smooth sailing. I had my ups and my downs. There were times when my skirts fitted me like panty girdles. There were times when my face was splotchy as an ink blotter. And there were times when my hair straggled all over my head.

But I learned how to put my best face and figure forward. I found out that being attractive was not so hard, and therefore I decided, as I explained to you in the beginning of this book, that because making the best of oneself was so easy I would share my knowledge with you. Now, before I have my final say, I want to stress one thing. Being pretty and attractive does help you to be popular, but being pretty and attractive does not and never can guarantee that you will be popular. There is another factor, a very important factor, and that is personality. Personality is that indescribable something that sets you off as a person. It is hard to explain but easy to recognize. You yourself know what it is when you say, "Gee, that Jane Smith, she sure has personality." Or, "She's sure got it." What you are saying is that Jane sparkles, she's alive, she's way out of her shell, in fact, there's no shell there at all.

Jane is the kind of person people like to talk to, boys as well as girls. She warms up to everybody and she is interested in whatever they have to say. She will discuss with equal enthusiasm last night's date or tomorrow's homework. But, at the same time, Jane will never pry into your personal affairs. She will not question you about this or that unless you ask her opinion. Jane is careful about what she says because she has learned that nasty words have a way of coming back like boomerangs. She may not like the smart aleck in math class (the one who always knows all the answers) any better than you do, but she keeps quiet about it. There may be a time, she knows, when that very smart aleck might be the only boy in the stag line.

Another aspect of Jane's personality is her desire to avoid bigotry. She is tolerant—she has respect for other people's beliefs, and she does not make fun of anyone who holds different opinions from hers. She keeps an open mind about complex questions of religion, politics, and such matters. She has her own feelings about these things, but she does not try to force them on others, nor does she think that those who differ are stupid. Because she is open-minded, she would try never to blackball anyone.

Blackball is a nasty word. When you say it it even tastes bad on the tongue. So it's a pity then that too many of us think that it's the thing to do. Without so much as a thought, one girl will rule another out of her club because she doesn't like the way she wears her hair or because she speaks with an accent. Jane, on the other hand, never bases her opinions on a girl's mannerisms or her family's car. Jane decides on the basis of fairness. Jane judges a girl on the girl's own merits.

But Jane is no goody-goody. She is just a popular girl. She acts in a friendly way, therefore she has friends. Naturally some of her friends are closer than others, and with these friends she feels more at ease. But she does not tie herself down to the narrow circle of her really close friends; she is a big enough person to know how to be pleasant to everybody, to say, "Hi," smile and go on.

One of the most important aspects of Jane's personality—the most important, in fact—is that her personality is all hers. It is not borrowed from a movie star, from a local college queen or from her mother. Jane is all Jane. Her personality is her own.

And just as Jane's personality is all her own, so is her appearance. She does not try to pattern her looks after someone else, no matter how beautiful the other person may be. Jane looks like herself. She has individuality.

Jane's individuality makes her memorable. You never think of her as that girl who looks like , you think of her as herself. On the other hand, Jane's individuality does not prevent her from following fashion trends. She adapts herself to what is new. When hair is short, so is hers, but cut to become er, not cut to look like a recent fashion ad. Still, Jane, in trying not to look like others, does not carry the attempt too far. She strives to strike a happy medium. She keeps in fashion, but she also keeps on looking like herself. She has developed vhat is known as her own sense of style, for style is merely e sum total of what you wear and the way you wear it. Jane knows that a stylish person is one who takes the best rom each new fashion and fits it to herself. She does not swal-ow a new fashion whole, but adapts it to her own figure and ersonality.

Now there are girls, unlike Jane, who are always trying to ook like somebody else. One year it is this movie star, the ext year another. They concentrate so hard on being a carbon opy that their own features get smudged in the process, liey never give themselves a chance to develop their own tyle because they are so busy copying somebody else's.

One of the first things you learn in modeling is that you ave got to be yourself. If you try to be somebody else (say nother model—a very successful one) then you will find that he photographers and fashion editors are going to choose to hotograph the girl you look like, who is, after all, the original, ou learn in the beginning that if you want success you can-ot be a carbon copy. You have to be your own original: you ave to develop your own style. After all it is pretty wonderful to think that there is nobody this entire world who looks exactly like you (unless you are n identical twin). You are unique. You may take a bit after our mother, you may have your father's eyes, but essentially you are you. And being you, you are all yours to make or break. You should be proud of that fact, so proud that it makes you want to get up and do the very best you can for yourself.

You will do the best you can if you get up the gumption to develop your own style, preserve your own personality and make like an individual. Now, of course, you cannot assert yourself all over the place. There are circumstances and customs that limit you. You are subject to the habits and ideas of the world you live in. Your parents, your school, your friends, your total environment combined with the exact point of time in which you live, all affect you.

These influences tend to integrate you into your community. By the way you look, talk and think you are identified as a modern American teen-ager, just as by the way she looked and behaved a Gibson Girl was identified as a young woman of the early 1900's. At the opening of a play, the author always designates the time and the place. He does this because without that knowledge his characters would be acting in a void, their actions would have no point of reference. Your point of reference is America today.

Within this framework you move, and when the framework changes you change along with it. Just tlrink how many changes have taken place in America since 1900 and how many will take place before 2000. Every year, every month, things change, big things and little. The trick is in knowing how to adapt to changes and still maintain your own standards and your own individuality.