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Miss Universe, Honolulu, Hawaii, 1998

"Hours before she is crowned Miss Universe 1998, law student Wendy Fitzwilliam of Trinidad gives her national costume a tiny tweak. Lesser mortals reach farther—and more strenuously—in an age-old quest to embody a beauty ideal as enticing as it is elusive."

—From "The Enigma of Beauty," January 2000, National Geographic magazine

Photograph by Jodi Cobb