Ideal proportions in full face front view, contemporary versus antique☆

Aim

To compare the facial proportions of contemporary harmonious faces with those of antiquity, to validate classical canons and to determine new ones useful in orthofacial surgery planning.

Material and methods

Contemporary beautiful faces were retrieved from yearly polls of People Magazine and FHM. Selected B/W frontal facial photographs of 31 men and 74 women were ranked by 20 patients who had to undergo orthofacial surgery. The top-15 female faces and the top-10 male faces were analyzed with Scion Image software. The classical facial index, the Bruges facial index, the ratio lower facial height/total facial height and the vertical tri-partite of the lower face were calculated. The same analysis was done on pictures of classical sculptures representing seven goddesses and 12 gods.

Results

Harmonious contemporary female faces have a significantly lower classical facial index, indicating that facial height is less or facial width is larger than in male and even than in antique female faces. The Bruges index indicates a similar difference between ideal contemporary female and male faces.

The contemporary male has a higher lower face (48%) compared to total facial height than the contemporary female (45%), although this is statistically not significant (P=0.08).

The lower facial thirds index remained quite stabile for 2500 years, without gender difference. A good canon for both sexes today is stomion–gnathion being 70% of subnasale–stomion.

Conclusion

The average ideal contemporary female face is shorter than the male face, given the fact that interpupillary distance is similar. The Vitruvian thirds in the lower face have to be adjusted to a 30% upper lip, 70% lower lip-chin proportion. The contemporary ideal ratios are suitable to be implemented in an orthofacial planning concept.