You’d be laborious pressed to think about one other magnificence with as many well-known particular person options as British Vogue’s February 2024 cowl star, Julia Roberts. The pre-Raphaelite auburn curls. These full, feathery brows. That indelible smile so broad and straight and gleaming, it’s absolutely a blueprint for orthodontists. However Roberts can be, lest we overlook, one thing of a poster woman for underarm hair.

Though Roberts wasn’t the primary star to unveil au naturel armpits in public (credit score right here goes to Sophia Loren, who was flouting that individual magnificence norm way back to the Fifties), she is arguably essentially the most memorable, not least for the quantity of dialogue–even outrage–that her hirsute look on the 1999 London premiere of Notting Hill prompted.

“I waved and folks noticed I had armpit hair. It was a scandal,” she recollects wryly in the Life in Seems movie that accompanies her British Vogue cowl.

As Roberts has identified, regardless of the eye (to not point out the column inches) that her armpits attracted, she had no pro-hair agenda at play; she was merely being herself. However this pink carpet second was pivotal nonetheless, and might be seen as paving the best way in direction of the way more relaxed attitudes to physique hair now we have at this time. Few would bat an eyelid over a Gen-Z lady ditching the razor in 2024, however again in 1999, Roberts was one thing of a pioneer–even when she didn’t got down to be one.

Fortunately, Roberts continues to be being herself 25 years later. As she quips within the video: “I may scandalize you folks proper now if I took my jacket off.”