Ethereal Style Essence
Image source: "Uma Thurman - Cannes 2000" by Rita Molnár
Uma Thurman has primarily the Ethereal and secondarily the Dramatic style essence.
Ethereals paradoxically embody immateriality. They embody the psychological, profound, spiritual, and sublime.
You’re free to interpret the essence differently, and this freedom matches the essence’s vibe: Ethereal symbolizes openness to other perspectives.
In the scientific realm, we observe with our senses and use these observations to explain phenomena. We use straightforward logic: if A = B then C.
In the realm of ideas, impressions, intuition, and spirituality, we sometimes observe in different ways. We may have sensory or other experiences that prompt us to imagine something totally new, to fantasize, to dream, to feel, and we might posit the existence of realities beyond what we can perceive with our physical senses. Our logic in these instances might be something like, if A and D and G and P and bananas and crocodiles then maybe Z. Non-linear reasoning. Not straightforward. A complex, winding, hazy path.
Ethereal lines are like this. They’re gently curving and elongated, seeming as if they could go on forever, intimating our sense of the eternal. The infinity symbol is an Ethereal shape.
Ethereal lines, with their length and curves, can evoke creative, intuitive, spiritual forms of thought. Similarly, they can evoke ideas of immaterial, spiritual beings. Angels, fairies, deities—typically our depictions of these creatures have large, curving, soulful eyes and faces. Ethereal evokes the idea of the soul.
If Ethereality physically embodies a personality trait, it may be Openness to Experience. This trait can be subdivided into 6 factors: Focus on feelings, focus on imagination, sensitivity to aesthetics, interest in ideas, interest in novelty, and challenging authority/convention. Ethereals may look novel and maybe unconventional, ideational, and imaginative. They appear emotional in a deep, understated way. With their long, soft faces, they often look open, transparent.
Importantly, it’s possible to be high on Openness to Experience and not have the Ethereal style essence, and it’s possible to be very highly Ethereal and very low on Openness to Experience. The physical world symbolizes but doesn’t literally reflect the contents of the internal.
The Natural style essence tends to read as more “down-to earth,” in contrast to Ethereal’s supernatural vibes. Of course, neither designation—down-to-earth or head-in-the-clouds—is inherently better or worse, whether applied to personality or appearance. Life is more interesting, rich, and functional for the fact that people have vast internal and external differences.
Further, many people can simultaneously embody both more down-to-earth and whimsical personality traits and appearances. Lots of people have both the Ethereal and Natural style types, and there’s arguably a lot of visual similarity between the two, as both are elongated and can have calm and carefree vibes.
Models, especially high fashion models, often have a lot of Ethereal, maybe because the fashion world values faces that appear unique and conceptual. Clothes are both physical and emotional, provoking feelings, ideas, the intangible. This ability to physically embody the intangible is the beauty of the Ethereal type.
Examples of highly Ethereal faces include Cate Blanchett, Billie Eilish, Jessica Chastain, Drake, and Glenn Howerton. Model Masha Tylena appears to be a purely Ethereal type. Check out my Pinterest for many more examples of Ethereal blends, and future posts for further descriptions of the type, including their most harmonious fashion.
