In The Line Of Beauty.(Lakshmi Menon)(Interview)

Sally Singer on a catwalk comer from Kerala.

"The politics of body and how you look is quite frightening. I've just decided to stop caring about it," says Menon

Imagine Stella Tennant emerging from the southern Indian port of Cochina place so diverse and spicy it even lays claim to one of the lost tribes of Israeland you'd come up with Lakshmi Menon, a 25-year-old Bangalore University graduate (developmental economics and sociology) who is the face of Givenchy and one of this year's most compelling new catwalk presences. I spotted her a year ago at the launch of VOGUE India (whose inaugural cover she shared with four Bollywood bombshells and Gemma Ward). At an event where jewels and cleavage were eye-popping, Menon wore a ponytail, flat sandals, and a navy Savio Jon halter dress to the knee. She looked unlike anybody there, and totally modern.

Ditto on the runways of New York, Paris, and Milan. At a time when there's never been a greater need for diversity and personality in the modeling industry, nothing seems fresher than an intelligent, mature, and well-rounded beauty whose conversation can move without effort (or pretense) from racial politics to what's in her suitcase. Regarding the former, Menon is a dark, naturally slender woman (very Keralan: Think of Arundhati Roy) who's had to reckon with a national prejudice in favor of "fairness" of skin. "In India, fairness equals better dating prospects, better career prospects. The politics of body and how you look is quite frightening. I've just decided to stop caring about it," she says in her soft, urgent voice. She also casts a coolly perceptive eye on the exuberant transformation of fashion and beauty culture in her native country. "India is in the throes of consumerism. The new rich middle class has so much money they don't know what to do with it. The buyers aren't mature enough to reflect on ...