CARACAS, Venezuela — It has always been an open secret here, though one that is not supposed to be shared with outsiders. So when a recent consumer survey of 30 countries concluded that Venezuelans, men and women alike, were the most vain people in the world, the results were considered a bit embarrassing, but hardly surprising.
"Of course it is true," said Marga Bermudez, a salesclerk in a busy beauty products store at a shopping center in a middle-class area here. "How could it be otherwise? Ours is a country renowned for its beauty queens, and so we are always, always worrying about our appearance."
Whether gauged by President Hugo Chavez extolling the comeliness of the Venezuelan woman in speeches or the magazines that trace the careers of the growing number of Venezuelan male models who are achieving success abroad, this is a society that sets an extraordinary stock on looking good. Rich and poor, women and men, young and old — all are expected to make themselves as attractive as possible, no matter what the cost to their pocketbooks or bodies.
According to the market research study, 65 percent of Venezuelan women and 47 percent of men admitted that they think about their looks "all the time." Russian women, at 51 percent, and Mexican men, 40 percent, finished second in the survey, conducted last year by Roper Starch Worldwide, while just 27 percent of American women and 17 percent of American men were recorded as saying that their appearance was always on their minds.
To Osmel Sousa, those findings merely prove that Venezuelans have more discerning tastes than other mortals. Sousa may well be in a position to know. As director of the Miss Venezuela pageant, he is "the Pygmalion of our national mythology," in the words of the sociologist Tulio Hernandez, and the one person most responsible for establishing the ideals of physical attractiveness for which Venezuelans aim.
"You can find vain people everywhere, but I don't think the Venezuelan people as a whole are especially vain," he said. "What you have here is people paying a lot of attention to and investing a lot of effort in their personal appearance, in looking good and dressing well. We're not vain here so much as we are lovers of beauty."
Despite the country's vast oil wealth, more than 80 percent of Venezuela's population of 23 million people continue to live below the poverty line. Yet when it comes to looking their best, there seems to be little difference between the rich and the much poorer.
"Board a bus, even in the most humble of neighborhoods, and it reeks of perfume," said Gladys Duque Cabrera, a hairdresser in Catia, a working-class area here. "Venezuelans would rather not eat than not look elegant."