Lemondrop

Deep in rural southern Brazil, the biggest international export is ... supermodels -- the types who go on to strut down high-fashion runways, bust up marriages and produce Super-Offspring with American football demigods.

At least that was the case with Gisele, once a small-town farm girl discovered there. And now, the model-hunters -- getting superstitious -- are back, trolling the same set of green acres, hoping to uncover the next crop of "tall, thin girls with straight hair, fair skin and light eyes," one scout tells The New York Times.

That, they say, is the supermodel "genetic cocktail" that will ensure success on the most coveted runways. There's just one problem: The notion of hunting for one beauty ideal, and particularly a blond-haired, light-eyed one, in a nation that's predominantly not, is brewing up a fashion-fueled civil war.

The crux of the problem is that demographics in Brazil, a nation famed for its beautiful women, are changing. "Darker-skinned women have become more prominent," the Times notes. Meanwhile, Gisele's stock -- that is, Brazilians with German or Italian ancestry -- is dwindling. And yet, this year, the organizers of São Paulo Fashion Week had to be legally ordered to ensure that 10 percent of its models were of African or indigenous descent.

The real question: Why can't fashion get out of its blond-haired, blue-eyed rut? If we rode one style trend for this long, we guarantee you we'd be dubbed a "Don't." And anytime you start using a "genetic cocktail" to define beauty, we're pretty sure that's the territory you're in.

Check out the exact genetic ingredients of the Supermodel Cocktail -- and one young Brazilian hopeful -- below.