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This time last year, the editors of Pittsburgh magazine featured our first-ever "25 Most Beautiful People" on the January cover. It was one of the highest-selling issues to date,
so we decided to give our readers more of a good thing. Several months ago, we asked you to submit nominations for the beautiful people in your life.
Dozens of e-mails and photos flooded our office. Choosing 25 was tough work. Should we recognize
the model who earns a living being
gorgeous or the hard-working
nurse? And knowing that the cliché is so true - beauty is in the eye of the beholder - what standard would we use? In the end, we relied on simple instinct and photography.
Each person was asked two
questions: "What is beautiful to you in your life?" and "Where do you
find beauty in Pittsburgh?" Behold Pittsburgh's 2006 beauties, from all walks of life.
PROFILES BY JENNIFER PAPALE RIGNANI AND ROBERT ISENBERG
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Sayeh Tavangar
Sales Representative, Advo Inc.;
Interior Designer
Since Sayeh Tavangar and her family fled Iran 15 years ago, she has lived in 10 different countries and serves on the board of the Iranian American Council, endeavoring to educate people about the Middle East. "My family taught me to always help other people," she says. "At one point, somebody helped me, so I want to do the same." Having moved to the Pittsburgh area just under a year ago, Tavangar finds the diversity of the South Side comforting. "I grew up in New York City, and the South Side reminds me of the culture that is found there. It's the only place in Pittsburgh where you'll find a hookah bar across the street from a Spanish restaurant, blocks away from a Japanese steakhouse." Despite Tavangar's travels and driven humanitarian spirit, she harbors a simpler love—refurbishing vintage homes. "I spend my free time looking for personality in the architecture of old houses, then renovating them," the tri-lingual visionary explains, "Where others see ugliness, I see beauty."
Photo by Hanz Rosemond
Hair and makeup by Amber Altany
Richard Defilippo
Dentist
As a dentist and assistant professor of prosthodontics, Richard Defilippo answered our question with almost poetic eloquence: "Beauty is a kind of light force or energy shining from God through everything," he says. "Sometimes we have to look past the illusion of beauty as dictated by Madison Avenue or contemporary cultural trends to see the actual and incontrovertible beauty in people." For a man who uses words with ease, Defilippo is also taken by simple gestures, such as "a warm smile and a kind heart." In addition, he's also a fan of Pittsburgh's architecture: "It has a big-city ambience without being intimidating. Our bridges are not merely steel over water but architectural statements from another century. They take you from the cultural and corporate hub of a compact and lively downtown to the ethnic neighborhoods where the animated beauty of Pittsburgh resides and plays."
Photo by Hanz Rosemond
Nicole Lavezoli
Nurse
One of Nicole Lavezoli's favorite places in Pittsburgh is her parents' own backyard – the place where Lavezoli's high school sweetheart, nervous but determined, proposed to her (she said yes, and they're still married). "Every detail of that moment will be etched in my mind forever," she says. "It was a great time in both of our lives and just the beginning of a beautiful life together." This is a woman who finds beauty in everything – from walking her dog and getting sloppy kisses from her 1-year-old son to, yes, even traffic, which gives her a chance to "slow down and appreciate the things around me."
Photo by Richard Kelly
Hair and makeup by Dianne Ulan
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