When Victoria's Secret model Karolina Kurkova walked down the catwalk, people started wondering: where is her bellybutton?
The newspapers call it the "riddle of the £2.5m beauty". The beauty in question is Czech supermodel Karolina Kurkova. The riddle is her non-existent belly button.
Its absence was noticed this week when the 24-year-old graced a US catwalk for lingerie giant Victoria Secret. While most of us have an "outie" or an "innie", Ms Kurkova has a smooth indentation (although sometimes a tummy button is airbrushed onto her photos in post-production).
Otherwise known as a navel, the belly button is the rounded, knotty depression in the centre of the abdomen caused by the detachment of the umbilical cord that fed you while in the womb. We all have umbilical cords, so why don't we all have a belly button?
Ms Kurkova has not spoken publicly about how she came to have a smooth navel, and all her agent will say is "she's not an alien".
If you're missing a bellybutton, fear not: cosmetic surgery can help! Here's what Urlesque blog found out about umbilicoplasty, the surgery to reconstruct a bellybutton: Link (with photo of a guys' newly constructed ... and hairy bellybutton - you've been warned!)
Just kidding, of course. I know of two situations that could result in the absence of a pupik:
1. The navel is a type of scar; in some cases the umbilical cord detaches without leaving much of a trace, resulting in a very tiny or nonexistent navel.
2. There's a condition related to cleft palate in which the skin of the abdomen does not close in front. If the infant survives being born (The insides would be contained by a membrane & muscle in these cases), surgery is done to close up the opening. The child would have no belly button (the umbilical cord was attached at the membrane, not the skin). The child might be left with a large scar, but since this is done while the child is a newborn, in many cases the scar may clear up so much as to be unnoticeable. (Some forms of makeup may conceal it as well.)
A woman with no navel appears in Alejandro Jodorowski's film "Holy Mountain," for those who can stand to watch it. (If you've seen the movie and missed that detail, she's an older woman who dances naked in the scene where we are introduced to the nine world leaders ["My planet is Mars," etc.]. I think she's acting like a dominatrix; I'll have to watch it again to be sure.)
(waiting for pun response)
Guys' means more than one guy and the next word belongs to them. YOu must mean guy's, not guys'.
This doesn't seem like a big mystery to me, but the publicity of people confused by it is probably great for her career.
Maybe she had a botched appendectomy?
One was her natural one, the other was from her hysterectomy she had when she was 21. It was located two inches below the natural one.
Casey, why is your grandmother showing you her stomach? Grandparents should keep their clothes ON!
Just kidding. Some day, Angelina Jolie will be a grandmother.
Hahahaha! I love that this is what the agent has said.
too obscure?