The Unfairest of Them All - New York Times
"[Then] there are the French, whose women have always known how to play up their assets - as though the ability to tie a scarf with a flourish worthy of Matisse has been grafted into their genes - and who have always been enamored of stylistic nuance. Leave it to them to introduce a concept of feminine beauty so pure in its abstraction as to defy all logic. I am referring to the term 'jolie laide,' which translates literally into the clunking phrase "pretty-ugly," but which connotes something more lyrical, even transcendent."
(http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/style/tmagazine/t_b_2122_talk_jolie_laide_.html?pagewanted=all)