My best friend from age 13 (and also my DB's girlfriend from about 14/15) was stunning. My height (5ft4/5), slim (size 6-8-10 back then) and had long Californian blonde hair, I've never seen a colour like it, but not the flaxen English/Scandi/Celtic blonde.
She also had stunning green cat shaped eyes and tanned really well, a golden colour.
She permed her hair from 13 and looked amazing like that (it was the 80s!). Whenever I was out with her I paled into comparison beside her and our other best friend (my best friend from age 4/5) was plain - she said she was a plain Jane. She wasn't that bad actually, was quite pretty, but she didn't suit makeup really, although we all wore it, dark brown/black eyeliner mostly on lower eye rims.
I looked pretty up until 15/16, when suddenly I recall I'd worn my hair in a French plait for school a couple of times and once when I was home from school, I took it out downstairs (it was really hot) and it sprung into curls. DM and DB suddenly went 'wow' and DM decided I should get my hair permed the next month. I just had normal longish hair, but when the hairdresser finished (I had a bubble perm) she said (and so did her colleagues), 'wow, it looks really natural on you'.
Once I'd had my perm done I got told by everyone, 'you look like Kylie Minogue/Charlene' (Neighbours), I got called 'hey Charlene!' by teenaged boys in the street. And I was elevated from a pretty girl, to, apparently stunning looking. But I didn't really see it, I was a shy, gawky, glasses wearing child who certainly didn't think she was pretty growing up! I also tended to walk around with my head in the clouds half the time, especially when out on the streets.
It's strange when you have to adjust both your and other people's viewpoints of you, especially when you change from 'plain' to 'very pretty' as I did aged 13. I did have the usual older guys approach me, when I was younger and drinking in pubs at 14 and thank god I survived most of those encounters.
I was told by a few people, 'you could model' - but I was only 5 ft 5 though I was very slim, about 6 to 6.5 stone at 12/13 maybe even slimmer but with a bust (always had that), and I don't think I'd have enjoyed it. I had an auntie who modelled though, we all thought she was so glamourous, she did well, but partly I think, due to her DH who was a 'famous' hairdresser back in the 60s (a complete tosser of a man though) and had connections to the modelling side. He was known before he married my auntie (they met when she was 14) for finding and making models. I was actually sent to Lucie Clayton's finishing school at 17/18 and the 'modelling' side of the school too, but I was too short to model, so just did the walks and the course, and learned to turn like on a catwalk, I also did the 'finishing' side too which was mostly, how to speak properly, get in and out of cars correctly, balance books on your head whilst walking.