I once turned up at the theatre, having accepted an invitation from someone I knew virtually, but had not yet encountered in the flesh, for an evening of high culture with a group of like-minded women. Foolishly, I had done this without ascertaining a precise meeting place, the location of our seats or even, alas, the name of my hostess. Full of self-loathing, I slouched miserably around the lobby until something between divine intervention and an inner social radar kicked in: “Go to a high place and look for all the blondes.” I immediately located my comrades: lithe, tastefully highlighted, honey-limbed and equipped with petal-pink manicures. I had found my quarry.

A funny old thing has happened to British womanhood. Where once we used to pride ourselves on our individuality – eccentricity, even – now a creeping homogeneity is becoming the norm. Regardless of age or permutations of class, one’s hair must be blow-dried and subtly blonded, one’s physique gym-toned, one’s tan fawn, one’s make-up discreetly flattering. As a look, it represents a less extreme version of the prevailing LA aesthetic: the hair less flaxen, the slimness less acute, the tackiness muted. However, the underlying principle is much the same: an artful casualness, the cosmetic equivalent of understated interior design.

The effect can be lovely, when it is done well, but the cumulative effect of its slavish mass adoption is heinously insipid. Certainly, we Brits needed to raise our game in the grooming stakes. Who would now return to that prelapsarian era when manicures were only for wedding days, and pretty high-maintenance ones at that? But surely it is possible to scrub up a bit without the population at large going so spookily Stepford?

In such circumstances, the eye falls hungrily upon those members of the sorority who buck the trend. Even those less than enamoured of Lily Allen’s warbling must love her for her addiction to neon eyeliner. It is minxish, irreverent and indisputably striking. Amy Winehouse may alarm onlookers with her emaciation, but the “bouffant, kohl and tatts” look that she rocks is a work of art. Skinny limbs apart, Winehouse is magnificently her own creation: a starlet with a provoking attitude. The divine Dita Von Teese’s blancmange-like curves and retro maquillage are the antithesis of Stepford style. And while the chameleon-like Christina Aguilera appears to be settling into a bombshell phase, in contrast, the bland, benighted Britney Spears – who had one stereotypically obvious look – has lost it, in both senses of the word.

The late Isabella Blow was a paragon of exotic individuality, and her friends Daphne and Lulu Guinness revel in distinctive haute-glamour style. Billie Piper’s peroxide mop/dark brow combo has “it”, while Erin O’Connor is uniqueness personified. None of these women could be confused with anybody else, and that’s just the way they like it. Beauteous individualism can be as straightforward as cultivating a hallmark feature or a signature look. It may be an ostensibly small thing, such as Cindy Crawford’s mole or Lauren Hutton’s gap-toothed smile, or it may be rather more obvious, such as Nigella Lawson’s lush hourglass figure. It could mark an active decision to be famed for beautiful hands, voice or rear, or it may simply be a hair thing, like Lily Cole’s preRaphaelite tresses.

Before uniformity washed over the red carpet, Hollywood knew a thing or two about individuality. A born beauty such as the Mexican actress Dolores del Rio could leave her jet hair centre-parted and unadorned except for a hothouse bloom, fostering the myth that she lived off a diet of rose petals and gardenias. But the principle was equally adaptable to those less naturally gifted. Even a celebrated beauty such as Greta Garbo might take work. At 20, she was, by her own account, an “unretouched Swedish dumpling”. Under MGM edict, she dieted, dethatched her brows and had her teeth fixed. But it was the decision to scrape back her hair that was to reveal the most hypnotic bone structure on the silver screen.

One of the most effective strategies is to work out your natural period, à la Von Teese (originally a pedestrian, Middle American blonde). Try as I might, I cannot fail to look somewhat 1940s, and I may as well roll with it rather than turning myself into a Noughties no-hoper.

I once knew a woman who adapted her (frankly rather terrifying) features and recast herself as an 18th-century moll, all blanched complexion and doll-pink cheeks. As a 21st-century beauty, she failed to make the grade, but as a pert, Fieldingesque doxy, she was sublime.

All that is required in the pursuit of individuality is to take a good, long look at yourself and work out what it is that is extraordinary, rather than following the herd. Pale? Eschew fake tan in favour of the milkiest complexion. Greying? Why not restyle yourself as a rococo heroine à la Madame de Pompadour. After all, what is the advantage of being sheepishly vanilla, when you can be your resplendent, Technicolor self?

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