• by Erik Sass , March 6, 2012

After years of dispensing the conventional wisdom about who’s beautiful, People is turning to its readers, who are being asked to submit candidates for the magazine’s 23rd annual “Most Beautiful People” issue, due to hit newsstands on April 27.

The theme of the contest is “Real Beauty at Every Age,” and submissions are limited to female subjects between the ages of 20 and 59.

According to the magazine’s publisher, this is the first time that ordinary people will be featured alongside celebrities. Visitors to People.com submit nominations (including themselves or somebody else) from March 6-18. Along with a photo, visitors are asked to explain what beauty means to them, suggesting a broader set of criteria than facial symmetry and dress size.

Participants can then vote on their favorite submissions from April 2-8; one winner will be chosen for each age cohort, with forty portraits appearing in the “Most Beautiful” issue.

Four grand prize finalists will also receive a free trip to New York City for a photo shoot; the winners will be revealed in the “Most Beautiful” issue. Online ads will promote the “Most Beautiful” issue and market People subscriptions to visitors participating in the contest.

Although it doesn’t seem to be connected to Dove, the “Real Beauty” tagline echoes the soap brand’s much-discussed “Campaign for Real Beauty,” launched in 2004, which similarly aimed to highlight female beauty beyond the narrow confines of most mass media images.

The Dove campaign -- like the People “Most Beautiful” issue -- was positioned as responses to what many critics call a superficial, unrealistic and unattainable ideal of female beauty, which has a variety of negative impacts, including widespread body image disorders among teenagers and young women.