Not pretty, but gorgeous

It's an easy-to-mock cliche to write something like "She was not pretty, but [three things that are clearly intended to give one an image of a pretty person]" -- I wonder if it's at all possible to do it well and without irony.

I like to write characters who are not necessarily squarely in the center of mainstream beauty standards, because I don't have much patience for mainstream beauty standards, and because my own experience is that finding someone attractive is often more about thinking they're interesting-looking or striking than thinking they're hot.

I guess at worst, "Not pretty but--" can be a lazy way to signify that the viewpoint character (or the reader, or the narrative voice) can see past mainstream beauty standards and see some subtle physical sign of the not-pretty character's goodness and suitability as a love interest.

But I guess there are less lazy ways to handle that. (And anyway, it's an artifact of the omnipresence of the male gaze that female characters get evaluated so often on the "hot or not?" scale in the first place, right? Not saying it doesn't happen with male characters, but somewhat less, surely.)