The girls in the advertisements are smiling more nowadays for a very good reason, says Dovima, who is one of the world's top models.

"They're asking us to smile more," she said, referring to the photographers and ad agency hucksters before whom she does her $1-a-minute chores.

"I think we're getting back to looking like the All-American Girl should-not just us girls, but the young business woman and the matron as well"

Some agency operators are calling the new appearance "the soft look," in contrast to the down-the-nose hauteur that seemed to be influencing the ads for several years.

Phil Kennedy, director of the Hartford Agency, says there's a new demand for smiles and fuller cheeks in place of the severe look.

Bob Taft, director of the Taft Damon Agency, said some of his models are abandoning their traditional starvation diets and putting on a few pounds.

"There may be a few new models with rounder faces," said Dovima, who is long and lean, "but I don't think there's any fuller- cheeked rage. "I think we might look fuller-cheeked because we're all smiling more."

Dark-haired Dovima knows her "looks"--soft, haughty or what have you. She's looked almost every possible way in the last seven years.

"When I started in," she said, "I had no look at all, but I gradually developed a cold, sophisticated, aloof look, which was the kind of look the fashion magazines wanted in 1950.

"Then gradually, it went from that extreme to another- the Egyptian look.

"After that, there was a short interlude, when we went through the junior-ish face, with short-cut hair and bangs. It lasted about six months.

"From that, the hair got long again and, for me, the Oriental look came in. That was some- thing. Eyebrows way up to the temples, white eyelid makeup and a very dead white face.

"Then from the Oriental look, it seemed people were ready for a change. Sophistication and sleekness no longer were in demand and they began asking for a softer, warmer, more appealing look."

Some observers, such as Kennedy and Taft, are contending that this is going to drive the high-fashion model-the "bean- pole" or "scarecrow," as they say -out of the commercial ads and back into high fashion.

Dovima doesn't buy it, however.

"I think most of the high- fashion models can switch to any new look, just as they've switched before. They can be easily changed. To be a good model, any girl must be changeable.

"Every one of us can look four or five different ways, at least," she said.

"We may even be called upon to change several ways in a single day.

"But basically now, I suppose, I'm wearing a softer look. My hair is long and full and some- times I do it up in a ponytail and sometimes I let it flow.

"It seems to me I remember that flowing hair and softness were the vogue a long, long time ago. Wasn't Brenda Frazier's hair long and flowing?"

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For years, said Dovima, who recently made her movie debut in "Funny Face," she was an unsmiling model for a very personal reason.

"I didn't like my teeth," she said, "and I just didn't show them. Then, finally, I went to the dentist, had them all fixed up, had a couple of jackets put on and arrived at work smiling. It gave me so much more confidence to smile.

"And somebody said, 'Why, you've got a beautiful smile.'"

"And they immediately wanted smiling pictures."

But now, it would appear, smiling's in for sure. "But it isn't just the face that makes the picture," said Dovima. "The motion of the pose, the gesturing, the position of the hand, the basic attitude-that's what makes the whole picture, not just the face.

"I hope everyone isn't always smiling, because I'm sure everybody would get tired of it quickly."

We'll see.