Last year I made a pilgrimage up to Manhattan to catch the exhibition of vintage lipsticks at the Makeup in New York show. This year I realized I had to go back for the 2014 show since it featured an exhibition of vintage compacts and powder boxes.
The banner was cool but I'm laughing at the date typo at the top. Those June dates were for the 2014 Makeup in Paris show. Whoops.
Inside there was a directory, which in hindsight I should have looked at before blindly wandering upstairs. I walked around the 2nd and 3rd floors before realizing the exhibition was on the 4th floor. I was just so eager and there weren't any maps being given out like last year.
I made it! I think there might have been an issue with this banner too, although this time I think it's a translation issue rather than a typo. In the directory banner and online the exhibition is referred to as "Praise of Complexion" while on the exhibition banner it says "An Ode to the Complexion". Oh well. I think perhaps they were just re-using the name of the 2012 Guerlain-sponsored exhibition, which featured many of the same items.
Exhibition view:
The tall handsome man on the far right holding a coffee cup and politely pretending to be interested is the husband. Isn't he sweet to come with me to the exhibition?
So let's get started. I didn't take pictures of every object but I did get a nice selection. These two ladies greeted me by the front door. They're papier maché powder boxes from 1920.
By the windows there was a great lineup, starting with some oddly surrealist powder boxes.
There were some lovely French 18th-century-inspired compacts and boxes from the 1920s. So even in the '20s companies were doing the retro packaging thing.
This display of Bourjois boxes was pretty cool.
I was thinking that if I ever did a bird-themed exhibition I'd definitely have to have a peacock display. Looks like Praise of Complexion beat me to it! The top box from Nylotis is from 1920 while the other box and compact are from 1930.
These two 1962 Heaven Sent compacts by Helena Rubinstein are so cute. The one on the left would be perfect for a holiday exhibition.
Here's the famous "Golden Gesture" compact by Volupté from 1945. (Why yes, that IS a Babo iPhone case. Come on, did you really expect me to have something else?)
Here's a bakelite bangle containing powder flanked by two lipsticks (1928).
As we know, celebrity collabs are nothing new. Check out these compacts featuring the A-list performers of their time.
There were also some quite fancy compacts on display that seem to be closer to the objects at the Ultra Vanities exhibition. On the left is a 1945 gold and silver compact encrusted with rubies by Boucheron and on the right is Hermès (1960).
I think what I enjoyed most though were the really old boxes, like these French ones from the 18th century.
The small one at the top has a picture of Marie Antoinette on the outer side of the case.
I was curious to know whether these selections were from a book, and indeed they were. This book is from 2012 but doesn't seem to be available for sale anywhere, which is a shame as it also was the impetus for the aforementioned Guerlain exhibition. 🙁
I didn't dare touch the book in the display, but I tried picking up the copy laying on the table to flip through it, only to find that the back cover was adhered to the table with putty. Respectful exhibition goer that I am, I took it as a sign that no one wanted it to be moved so I just perused it carefully while it was still laying flat. Not 10 minutes later I glanced back and it was gone. And NO, I didn't steal it! I'd be pissed if it were my exhibition and someone walked off with a copy of a book that was deliberately not supposed to be moved. I couldn't believe someone just snatched it. It's not like it could be mistaken for a free catalogue – there was only 1 besides the one standing upright in the display. Plus someone took the time to adhere it to the table with putty, indicating that you should only flip through it at the table.
Anyway, I thought display-wise it was a big improvement over last year. The labels were more informative and better designed, and there were pretty floral patterns on the backgrounds of the cases holding the compacts.
After I was done drooling over the exhibition we wandered around and a couple of other things caught my eye. Right behind the exhibition there was a booth from a company called Qualipac, which, apparently, was responsible for the spiky Louboutin nail polish bottle along with many other objects I recognized.
I asked the woman working there about the bottle and she said the Louboutin people were "very picky". I thought that was pretty funny. Then again, if they want people to shell out $50 for their nail polish they can't afford to put it in just any old packaging, right? Plus I imagine beauty companies would have the upper hand in terms of choosing a packaging vendor, given the sheer volume of them I witnessed at this show, so I bet they can be as picky as they want.
I can't remember which company this was but I loved the little lipstick tree they had set up.
This is a terrible picture but you can sort of make out the really cool floral print nail polish bottle caps in the lower right. I spied an array of wooden caps above too, so I'm speculating that this company (Pinkpac) may do the packaging for Sheswai.
I spotted something very interesting at this company's display. If you look towards the middle-left you'll see two Tom Ford lipsticks (one burgundy, the other ivory) covered in a croc-patterned leather case. I'm assuming this is just an example of what they would look like with leather casing and weren't actually put into production. Still, I wonder if we'll see them at a later time?
I couldn't resist picking up a t-shirt – something that wasn't available last year.
There was also a bag like last year with bits of swag. It had the same Pantone-esque collection of vendors and a pencil, but this year the pencil had glitter (ooh!) and there were also lipstick and nail polish samples.
So that's my tale from the 2014 Makeup in New York show. I hope there's an equally cool exhibition next year.
What are your thoughts?
I came across this concept for a DIY cosmetics setup via The Fox Is Black a few weeks ago and I can't get it out of my head! London-based designer Lauren Davies came up with a "collection of analog tools for the production of natural cosmetics at home, inspired by beautiful ancient rituals and the transformative powers of alchemy."
Here's the concept: "The palette of copper and maple wood are chosen for their traditional and folkloric symbolism respectively. Cork is used for its insulating properties, borosilicate glass for its heat resistance and stainless steel for strength. All components are fabricated in collaboration with London-based craftsmen. Together, the tools form a statement piece; reigniting a dialogue about our relationship with nature and the materials we use…The tools I’ve designed will enable women to forge a stronger connection to their personal beauty rituals and a more magical relationship with nature’s intricate mysteries." I love this description. Since I'm not too familiar with DIY beauty recipes and can barely figure out our French press, the video really helped me see how everything works.
The idea of mixing one's own lotions and potions is not new; in fact, up until the late 19th century most women concoted their own beauty treatments. Says Kathy Peiss in her excellent book Hope in a Jar: The Making of American's Beauty Culture: "Nineteenth century American women inherited a tradition of cosmetic preparation, which freely borrowed from a variety of sources and reached back through the centuries…like household hints and cooking recipes, cosmetic knowledge spread by word of mouth, within families and between neighbors. Women often compiled their own recipe books and passed them on to their daughters…women's access to information about cosmetics expanded even more with the publishing boom of the 1840s and 1850s." (p.12-14) You can even find these recipes today.
The Alchemist's Dressing Table works in these age-old traditions as well as the tools used, but modernizes everything to create a sleek, streamlined design. The ancient Egyptians used a combination of a lead-based mineral and soot to make black eye kohl, and Davies provides a rather elegant way to produce soot that can be used in a recipe for eye liner. Additionally, you can see the similarity between the ancient kohl applicator/mixing tool shown in these images from the British Museum and the one Davies designed. (And look! You can buy an entire book on cosmetic sets in early Britain!)
I also liked how Davies modified an alembic to distill ingredients for beauty treatments, but still uses the traditional materials: copper, glass and sometimes cork. Here's a reproduction of a traditional copper alembic and some 19th century alembics for comparison.
As for practicality, I personally can't see any use for the Alchemist's Dressing Table myself as I'm a disaster at both cooking and science experiments. The only value for me would be the packaging of the end product. I'm envisioning putting everything into pretty little jars I found on Etsy with vintage-inspired labeling, and frankly, I can buy pre-made products that have that packaging. Purchasing them would eliminate the risk of setting my kitchen on fire, which would no doubt be the end result of my attempt to distill some lavender. I also imagine this set would be a rather pricey investment for consumers if it were put into production. Having said all that, I certainly recognize the value of such a setup for those that need or want chemical-free, all-natural beauty products. If, for example, a vegan and/or gluten-free lifestyle is a necessity, making your own products from start to finish is a way to be 100% sure the products you're using comply with your needs. You control the entire process. Indeed, Davies states, "I believe this could be the future of cosmetics for the modern woman who has a desire to be more in control of what she uses on her skin and the impact they have on our environment." You don't even have to buy, say, rosewater since you can now make your own. I suppose there are ways to make your own products without this carefully designed ensemble, but these are such beautiful pieces it makes mixing a homemade cream in your old soup pot – you know, the cheap one you got in college that's now scratched to hell – seem downright sad.
The bottom line is that objectively speaking, this is simply gorgeous. It's not just the beauty-obsessed among us that appreciates this work – the Alchemist's Dressing Table was nominated for the 2014 Design of the Year Award at London's Design Museum. I would dearly love to get my hands on it…especially if I had a physical Makeup Museum. I'd have a whole room with this as the centerpiece and people could make appointments to come in and make whatever they want.
What do you think? Do you mix your own products and if so, would you use something like this?
I was a little leery of this book. While it's been on my Amazon wishlist for a while, I was concerned that the author, an economist from Harvard, would take a topic I adore and turn it into something dreadfully dry and boring. Or worse, he would use all kinds of fancy jargon that someone with very little understanding of economics (i.e. me) wouldn't be able to comprehend. However, Beauty Imagined: A History of the Global Beauty Industry by Geoffrey Jones was quite enjoyable and informative. Jones thoroughly traces the industry's origins in the late 19th century through its emergence as the mammoth business it is today, connecting company histories with cultural and economic shifts that ultimately helped shape the perception not just of the industry but also our very definition of beauty. While Madeleine Marsh's Compacts and Cosmetics and Kathy Peiss's Hope in a Jar are similar in subject matter, Beauty Imagined delves more fully into the economic side of beauty's history. Still, like his fellow authors on cosmetics history, Jones ensures his writing never gets dull by peppering the text with a plethora of interesting facts and figures.
In the first three chapters, the author gives us a compelling history of fragrance, hair products, toothpaste and soap and how these products laid the foundation for color cosmetics. It was enlightening in that I hadn't really thought of these as being the ancestral relatives of makeup; I had thought of them each having their own discrete background and not integral to, say, the development of lip gloss. But as Jones explains, without these more basic items taking root in the early 20th century, other products would not have been born.
Chapters 4 and 5 discuss how neither the Great Depression nor two world wars could stop the growth of the beauty industry, as well as the establishment of the connection between Hollywood celebrities and beauty. These chapters also explore the growing use of radio, movies and TV for beauty advertising. Chapters 6 through 8 detail the rise of globalization in the industry, describing how local companies slowly but surely transformed into regional, then national, then international brands from roughly the 1970s to the present day, along with the relationship between phamaceutical companies and beauty brands.
I thought I'd highlight some of my favorite nuggets of information:
– Coty's first fragrance, La Rose Jacquesminot, got picked up by a department store after the founder smashed a bottle of it on the counter to get customers to smell it.
– Cosmetics weren't regulated by the FDA till 1938.
– Toothpaste was available as early as the 1850s, but it was packaged in jars. Colgate invented the first collapsible toothpaste tube in 1896.
– The first metal lipstick tube was invented in 1915, and the first twist-up tube in 1921.
– Avon's original name was the California Perfume Company.
– The notion of "green" beauty goes back much further than one would think. Clarins, Yves Rocher and Biotherm were all established in the 1950s, with an emphasis on using natural, plant-based ingredients.
– As of 2010, consumers spent $382 billion (!) on cosmetics, fragrance and toiletries worldwide.
The only "problem" I had with the book in that it's not actually a problem at all is that there are complete endnotes for each chapter, and perusing them I came across a ton more beauty history books I want to read!
Bottom line: Beauty Imagined is different than other beauty books but in a good way, and an excellent read even for those of us who don't have a background in business. Oh, and if your thirst for knowledge still isn't sated, check out the videos of Dr. Jones discussing the book here and here.
Now that we've covered porcelain lipstick holders, let's take a peek at the other main type of vintage holders: metal. Nearly all of the metal lipstick holders produced in the 20th century had filigree work or equally ornate details like rhinestones and faux pearls. And many were fashioned out of ormolu (if you don't know what that is, no worries – I had no idea what it was either.) According to the good old Merriam-Webster dictionary, ormolu is a "gold-coloured alloy made up of copper, zinc, and sometimes tin in various proportions but usually at least 50% copper. It is used in mounts (ornaments on borders, edges, and as angle guards) for furniture and for other decorative purposes. After the molten alloy has been poured into a mold and allowed to cool, it is gilded with powdered gold mixed with mercury. It is then fired at a temperature that evaporates the mercury, leaving a gold surface. Ormolu was first produced in France in the mid-17th century, and France remained its main centre of production."
Some of the heavy hitters in terms of brands included Sam Fink, Matson, and Florenza.
There's very little information on Sam Fink, but if you see a goldtone lipstick holder with a cherub on it, chances are it's a Sam Fink. The company was active from the 1950s through the '70s. I'm not sure whether the company's signature design was an angel or if there just happens to be a large proportion of them for sale currently, but quite a few Sam Fink pieces have this figure.
Florenza was a jewelry company founded in 1949. Lest you think their pieces have some kind of Italian flair, the company name had nothing to do with the city of Florence but was a riff on the founder's mother's name. Florenza manufactured slightly higher-end pieces that were sold in department stores like Bloomingdale's and Lord & Taylor. Unlike their competitors, Florenza offered a multitude of finishes for their lipstick holders beyond plain gold. These are two of their "French white" items, which were actually enamel that sometimes had a metallic finish.
Picking up from where I left off in part 1 of this post, I am curious to know why these types of holders are unpopular now. Or at least, not liked enough that any company would manufacture any in these styles. Perhaps it's just a matter of trends and popular opinion – the taste for ornate display pieces has simply disappeared in favor of more practical, space-saving options. Or could it be that as women gained more freedom in the latter part of the 20th century, unabashedly feminine items were considered a liability to the feminist movement. I'm not claiming that feminism killed the lipstick holder, but maybe it helped shift the original aesthetic to something that would appeal more to the "liberated" woman. As more women entered the workforce, a sensible lipstick organizer would make sense in helping them get out the door on time rather than fussing with an overly-designed holder. It seems very likely that in reaching for a lipstick one would knock over a figurine or one with a large element in the middle, like the third Sam Fink and the Matson holders shown in this post. And maybe women wanted to shift away from wearing makeup to look pretty or viewing it as a luxury – toned-down makeup became the norm for working women who wanted to appear nothing but professional, and they wanted something equally plain to contain their products. (I can't back any of this up, of course…just speculating here.) Fortunately, nowadays we've moved beyond the functionally sound but dully designed acrylic holders. I think Anthropologie strikes a nice balance between elegant and utilitarian in their lipstick holders.
What's your preference? Do you enjoy the gaudiness of the gold filigree holders, the super girly porcelain figurines, or a basic acrylic lipstick organizer? Or a combination of modern design and retro style, as represented by the Anthropologie lipstick holders? To be honest, porcelain figurines creep me out, I find clear plastic holders extremely uninspired, and the more modern ones just don't have the same appeal as true vintage holders. So I'm partial to the old-school filigree metal lipstick holders – I love how over-the-top they are!
I was doing a lot of scouring on E-bay for vintage compacts and came across a slew of other vintage beauty items, that, sadly, have waned in popularity. Lipstick holders were a mainstay of many women's vanities from roughly the 1930s through the '70s. These often ornate accessories seem to have been replaced nowadays with more utilitarian lipstick "organizers" made from clear plastic. I'm not sure why – I'll explore possible reasons in part two of this post – but for now I want to give a very quick rundown of how past generations of women stored and displayed their lipstick.
From what I've found, there were generally two types of materials used for lipstick holders in the 20th century: porcelain and metal. Part one of this post will cover the former. According to this article, the three largest and well-known producers of porcelain lipstick holders were Josef Originals, Enesco and Lego Imports.
Josef Originals was created by Muriel Joseph George in 1945. Originally the ceramics were produced in California, but when rival companies began selling cheap knock-offs, Josef Originals merged with pottery distributor George Good. The new Josef Originals figurines were then produced in Japan from 1959 through the 1980s, when the company was acquired by Applause, Inc. and the figurines ceased to be produced. Most of the lipstick holders were made in the '60s and '70s, and in the latter decade the company introduced a lineup of mermaid (!) and fairy figurines.
Enesco was founded in 1888 and remains one of the leaders in porcelain production (this is the company that produces Precious Moments figurines). These are a bit more rare and hard to find than Josef Originals.
Lego Imports (not to be confused with the little toy blocks) is also still in existence today. Primarily known for its head vases, the company also made lipstick holders in the same style.
While The Examiner article cites the pieces produced by these three companies as being the most desirable lipstick holders to collect, I found another source that manufactured lipstick holders of equal or nearly equal quality, or at least, popularity. Norcrest Fine China was founded in 1958 in Portland, Oregon by Japanese-American businessman Bill Naito, whose father Hide, established a gift shop there in 1921 that sold porcelain wares and other trinkets. While the business was headquartered in Portland, the items were manufactured in Japan and shipped to the U.S. (You can read more about the history here.) The company closed in 2004.
Like the metal holders we'll see in part two of this post, ceramic lipstick holders largely fell by the wayside in the late 20th century. I'm still awestruck by how overtly feminine they are – not only do they overwhelmingly come in pink or other "girly" colors, the spaces for the lipstick are often gathered in the folds of an enormous hoop skirt. I know it's a lipstick holder and thus, an object that is geared towards women, but the markers of femininity in these vintage holders are incredibly exaggerated…and are perhaps one of the culprits behind their disappearance from most women's vanities in the late 20th century? We'll explore that in part two. Stay tuned!
Oftentimes I'll be researching a topic for a blog post and stumble across something else entirely that leads me to concoct a new blog post. This was the case with today's round-up of vintage ads which feature some form of disembodiment. (In case you're wondering, this idea came up as I was scouring ads for my previous post on cultural appropriation in cosmetics ads.)
It's common nowadays to see close-ups of models' faces or heads or any other body part by itself to advertise a new beauty product. However, these images never strike me as odd or somehow detached from the rest of their bodies, whereas with some vintage ads I got a decidedly eerie, surreal impression.
Let's take a look at these ads, starting with lips.
In the case of Max Factor and Du Barry, I can sort of see the use of lips by themselves in order to showcase the various shades that the lipsticks come in, but they're still markedly different than what we see today. The other two ads for Pond's and Letheric are downright strange – in the case of Pond's, a pair of lips is just floating on the right side, while in Letheric multiple pairs of lips are patterned diagnonally across the ad, almost like wallpaper.
Next up we have hands – or rather, ads for nail polish.
Some of these by the better, more skilled fashion illustrators aren't so creepy, like these Dior and Elizabeth Arden ads from 1957.
But in most other vintage nail polish ads, the hands seem to be severed at the wrist.
In the case of Guerlain, an assortment of white, ghostly hands float against a charcoal background, almost like they're made of smoke. Interestingly, the company is using disembodied hands rather than lips for a lipstick ad (although they did go that route as well for their original Rouge Automatique circa 1936.)
Here's where things get really weird. Dura-Gloss depicts not only bodiless hands but ones growing out of the center of a flower (1945 and 1951):
Then we have the ATTACK OF THE GIANT HANDS! They're coming after planes and puppeteering women from above. Not only are the hands/fingers coming out of nowhere, they're in a clearly disproportionate scale to everything else in the ad. I understand the need to highlight the product that's being sold, but why do it in such a strange way?
And as we saw with lips and hands, we have twofers here as well, except in this case it's disembodied heads and hands. The ad for Naylon nail polish (1948) on the right is one I find to be especially disturbing – given the pin on the lower right and the envelope on the lower left, is this supposed to be a bulletin board with the woman's head trapped in some sort of sheet that's pinned to it?
So what does all this mean? We see disembodiment in contemporary ads, and many argue that it objectifies and dehumanizes women. So are these vintage ads relentlessly sexist as well? Many of them appear long before feminism's second wave, and thus also before most women were able to hold a position of authority in many fields, including advertising, so the argument could be made that male ad executives simply reduced women to their parts to sell beauty products.
However, I do think there's a big difference between today's images and these vintage ads. I think the impact of surrealism was more far-reaching than we recognize. For example, here we have a 1931 Guerlain lipstick ad showing a floating, upside-down woman's head. This would seem creepy…if we didn't consider that the illustrator, Jacques Darcy, was most likely referencing Surrealist artist Man Ray.
Coupled with the tag line, "The lipstick of your dreams", this image shows a strong surrealist bend, as the surrealists were fascinated with the subconcious mind and dreams especially. And could Man Ray's Observatory Time: The Lovers (c. 1931) be partially responsible for all the floating pairs of lips we see in advertising over the next 2 decades?
As for heads, there is a parallel between the floating, antiquity-inspired busts of some surrealists and the ones used in some Lancôme ads…perhaps this connection is the inspiration for the other disembodied heads we've seen.
Take, for example, De Chirico's Song of Love (1914) and Magritte's Memory (1945):
I'm pondering whether the surrealist interest in antiquity carried over into using comparable images in makeup ads. Of course, there are differences – Lancôme's ads obviously center on Venus, goddess of beauty, while the surrealists generally didn't specify which god/goddess they were referencing. But it's still an interesting theory.
In conclusion, it's my opinion that these vintage ads aren't actually misogynist, but came about as a result of a heavy surrealist influence, a movement that was rooted in the early 20th century, but still pervasive through the early '60s. And even today we see uncannily similar ads, ads that don't necessarily sexualize and objectify women through disembodiment but rather give off a surrealist energy. This 2012 video for Lancôme's Rouge in Love was described as "a surrealist take on a typical cosmetics ad — disembodied lips sing along to the words of the song and apply the new lipsticks to their floating pouts while the Eiffel Tower and Times Square loom in the background."
What do you think about these vintage ads? Were they at least partially feeling the effects of surrealism? Or was it that these types of illustrations just happened to be the most popular stylistically for cosmetic ads at the time?
Thanks to PJ at A Touch of Blusher, I was alerted to these events at the Japan Foundation in London. "Beneath the Surface: A Culture of Cosmetics in Japan" will feature two talks by Noriyo Tsuda, Chief Curator of the POLA Research
Institute of Beauty and Culture (how do I get that job?!)
The first presentation is "Haniwa Beauty to Snow White – Japanese Cosmetic Culture from Ancient Times to Now" and will take place tomorrow at 6:30pm. The description: "From ancient customs to current trends, Tsuda will look at Japanese
cosmetic practices over the course of history and discuss how Japanese
cosmetics have developed through the centuries. Giving an overview of
the aesthetic ideals and reasons for the use of these cosmetics, this
talk will provide examples of how lifestyle and social circumstances
have influenced the culture of cosmetics in the past and affected
contemporary standards of beauty in Japan."
The second talk is "Beauty Icons – Primping and Preening in Edo and Meiji Japan," which will take place on November 8 at 6:30pm. "In this talk, Tsuda will compare and contrast two of the most
distinguishing periods of cosmetic culture in Japan, namely the Edo
(1603 – 1867) and Meiji (1868 – 1912) eras. Exploring the
characteristics of Japanese cosmetics in the Edo period, when
traditional cosmetics are thought to have matured, she will elaborate on
what cosmetics were used and who the trendsetters were. Moving on to
the Meiji period, Tsuda will discuss how grooming standards and notions
of 'beautiful women' were impacted by drastic social reform after the
opening of Japan to the West."
I did a little more digging and I found an event poster with these two pictures, the objects in which I'm assuming Tsuda will discuss.
I was greatly intrigued by this POLA Research Institute of Beauty and Culture so I gathered some basic information on it. The POLA Research
Institute of Beauty and Culture was founded in 1976 under the son of the founder of cosmetics company POLA Orbis Group, Suzuki Tsuneshi. It's now part of the POLA Museum of Art in Hakone, Japan, which displays Tsuneshi's personal art collection consisting of over 9,500 objects. While the museum boasts roughly 400 paintings by Western artists (Cezanne, Gauguin, Monet, Renoir, Picasso, Chagall), there is a section of the museum devoted to the beauty objects he collected as well. Some of these treasures include:
A silver dressing set with an iris pattern from the early 1900s:
I don't know about you, but I'm ready to hop on the next plane to London to catch both talks, then off to Japan to see the POLA collection! I really wish they had a museum catalogue for their beauty items available for purchase online…maybe Tsuda will spearhead the release of one eventually and/or a book based on the talks he's giving in London.
It's rare, but occasionally I do get inquiries from people who have stumbled across a vintage item, asking me to identify it and give an idea of what it might be worth. Sometimes I can give a definitive answer, sometimes I can't. Anyway, I thought I'd dig through my inbox and share one of these items with my readers (all 2 of you, ha) from time to time. Today I bring you a very pretty green and gold filigree vintage compact with a peacock on it that, unfortunately, I'm still not able to identify. The person who emailed me with these pictures said it belonged to her great-grandmother, who in her words was a "well-situated lady", so she thinks it may be more high-end (Elizabeth Arden or Estée Lauder).
I have searched everywhere and can't find a compact that had this same peacock on it.
Many other compacts have a similar inner lid mechanism, but that particular clasp and notch seem to be unique.
To my eye, those details most closely resemble Kigu – a London-based company with roots in Budapest. (You can read Kigu's history here.) Here are some examples of this brand's compacts:
I can't say for sure though, without seeing the top of the inner lid and the bottom of the compact – these may provide additional clues. There's also the matter of what looks to be a little knob on the upper left of the inside of the lid to help keep it closed:
None of the Kigus I've seen have that. I've also looked through the catalogs and archives at the Kigu website, and there was no peacock compact.
Since I really can't say for sure what this is, I'll throw it out to you: does anyone recognize this compact and know for sure the company that made it? I'm so curious and would love to have an answer! I suppose I could submit the pictures to Kigu and see if it's one of theirs.
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This recent post by Jonathan Walford, founding curator of the newly opened Fashion History Museum, briefly discusses some fashion collaborations that caused a stir due to their cultural insensitivity. It also spurred me to write about how the same issues exist in beauty marketing. (The many otherinstances of cultural appropriation in fashion and the "We're a culture, not a costume" campaign launched a few Halloweens ago were also caught in my mind.) Normally I like to avoid anything remotely controversial, but to fully explore cosmetics history sometimes it's necessary to take a look at the industry's dark side. I'll be using the fashion industry as a guide for this post, since cultural appropriation is conducted similarly in the beauty industry.
First, what is cultural appropriation? Entire books have been written on the subject, but in the context of fashion or makeup, it's when companies take a culturally important symbol or idea (usually of a non-dominant or marginalized group) and use it for profit rather than true cultural appreciation. In short, "when designers take
cultural styles and put them out of context, market them in a
disrespectful manner, or simply act without permission, this is cultural
appropriation." (You can read this excellent primer on the subject for more information). Cultural appropriation is marked by a failure to acknowledge the significance behind a cultural artifact or the reduction of a group to a harmful stereotype. It may not be quite as overt as out-and-out racism (like this sadly unforgettable 2012 Illamasqua ad or these Cibu hair products) which makes it hard to recognize at times.
Why is cultural appropriation a problem? Because it not only erases important cultural meanings and histories, it also directly ties into the larger issue of racism. As one fashion blogger writes, "I don't think the issue of institutional racism and discrimination can be completely divorced from the question of cultural appropriation. They feed into one another. One would not exist (at least not in the same way)
without the other…reducing an entire culture to a simple 'inspiration'
for your outfit, art project, fashion collection, or photoshoot is
disrespectful and unhelpful, especially when we look at the bigger
picture." I also think it speaks to the cluelessness and/or indifference of some beauty/fashion industry leaders, which, given that it's 2013, I find ridiculous – that lack of cultural unawareness is inexcusable, and given that they're clearly not doing their research on the culture they're appropriating, extremely lazy.
Now let's take a look at some examples of cultural appropriation in beauty ads from the past. I'm going to keep my comments on each one brief, since unfortunately there are a lot.
A 1940 ad for Coty's latest shade Tamale references "dark-hued" skintones – not necessarily in a perjorative sense, but it's problematic since not all "Latin-American" women have the skintone Coty describes.
These strike me as problematic due to their fetishisation of women in ancient Egyptian history, the watering-down of a culture to highly glamorized images, and the exoticising of non-Western cultures. Multiple companies participated in this last tactic as well. These ads for Revlon Persian Melon (1957), Dorothy Gray Jewel of India (1960), and Elizabeth Arden Sheik lipstick (1963) present a strong othering through the depiction of a variety of Middle Eastern cultures while at the same time using Western-looking models – I suppose to make these faraway places to seem, as one of the ads suggests, "mystic" rather than threatening.
This idea of non-Western cultures as "exotic" curiosities is persists today, although perhaps it's not quite as blatant. Take, for example, this ad for Catrice's summer 2013 collection. The first part of the ad copy reads, "African appeal: colourful, traditional, exotic."
Another feature of cultural appropriation, or at least, insensitivity, is the lumping together of distinct groups without recognizing their unique characteristics. I'm a bit embarrassed to say I own a lipstick from MAC's 2008 Style Warrior collection and have actually used it in an exhibition. Not only does the ad copy mention stereotypes ("Amazonian Princess, African Queen, Crouching Tigress"), it combines all the discrete cultures from whence they came. I frankly don't care that they tried to justify this with the word "cross-cultural".
There's a similar issue with this Art Deco ad for their summer 2013 collection. The ad copy says that it's inspired by the "amazing colors and warmth of Africa". One could argue that this isn't really cultural appropriation because the inspiration is so vague and doesn't reference a specific people within the continent, but at the same time that very fact is troubling – does the model accurately represent how all African women dress? I guess it's not supposed to and simply be evocative of Africa as a whole, but it looks like a costume some marketing director dreamed up.
The Art Deco ad brings me to my next point. One of the biggest offenders in cultural appropriation within beauty advertising is the use of exclusively white models to represent a non-white culture, like this ad for indie brand Lime Crime's Chinadoll collection from 2012.
Two beauty bloggers have expressed quite well all the things wrong with this ad, so I won't rehash it here. I will say that, as the others have pointed out, it basically reinforces some very negative stereotypes.
And sometimes, the company is so lazy it doesn't even point to which
culture it's ripping off. This was my frustration with Pupa's China Doll collection (which, as I revisit it, seems to align with Lime Crime's offenses), and Marcelle's Riviera Maya collection. Then there's also Essence's "Tribal Summer" collection this year, which confuses Aztec culture with Native Americans.
The ad copy: "Tribal dance! The new essence trend edition “tribal summer” ensures a
stylish mix of patterns, trendy Aztec prints and cool tribal designs in
warm colors like orange, pink, red, purple, lilac, copper and gold to
spread the pure feeling of summer. This trend edition offers lots of
must-haves for all urban squaws. These include our popular pigments in
bright colors, longlasting lipsticks and a bronzing powder with a tribal
embossment. The absolute highlight is the tip painter set so you can
create THE nail trend of the summer – Aztec nails – on your nails. And
there are also cool nail feathers and a feather hair extension for the
ultimate tribal look!" I'm not really sure how you get from tribal to Aztec to "squaws" back to Aztec and finally back to feathers.
In 2010 there was a collection that was considered so offensive it was pulled even before it could hit the shelves (good job, beauty bloggers!) The fashion label Rodarte collaborated with MAC for a collection inspired by the city of Juarez, Mexico: specifically, the bloodshed from the city's drug wars and the innumerable women who have disappeared served as a point of departure for Rodarte's fall 2010 collection, and was the foundation for the MAC collaboration. The product names included Ghost Town and Factory, while the promo image…well, it speaks for itself.
Long story short, after a huge public outcry the collection was not distributed for sale to MAC stores. (The Awl has a great piece describing the whole debacle.) I think what bothered me most wasn't that the Mulleavy sisters were ignorant to the situation in Juarez; rather, they had actually visited the town and decided to romanticize the women workers waiting in lines for their factory jobs in the middle of the night. Essentially, they directly used the suffering of the people of Juarez to sell clothes and makeup.
Now that we've seen some obvious examples of cultural appropriation in beauty ads, let's talk about how one can determine cultural appropriation. Looking at the Makeup Museum's collection, there are some pieces that walk the very fine line between appreciation and appropriation. What makes some okay and some not? As one author points out, "The former is acceptable when designers
or companies create completely unique items that are only inspired by
cultures, not direct imitations…it’s important
for companies to understand the importance of a certain object, pattern,
design, or idea to a culture before using it." More guidelines are offered by Fordham law professor Susan Scafidi: "Consider the 3 S's: source, significance (or sacredness), and similarity.
Has the source community either tacitly or directly invited you to
share this particular bit of its culture, and does the community as a
whole have a history of harmful exploitation? What's the cultural
significance of the item — is it just an everyday object or image, or is
it a religious artifact that requires greater respect? And how similar
is the appropriated element to the original — a literal knockoff, or
just a nod to a color scheme or silhouette?" These are important things for me to consider moving forward.
I do think there's a benefit to cosmetics companies borrowing from various cultures or groups – it brings that culture a little closer to those who might not be able to experience it firsthand in a way that's different from other means. As scholar Johanna Blakeley writes, "Like other art forms, fashion is a powerful conduit for cultural
diplomacy, translating the aesthetics of one nation or culture to people
in far-away places who wouldn’t necessarily have had the occasion to
think about that other world. What’s unique about fashion as an
aesthetic object is that it’s something you wear: it provides the
opportunity for an extremely intimate connection with a foreign
perspective and it gives people the opportunity to literally walk in the
shoes of another culture. The fact that fashion design elements can be
sampled quite freely makes it even more likely that cross-cultural
communication can occur…at the very least, in the form of fashion
trends." I think the same can be said for makeup.
As long as companies put some thought into these types of collections and not be insensitive to the cultures they're celebrating, that they can successfully launch a collection inspired by a particular group. (One of the best examples of cultural appreciation, rather than appropriation, that immediately came to mind was NARS's 2011 Modern Kabuki collection.) And while some companies may remain indifferent or unaware of how their next collection may be perceived, others recognize their previous missteps, demonstrating that redemption is possible.
That was long! If you made it this far, thank you. And I'd love to hear your thoughts.
At a recent trip to the dermatologist, I asked if there was any treatment that could lighten the freckles I have dotting my face. Many of my formerly cute, small freckles are quickly becoming larger, unattractive splotches (a.k.a. "age spots") so I thought it would be better to nip them in the bud. (Of course, I could just buy a bejeweled elephant brooch to distract from them.) The experience jarred my memory of Lancôme releasing a "freckle pencil" many years ago that would allow one to paint one's face with as many specks as they wished. With that, I thought I'd look into the history of freckles from a beauty standpoint, starting in the 20th century, with an emphasis on the rise of creating faux freckles with makeup. I found that, much like Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, they've been going in and out of style (but they're guaranteed to raise a smile).
From the late 19th through the early 20th century, freckles were seen as unsightly blemishes that needed to be banished from the complexion, as demonstrated by this Pond's Vanishing Cream ad from1910.
Stillman's continued selling their freckle cream throughout the 20th century and, oddly enough, the company exists today (although they mostly sell an alternative lightening cream to the Middle Eastern market). Here's an ad from 1956 and a picture of their contemporary freckle cream.
I can't explain exactly how or why a shift occurred in the perception of freckles, but somewhere in the mid to late 20th century they became acceptable and even desirable (see this article for possible reasons). Perhaps the rise of the tan's popularity was a factor – as early as the 1950s, tans correlated to health and a life of leisure, and a byproduct of spending quality time in the sun is the production of freckles. By the '90s, freckles were also linked to a more youthful appearance, an association that continues over 20 years later.
It seems that Chanel was the first company to market a product designed to create faux freckles. Released in 1995, Le Crayon Rousseur was "part of Chanel's effort to gain a high-fashion profile," according to Chanel's then market development manager Timothy Walcot, who added that "the `little girl' look is quite in. This is intended as a bit of fun." The instructions that came with the pencil recommended that it be used to "emphasize a light tan" as well.
Indeed, freckles quickly became a symbol of a carefree summer spent lounging under the sun's rays, as this Lancôme ad from 1995 can attest.
Lancôme followed in Chanel's footsteps 8 years later by releasing a Freckle Crayon as part of their summer 2003 collection. The mind behind the pencil, then artistic director Ross Burton, declared that "freckles are a symbol of freedom". Instead of trying to hide their spots with several inches of caked-on foundation, women were encouraged to "free" themselves from makeup and embrace their natural skin. And, of course, they were again associated with a summer vacation: "The natural, sun-kissed look is set to be big for spring/summer,'' stated a Lancome beauty counter rep. The company wasn't necessarily trailblazing – freckles had been "in" at least since 2001, when celebrities like Lucy Liu and top models Maggie Rizer and Devon Aoki proudly displayed their spots.
The trend grew by 2012, where faux freckles dotted the faces of models at the spring shows for Jeremy Scott, Dsquared, Emmanuel Ungaro, D&G, and Donna Karan.
By 2013, freckles had firmly established their role as an anti-aging strategy. "According to makeup pro Ruth Crilly, the easiest way to keep your youthful visage is to fake a few freckles," states an article at Refinery29. Adds Pixiwoo.com makeup artist Sam Chapman, "There’s something youthful and fresh about freckles." The spring 2013 shows further cemented the trend, with freckles proving especially popular at London Fashion Week (where, notably, Tilbury referred to the MAC pencil she uses to create the freckles as a "youth stick".)
Antonio Berardi (the makeup was done by Gucci Westman, who also allegedly painted on fake freckles for both Rag & Bone's spring 2012 and 2013 shows – however, the models' complexions looked totally clear in the pictures I found.)
However, the addition of faux freckles isn't solely to give a youthful touch. At many shows, fake spots served an additional purpose: giving the overall look a retro twist. Tilbury cited the styles of Anita Pallenberg and Charlotte Rampling for the slightly '70s look she created at Chloe's fall 2011 show. For the 2012 D&G show, Pat McGrath said her inspiration came from a '60s style icon: "The look is all about the girls looking beautiful. We were looking at photos of Talitha Getty…the way she looks with the beautiful eyebrows and the freckles and fabulous eyes and we've done a very modern, fresh version of that." And MAC makeup artist Andrew Gallimore created a “cool California L.A. 50’s girl with a toasted tan, summer freckles, and a sunblock-neon lip” for Holly Fulton's spring 2013 show.
Meanwhile, Westman referred to several '90s types for her work at various spring 2013 shows. For Antonio Berardi, she says, "The Antonio Berardi girl is sporty, very clean and fresh…a girl reminiscent of a 90s Helmut Lang girl…we used Brown ColorStay Eyeliner to add freckles which gave the girls a youthful look." For Rag and Bone, she was inspired by "the iconic supermodels of the 90’s and the great structure of their brows." She adds, "I kept the makeup very pure, adding just a touch of natural flush to the lips by mixing two lip products together, and I used a brow pencil to create subtle freckles and a dramatic brow to top the whole look off.” Finally, for Lisa Perry, Westman went further back in time to the '60s: – "I focused on the eyes and went for something retro…I kept the skin simple and natural and created subtle freckles on the nose with a nude pencil."
Despite the popularity of freckles on the runway, there has been some ambivalence in the beauty community as to whether it translates to the real world. While in May 2013 Refinery29 was touting freckles' seemingly miraculous anti-aging properties, just a year and a half prior they were asking their readers whether they'd embrace the trend. The Gloss asked whether it was even appropriate to try to poach something that occurs naturally in many peoples' skin. Says the author, "This trend reminds me of my redheaded high school friend who despised bottle redheads, or my glasses-wearing friend’s rancor towards people who wore prescription-less glasses." As of spring 2013, The Gloss is definitively in the no-fake-freckle camp.
Additionally, the fact that makeup companies have not recently seized the opportunity to cash in and re-introduce freckle pencils might point to a dislike of, or perhaps disinterest in, the fake freckle trend. The lack of freckle pencils on the market could also be in part the result of Tilbury's and Westman's divulgence of the exact products they use to create a speckled effect, which already exist – it would be difficult to convince people to buy a new, specialized product when they can already buy something that would give the same look. Similarly, there's a wealth of tutorials on how to draw fake freckles using a variety of products, from eyebrow pencils to self-tanner painted on with a tiny brush.
My final thoughts: Personally, I'm indifferent to natural freckles. Some people have them, some don't, and I don't think people are more or less attractive because of them. I never really noticed mine, even, until Lancôme came out with that pencil! Now that they're getting bigger and starting to take over my face due to ever-advancing age, I'm more aware of them, but overall they're just another part of one's face. My indifference to real freckles means that I do find it strange that people would want to fake them, as I don't see them as a beauty trend one way or the other. They just…exist. Still, the makeup junkie in me can understand fake freckles – theoretically, it's not really much different than partaking in other makeup application. Why does anyone wear blue eyeshadow or paint their nails?
What do you think of both naturally-occuring freckles and the drawn-on ones seen on the runways? And what do you think caused the shift in the past 100 years from their perception as ugly blemishes to indicators of youth? Have you ever or would you paint on some fake specks?
