Not entirely sure how to write one of these, but I did my best. Feedback is appreciated. 🙂 The annual report can also be found on the Museum's information page.
Download Makeup Museum FY 2022 annual report
Discussing various styles of face paint1 worn by different Indigenous peoples is critical for a better understanding of the history of cosmetics and recognizing that makeup outside of the modern industry exists. For many people across the globe, cosmetics beyond mass produced items have been part of their culture for millennia. The practices of the Seri or Comcáac ("the people") will be briefly surveyed in this post.2
Former nomads, the Seri live in Northwest Mexico, specifically in the Sonoran desert. Men, women and children engaged in face painting, but not equally: it was mostly women who wore it and almost always applied it. One of the earliest accounts by an American of Seri face painting practices was published in 1898. While an incredibly racist retelling – the words "primitive" and "savage" are staples – William J. McGee's history of who wore face paint and why at least provides a starting point for analysis. He states, "On noting the individual distribution of face-painting, it is found to be practically confined to the females, though male infants are sometimes marked with the devices pertaining to their mothers, as adult warriors are said to be on special occasions; and so far as observed all the females, from aged matrons to babes in arms, are painted, though sometimes the designs are too nearly obliterated by wear to be traceable…none of the men or larger boys were painted." McGee hypothesizes that the designs could be loosely categorized as corresponding to one of three clans: the Turtle:
Illustrations of Seri women known as Juana Maria (left) and Candalaria (right), ca. 1894
The Pelican:
Unidentified Seri girls and woman, ca. 1894
And the Rattlesnake, seen on the lower left of this illustration:
Illustration showing different Seri face painting patterns, ca. 1894
(images via gutenberg.org)
Further, McGee proposes that the designs take after animal markings either as a warning to others or as simple identification. "[The] designs are sacred insignia of totemic character, serving to denote the clans of which the tribe is composed…On analyzing the directive markings of animals, it is convenient to divide them into two classes, distinguished by special function, usual placement, and general relation to animal economy: the first class serve primarily to guide flight in such manner as to permit ready reassembling of the flock; they are usually posterior, as in rabbit, white-tail deer, antelope, and various birds; and they primarily signify inimical relations to alien organisms, with functional exercise under stress of fear. The second class of markings serve primarily for mutual identification of approaching individuals…the directive markings of the first class are substantially beacons of danger and fear, while those of the second are just as essentially standards of safety and confidence; and they may properly be designated as beacon-markings and standard-markings, respectively…careful analysis would seem fully to justify the casual impression of functional similitude between the Seri face-painting and the directive markings of social animals."
Finally, McGee notes that the most visible markings are displayed by male animals and by that logic, the men instead of women should have their faces painted. He explains, however, that women primarily wear it as they are the "blood-carriers" of the clans. "While the first survey establishes a certain analogy between the primitive face-painting and the standard-markings of animals, an important disparity is noted when the survey is extended to individuals; for among beasts and birds the standards are usually the more conspicuously displayed by the males, while the paint devices of the Seri are confined to the females…the females alone are the blood-carriers of the clans; they alone require ready and certain identification in order that their institutional theory and practice may be maintained; and hence they alone need to become bearers of the sacred blood-standards. The warriors belong to the tribe…but on the females devolves the duty of defining and maintaining the several streams of blood on which the rigidly guarded tribal integrity depends."3 Instead of admitting this theory may be flawed in the sense that he did not consider other, more plausible reasons for women being the primary wearers of face paint, McGee was steadfast in the accepted beliefs of the time, which treated all Native peoples and their practices as uncivilized curiosities.
To a white audience, McGee's arguments about the Seri's use of face paint were persuasive, but more inaccuracies about their cosmetic practices and other customs persisted throughout the 1930s and '40s. A widely published article in 1936 asserted that Seri women used large beauty patches in preparation to be auctioned off to a husband.4
Unidentified Seri women, Evansville Journal, March 23, 1936
While the face paint patterns appear to be patches in this poorly reproduced photo, there has never been any evidence to suggest the Seri used anything other than paint. (Incidentally, this is the only source that also discusses the selling of brides. My guess is that, as with most reports of Indigenous peoples throughout the 20th century, news outlets embellished or flat-out lied about their cultures to sell papers.) The sensationalized feature Ripley's Believe It Or Not also claimed that the Seri painted their faces green, which is completely false.5
Fortunately, subsequent publications in the mid-20th century challenge McGee's findings and provide a more accurate account of the Seri's face painting traditions. In 1946, Gwyneth Harrington Xavier published her observations on the Seri from five trips she made to their land between 1937 and 1945. "Face painting is the most outstanding adornment of the Seri, and in its highly stylized and beautifully executed patterns it approaches a true art…The basis of the style is a horizontal bar straight across the nose and cheeks, with design elements pendant from the latter. The forehead and chin are never painted." She disputes McGee's insistence that face painting indicated belonging to a certain clan. Instead, Xavier found that the designs were mostly used for artistic creation and beautification among women, with distinctions between married and unmarried women. And while the men indicated they used to wear face paint for war in "the old days," the practice was rare now among them, and was used for adornment than any other purpose.
Unidentified Seri man. Undated photo by Edward H. Davis.
There was also no distinction between the designs for married and unmarried men. "The women paint frequently (not just for special occasions), deriving from it interest and personal satisfaction…The Seri themselves made a very clear distinction between designs used by married and unmarried women. The girl's designs were often designated as 'just to look pretty," or 'a painting, nothing more' or 'just making herself pretty to show she is looking for a husband'. Flowery designs and leaves, they all agreed, were used only by the unmarried girls, while married women alone were the sole users of designs varying about other elements, such as the one they called 'the manta' or giant ray." Beautification via makeup to try to attract a man? The sentiment is not too far off from most mid-century makeup advertising.
Three Seri women. Photo by Edward H. Davis, 1936.
Additionally, Xavier argues that some of the designs were in fact intended for curative or protective purposes. One example was men wearing paintings of knives to protect against cuts. Curative designs were dictated by the shaman and were meant to treat mental as well as physical ailments. "A distinction was also made and clearly expressed between designs made simply for adornment, and those termed protective designs. The latter are painted to protect against certain definite dangers, either tangible, such as knives or snakes, or intangible, such as bad dreams, or the 'little people' who live in the mountains and whose invisible arrows cause illness and pain. Curative designs were also used, in which case the shaman told them what to paint on their faces. I saw two curative paintings made on the advice of the shaman, one a whirling design for a disturbed mind, and the other, on a child, a squared design on the cheeks explained as the doors of the sacred cave on Tiburón. The child had been suffering from nightmares and cried much at night."6 The crosses shown on this boy were appropriated from Jesuit missionaries, who indicated that the crosses fought off evil.7
Seri boy. Undated photo by Edward H. Davis
(images via the San Diego History Center)
Some 50 years later, photographer David Burckhalter summarized the occasions for which the Seri traditionally applied face paint along with application methods. "In traditional Seri life, face painting was vigorously practiced during all festive tribal events. During the four days of a sea turtle fiesta, at a girl's puberty ceremony, or even as Charles Sheldon reported, during nightly dancing and singing, Seri women, children, and men appeared ornamented with painted faces."8 In her excellent and thorough 2016 paper on the subject, Diana Teresa Hernández Morales expands on Burckhalter's findings by identifying two more specific events in addition to the turtle celebration and the puberty ceremony for girls. These are the basket festival, another 4-day festival in which an elder woman weaves a large basket and acts as the host of the party, providing food and games for the celebration; and the New Year, which is based on the lunar calendar. Since this differs each year, the Council of Elders declared June 30 and July 1 to be the official Seri New Year celebration in conjunction with the funding they receive from the Mexican government. Morales echoes Xavier's findings regarding face paint as social marker, but clarifies that the painting denotes four main groups: girls, young women, adult women and men – i.e., while the designs still point to gender, they are rooted more in age than marital status.9
In terms of application, historically the pigments were mixed on stones and transferred to seashells as a palette, and paint was applied with twigs or small bundles of human hair. Seashells filled with water and held in the sun served as mirrors.10 While store-bought pigments and brushes are the norm today, seashells are still used as containers or sometimes a surface on which to practice designs.11
(image from journals.openedition.org)
Getting back to the meaning of the designs, given the 50-year gap between McGee and Xavier's expeditions, it could be the case that McGee's theory about the designs corresponding to clans was correct, and that the Seri had simply adopted different practices between his visit in the late 1800s and Xavier in the 1940s. However, Alfred L. Kroeber, who visited in 1930 and published his findings a year later, also disputes McGee's idea that the designs were representative of clan designations. "My conviction is that the Seri paint primarily for adornment, and that further significance is either secondary or absent…face painting in fact seems to be the chief if not only purely aesthetic expression of Seri culture, their mode of life and psycho-physiological habits being such as almost to prohibit any other form of art. In this painting, on the other hand, they have achieved a high degree of stylizication and taste."12
Unidentified Seri woman, 1924
(image via pinterest)
Additionally, students Dane and Mary Roberts Coolidge further corroborated these findings after their trip in 1939, noting that the girls painted "designs in color out of their own imagination. [They] may get ideas from flowers and seed pods, baskets, birds and snakes, the sun and moon."13 Finally, Xavier confirms both Kroeber's and the Coolidges' accounts. "McGee insisted the designs were totemic clan symbols. So far, I have found no trace of this. The old shaman, Santo Blanco, talked a little of the 'great families' of the past, but did not relate face painting to class symbols at all. He agreed with several other Seri that each family had its own 'class' of paintings, but this may mean no more than favorite family designs, or a feeling of ownership of certain designs." Xavier concludes: "The most definite and interesting classifications made by the Seri were those of the married and unmarried women, men's and children's designs, and those used purely for ornament, in contra-distinction to the protective designs and curing designs…In view of the number explained as protective and curing designs, and the importance apparently attached to them in the minds of the Seri, I must assume them to be of at least equal significance with the painting for adornment."14
Andrea Ramona, photo by Edward H. Davis, 1923
(image via the San Diego History Center)
In the 1950s Mexican evangelist missionaries attempted to discourage the Seri from adorning their faces in the traditional manner.15 By the early 1960s commercially produced makeup had arrived to the Seri. Despite the efforts of the missionaries and the Seri's enjoyment of certain modern products, they maintained their customary face painting.16
"Pintura Facial – La Mujer Seri" by Maria Antonieta Castilla, 1964. Collection of the Museo Nacional de Antropologia, Mexico.
(image from lugares.inah.gob.mx)
During this decade, anthropologist Mary Beth Moser published a thorough description of how the Seri created the blue pigment they used. She found that it was not the mineral dumortierite, as written by McGee and Kroeber, but a pigment made from root bark, sap and clay. Interestingly, none of these is blue in their natural state. Moser noted that the pigment can only be prepared by older women and the process only observed by girls who have reached menstruation. Men, boys and younger girls are prohibited from observing, as the Seri believe the pigment will not turn blue otherwise.17 (It should be noted that McGee was correct about the red and white pigments, which were harvested from ocher and gypsum, respectively, and mixed with water or grease.18)
As the century wore on, the general flavor of racism towards the Seri turned from hostility and disdain to exotification. Rather than declaring them to be uncivilized cannibals, some descriptions romanticized the face painting practices of the women. This 1958 passage from journalist José Luis Contreras implies that the Seri's cosmetic application enhances their natural features. Normally this wouldn't be a negative observation, but the way he describes them suggests that all Seri have the same facial structure in a way that smacks of fetishization. "Women paint their faces with brightly colored chalk, leaving the flat surfaces of their faces bare and concentrating on the salient cheekbones, in order to make their almond eyes stand out. Red, of course, carefully covers their beautifully molded lips."19 Art historian Deborah Dorotinsky explains the exoticization inherent in Contreras' account: "As with 'Seri Belle', photographed for McGee some 60 years earlier, Seri women and their faces are once again framed by the text in relation to a non-Indian masculine gaze. [Contreras's] photo essay thus communicates that Seri Indians adapt to civilized life, but are exploited and decimated by the evils of civilization. The persistence of facial decoration, appears, then, possibly as a form of resistance to their disappearance as a differentiated ethnicity, even as this exoticization masks their terrible living conditions and serves as an ambivalent way to symbolically distance and attract non-Seri Indians."20
Unidentified Seri woman, ca. 1952-1960. Photo by Ed Moser.
(image via mexico.sil.org)
At this point, the Seri were dealing with even more external forces destroying their way of life. While colonization had started in the 1600s with the Spanish, by the last quarter of the 20th century and continuing into the 21st, the Seri have had to contend with threats such as mining companies, overfishing, drug trafficking and lack of fresh water. However, face painting traditions, along with other aspects of their culture and their land more generally, are being preserved by the Seri themselves as well as artists and nonprofit organizations via art projects, festivals and exhibitions. In 1979 photographer Graciela Iturbide traveled to Sonora and, along with anthropologist Luis Barjau, lived among the Seri for two months. Iturbide published a book of her photos, Those Who Live in the Sand (Los que viven en la arena). Two of the most striking photos feature Seri face paint, one on a Seri woman and the other a self-portrait of Iturbide. According to the National Museum of Women in the Arts blog, "This was a sign of Iturbide’s acceptance into the community, as the Seri women asked to paint her face as they did their own. Iturbide does not exoticize or mimic the practice. Instead, this self-portrait represents her own self-interrogation and integration with her role as a photographer in the indigenous community."
Gabriela Iturbide, Self-Portrait as Seri, 1979
(image from nmwa.org)
1979 was also the year in which a demonstration hosted by the Sonoran Heritage Program at the Tuscon National Library showed participants how to apply traditional face paint designs using minerals and plants found locally. This was a good way to spread knowledge about the Seri face painting practice, but unfortunately did not seem to have any direct involvement of the Seri.21 In November 1985 a cultural exchange sponsored jointly by the Tuscon Museum of Art and a nearby arts and crafts shop attempted to actually include the Seri people rather than using their designs without their knowledge or consent. The Tuscon Museum brought some Seri community members to showcase and sell their artistry, including woven baskets, carved ironwood, shell necklaces and face painting demonstrations.22 Hopefully they were paid for their services in addition to whatever goods they sold, but it's not clear. That same year the Comcáac Museum opened in Sonora.
(image from isc.gob.mx)
Burckhalter's 1996 article on Seri face painting in Native People's Magazine demonstrated that while the practice had diminished slightly, it was still customary among women and girls, who were wearing it almost exclusively for artistic purposes. He spoke with Maria Félix, who stated that "sometimes we paint manta rays or flower designs, but there is no special meaning to my painting…I invented my face decoration because it looks pretty." Burckhalter concludes, "Remembering the ease with which the friendly women settled down on their blanket to the pleasure of painting and of being face painted gave me hope that Seri face painting could again become an everyday sight."23 A year after that, researcher and social worker Alejandrina Espinoza Reyna published a book on the history of Seri face painting after having lived in their community for nearly 10 years. The book contained over 60 designs and two copies – one in Spanish and one in Comcáac – were given to each member. It proved particularly vital for helping preserve the Seri environment, and in 2007 Espinoza was appointed director of the Comcáac Museum. (Much to my frustration, I cannot seem to get a hold of a copy of her book or the subsequent one released by the Instituto Sonorense de Cultura that contains over 250 designs…if anyone can please let me know!)
Adolfo Burgos presents various face paint designs, 2018. Photo by Fernando Rosales.
(image from Museo Indígena on Twitter)
Similar to the festival held in 1985, in 2009 California-based artist Deborah Small hosted the Seri/Comcáac Women's Artisan Cooperative to participate in events and sell their art at various museums and cultural centers. Interestingly, the same woman who was photographed at the 1985 festival, Angelita Torres, participated in the showcase. I like to think of her as the modern day godmother of Seri face painting who is protecting it and making sure it gets passed down to future generations.
Angelita Torres, 1985 and 2009
(images from archive.org and deborahsmall.wordpress.com)
More recently, younger Seri people, especially musicians, are actively working to preserve their heritage and environment and showcase their artistry in the process. Morales highlights the Seri band Hamac Caziim, who apply paint for shows, along with musician and activist Zara Monrroy. Monrroy wears the traditional face paint, and not just for performances or speaking engagements. Rather, she also incorporates it into her everyday life just as her ancestors did.
Seri band Hamac Caziim
(image from soundcloud.com)
Zara Monrroy
(image from wikipedia.org)
Social media has also played a role in helping maintain the Seri face painting practice. Facebook and YouTube have proved valuable tools in preserving the tradition, particularly during the pandemic. In June 2020, the hashtag #challengehayeenipaii (hayéen ipáii is the Comcáac for "face paint"24) was created to encourage Seri members to don face paint for the annual new year celebration. As large gatherings were prohibited, the challenge allowed virtual participation in the face painting that is customary for Seri new year parties. Additionally, searches for #comcaac and #seris on Instagram yield many examples of face painting.
Naturally, I was wondering what the reaction would be if a non-Seri artist (makeup or otherwise) appropriated the designs without acknowledging their origins, or worse, a makeup brand devised a Seri collection or kit. Because I'm cursed with the ability to envision how a brand will desecrate anything to make a profit, I'm imagining a shell-shaped palette, tiny twig-like brushes and several stencils, even though it looks like the Seri draw their designs freehand. I don't think it would be acceptable even if the collection was directed by a member of the Seri and all proceeds went to their tribe, especially after reading the story of Elizabeth Valdivieso Gurrión, a singer who goes by the name Valgur. Morales concludes her paper by describing the reaction of several Seri members who, upon seeing Gurrion's visage adorned with Seri patterns in 2014, suggested trying to copyright various Seri designs to protect them from outsiders.25 (For the record, it seems Valgur have completely overhauled their brand since the time of Morales's writing, most likely due to the public outcry regarding Gurrión's appropriation of Native cultures that were not her own.)
Elizabeth Valdivieso Gurrión, 2014
(image from tuscon.com)
Another example of a prominent non-Seri wearing face paint came in May of this year, when singer Christian Nodal performed at Fiestas del Pitic in his hometown of Sonora. He requested Seri woman Mina Barnett to paint his face before going on stage. Barnett explained the designs were historically worn by warriors for protection in battle, but she also interpreted this modern one as a sign of wishing Nodal well in his future endeavors: "La pintura facial que luce, significa protección para los guerreros. La interpretación que le di al realizarle este diseño fue desearle el bien para todos los proyectos de su vida." An elder Seri member, Alberto Mellado, stated that he had no issue with it and said that Seri designs worn by people not from the community were a gesture of "friendship and goodwill."
Mina Barnett and Christian Nodal, May 2022
(images from enelradar.com)
Nodal apparently liked the concept of Seri face paint so much he got a tattoo of a more traditional Seri design. The backlash was swift and brutal, but not primarily because the public felt it was cultural appropriation: the critique was mostly about facial tattoos in general. Of the dozens of articles covering Nodal's Seri-inspired tattoo, only a handful brought up the issue of cultural appropriation.
According to some coverage, there were accusations of appropriation as Nodal revealed the tattoo on Instagram Stories, but he defended it by claiming he had permission from the Seri to get the design permanently on his face.30 Another article made the argument that while Nodal is not part of the Seri, he grew up in the same region and the tattoo was a way of honoring the people and their locale. I'm still not really sure what to think about those outside the Seri community using the designs even if they explain the culture responsible for them, as both Gurrión and Nodal did. But I don't think I'd feel comfortable getting made up by a Seri person, let alone a tattoo.
In any case, for the Seri, face painting helps connect them to their heritage as well as nature. White means good luck, red signifies the blood of their ancestors, and the blue represents both the desert sky and the ocean that comprise the Seris' surroundings. Most importantly, face painting is integral to forming and maintaining a strong ethnic identity. While the Seri engage in face painting for traditional ceremonies and celebrations, they recognize the importance of wearing face paint for occasions outside of their local community to represent their culture. It becomes not just facial decoration or a way to denote their age/gender, but a means of communicating that they belong to a particular ethnic group. From a purely aesthetic perspective, the delicate and ornate patterns combined with the simple color scheme are incredibly striking and beautiful.
What design is your favorite? Would you like to see more makeup from Indigenous peoples? I'm still not sure whether it's appropriate for me to discuss, but there are so many I'd love to highlight.
1For the purposes of this post, I am using the phrase "face paint" instead of "makeup" as I believe there is a distinction between the two when discussing the practices of Indigenous peoples and/or makeup produced prior to the modern era. Makeup usually refers to the commercially produced items beginning in the early 20th century intended specifically for painting the face for purposes of beautifying; face paint is more the act of applying paint to one's face using pigments that are not made or reserved solely for cosmetic usage and for a variety of purposes besides beautification. Many Indigenous peoples, including the Seri, use the same paint for self-adornment as they do for painting on other surfaces, and sometimes for religious/spiritual purposes in addition to beautification. Articles written in Spanish about the Seri also seem to make this distinction, using "pintura facial" more often than "maquillaje."
2I stumbled across the Seri through Stephen Davies' 2020 book Adornment: What Self-Decoration Tells Us About Who We Are, which I found while browsing the Bloomsbury site. For more general resources on the Seri, see this bibliography and the listings at the University of Arizona Press. For the etymology of Seri and Comcáac, see Stephen A. Marlett, "The Seris and the Comcaac: Sifting fact from fiction about the names and relationships," Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota Session, Vol. 51 , Article 1: 2011. The Arizona Archives Online provides some additional sources.
3W. J. McGee, "The Seri Indians", extract from the Seventeenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1898) 162-169. McGee's opinion of the Seri aesthetic was at least somewhat neutral compared to that of retired army captain J. Lee Humfreville, who wrote in the early 1900s that the Seris' use of face paint was intended to "make themselves look as ugly as possible."
4"Low Bids for Hollywood Lovelies Where the Seri Indians Auction Wives," The Times (Shreveport, LA), February 23, 1946, 48.
5"Green Faced Woman of Baja (Lower) California: The Married Women of the Seri Tribe Paint their Faces Green," Ripley's Believe it Or Not, August 31, 1947.
6Gwyneth Harrington Xavier, "Seri Face Painting," Kiva 11, no. 2 (Jan. 1946): 15-20.
7David Burckhalter, "The Traditional Art of Adornment," Native Peoples Magazine 10, no. 1 (Nov-Dec. 1996): 73.
8Ibid.
9Diana Theresa Hernández Morales, "La pintura facial de los comcáac: una creación artística en la dinamica social," (Tesis de maestría, 2016) El Colegio de San Luis, San Luis Potosí, 60-65.
10McGee, "The Seri Indians," 166.
11For more on the Seris' use of shells, see https://shellsonadesertshore.com/
12A.L. Kroeber, "The Seri," Southwest Museum Papers, no. 6 (April 1931): 27.
13"Face Painting Is Art to Seri Indian Girls," Science Newsletter 35, no. 20 (May 20, 1939): 317.
14Xavier, "Seri Face Painting," 19-20.
15William B. Griffen, "Notes On Seri Indian Culture, Sonora, Mexico," (Gainesville: University of Florida Press) 1959, 5.
16Bernice Johnston, "Formerly Fierce Mexican Tribe Nearing Extinction," Arizona Daily Star, June 14, 1964, 9.
17Mary Beck Moser, "Seri Blue," Kiva 30, no. 2 (December 1964): 27-32. By the mid-20th century, Seri were primarily using commercially available blue pigment. For more on the Seris' use of plants, see Richard Stephen Felger and Mary Beck Moser, People of the Desert and Sea: Ethnobotany of the Seri Indians (Tucson: University of Arizona Press), 1985.
18McGee, "The Seri Indians," 165-166.
19José Luis Contreras, "Congcaac, la tribu que agoniza. La raza de los Seri se apaga el infierno de la isla Tiburón," Mañana no. 787 (October 4, 1958), quoted in Deborah Dorotinsky, "It Is Written in Their Faces: Seri Women and Facial Painting in Photography," in Visual Typologies from the Early Modern to the Contemporary: Local Contexts and Global Practices, ed. Tara Zanardi and Lynda Klich (New York: Routledge, 2018) 176.
20Dorotinsky, "It Is Written in Their Faces" 176.
21"Seri Indian Cultural Spirit Relived in Painted Faces," Arizona Daily Star, February 19, 1979, 30.
22Mike Thompson, "Seri Indian Cultural Exchange in Tuscon," Viltis 45, no. 6 (March 1987): 6-8.
23Burckhalter, "The Traditional Art of Adornment," 74.
24Marlett, Stephen A and Mary Beck Moser, Comcaac Quih Yaza Quih Hant Ihiip Hac Cmiique Iitom – Cocsar Iitom – Maricaana Iitom = Diccionario Seri-Español-Ingles Con Indices Español-Seri Ingles-Seri Y Con Gramatica 1ª ed. (Sonora: Plaza y Valdes, 2005) 365.
25Morales, "La Pintura Facial de Los Comcáac," 100-101.
The general process for this post was to try to write something, immediately get overwhelmed and move on to something else. Hence why it took me 5 years to come up with anything on NARS's holiday 2017 collection, which featured the work of Surrealist artist Man Ray. November 18, 2022 marks the 46th anniversary of the artist's passing, and since NARS's recent collections have been very lackluster I thought this is finally the year I get a post up about the Man Ray collab.
Fortunately (or unfortunately) there is a ton of information about the collection and Man Ray's work. I'm not going to delve too much into it because there are literally entire books on Man Ray, but I will highlight the artwork used in the NARS collection and the process behind it, along with some other connections between Man Ray and makeup outside of the collaboration. As with Sarah Moon and Andy Warhol, Francois Nars chose an artist that has inspired him for years. "You know it’s almost always the same the process [with these collaborations]. They’re always with people that inspire me either since I was a kid or for many, many years. I really pick them randomly, it’s pure attraction. I just think, 'Why don’t we do a collaboration with Man Ray?' It’s really people that have been influencing me a lot in my work, in my photography, in whatever I do. And people who I really love what they do. It’s very pure and simple." He approached the Man Ray Trust about using the artist's work for a makeup line, and was thrilled when they agreed.
Nars discovered the work of Man Ray as a teenager. The modernity of Man Ray's oeuvre as well as the range of subjects he captured for his portraits immediately caught Nars' eye. "I read that every time Man Ray received a visitor in his studio, he'd photograph them," he explains. "He couldn't help it. It could be a friend, his lover, the postman, his housekeeper. He loved taking photographs of anyone he ever met, which is something I can relate to. He was a great inspiration for me when I was starting out as a photographer…I always loved his portraits. That was something I kept in mind. My photography background influence is quite wide, but he had a very distinctive eye on photography and the way you photograph people. The lighting, the abstract feeling in his photographs, sometimes it became more like a painting—there was so much poetry. The poetic aspect in his photos is so interesting." Nars, a self-declared rule-breaker when it comes to makeup, also admires Man Ray's selection of unusual models, favoring those who did not possess conventional beauty but who were remarkable in their own way. "[I] remember the women in Man Ray's photographs were so dramatic in their looks and their choice of make-up. Man Ray was very daring in his casting, he was always searching for that type of unique beauty. I can relate to that, I don't tend to go for simple, pretty faces."
The use of makeup in Man Ray's photos strengthened their compositions despite (or maybe even due to) the absence of color. Nars points out that the makeup in Man Ray's work encourages the viewer to consider shadows, angles, contrast and the overall significance of the image rather than being distracted by vivid hues. The same principles can be applied to the face, i.e. color is not necessarily required to make an impact when the focus is on texture, placement, shapes, etc. "To me, something brilliantly coloured can look great represented in black and white. The lack of colour forces you to see something deeper in the object, but often just as beautiful. Make-up is similar. It’s not always about colour on the face. A very graphic, lined eye or defined lip creates a look that isn’t about colour at all. And, of course, some make-up – black eyeliner or a very dark red lip against pale skin – can appear almost black and white…As a make-up artist, I studied Man Ray’s models very carefully: the shape of a lip, the graphic eyeliner, the placement of the rouge on the cheek. The incredible thing about Man Ray is how his style still seems new, fresh, sharp, even today."
Dr. Wendy Grossman, an art historian and Man Ray expert who advised Nars on the collection, echoes his sentiments. She says, "Man Ray himself paid close attention to the way in which his models were made up. His radical cropping aesthetic led to dramatic images of lips, eyes, and hands, all of which draw the viewer’s attention to the components of the body most enhanced through the use of makeup. Man Ray was very precise and involved with the way his models were made up and staged for his photographs. Man Ray’s special talent was to bring out the unique beauty in each of them and find ways to add a 'surreal appeal' in the way he used lighting, shadows, camera angles to infuse his compositions with mystery and intrigue."
Indeed, Nars himself notes that trying the process of figuring out appropriate colors for the collection was an enjoyable one. "For me, part of the fun of looking at old black and white photographs is imagining what makeup colours and textures were used. Of course the models are wearing colour-probably black eyeliner, powder, dark lip colour-only we can't see it. I also like to imagine what colours Man Ray might have been drawn to if he was working today. And, almost as important, is the aesthetic and vision of beauty that Man Ray represented – it is bold and moody, and a little irreverent and edgy. That's what we have tried to capture in the shades of this collection." However, various shades of red as seen in the set below don't seem that daring; a deep eggplant shade or even black may have been more adventurous and representative of Man Ray's spirit.
Nars states his choice of Man Ray images for the collection were driven by "pure instinct, love and attraction." He was drawn to Man Ray's still life photos, but ultimately ended up selecting those that emphasized the face or certain body parts since they were more relevant to makeup. He also wanted to include Man Ray's most famous and iconic works, such as 1932's Glass Tears: "[While] many people might recognize the image, they may not know that it was Man Ray who created it, and also because as beauty images go, it's perfection." Appropriately enough, Glass Tears was used for a mascara ad.
Cosmecil d'Arlette Bernard mascara ad using Man Ray's Glass Tears, ca. 1934-1935
(image from elmundo.es)
(image from elmundo.es)
The gold lip motif throughout the collection packaging was devised by longtime NARS art director Fabien Barron and a reference to the golden sculpture of the lips of his former lover Lee Miller.
Dr. Grossman explains how Man Ray became preoccupied with Miller's lips and how he incorporated them into much of his work after their split in 1932. "The lip motif began with Lee Miller, Man Ray’s model, muse and lover from 1929 to 1932. She had beautiful lips, which were featured in many of his photographs. She left him after a tumultuous affair, and he expressed his anger and hurt through an obsessive focus on her lips."
One of Man Ray's most famous images besides Glass Tears, The Lovers: Observatory Time (1936) was also used to sell makeup. It was exhibited at the end of 1936 in MoMA's "Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism" show. When the show closed the artist received a telegram from Helena Rubinstein requesting the painting. Man Ray states in his autobiography that he was "overjoyed" to let Madame borrow it for one of her stores in Manhattan. "[With] this windfall I’d be able to devote more time to painting in the future. After awhile, the painting carefully crated was returned to me followed by a letter of thanks from Madame Rubinstein. She had displayed it in her magnificent new beauty emporium on Fifth Avenue, featuring a new lipstick or some other beauty product. This I was told by some outraged friends. However, I wasn’t too upset; I was glad to have the painting back and showed it again in the Paris Surrealist show the next year."1
One of the more intriguing images chosen by Nars for the collection was a photo of his muse and model Adrienne "Ady" Fidelin. Ady was a dancer from Guadalupe and became the subject of nearly 400 of Man Ray's photos after they met in 1936. Dr. Grossman, whose upcoming book "Seeing 'Ady': Adrienne Fidelin, Man Ray, and the Recovery of a Black Surrealist Muse," presents an in-depth look at Ady and her relationship with the artist. She notes, "As with Man Ray’s other muses, Adrienne inspired him to create innovative images that drew on her engaging personality and unique attractive qualities. He found cause on more than one occasion to use her 'café au lait' skin tone as a compositional feature to play on the theme of black and white that permeated his photographic work."
(image from mubi.com)
The image that appears on the eyeshadow palette originally appeared in the September 15, 1937 issue of Harper's Bazaar. It was part of a larger collection of roughly 30 photos entitled "Mode au Congo" in which models wore an array of Congolese headdresses borrowed from a Paris gallery. In "Unmasking Adrienne Fidelin: Picasso, Man Ray, and the (In)Visibility of Racial Difference," Dr. Grossman explains the significance of Ady's Harper's Bazaar portrait. She points out that in a strange paradox, the exotification and racialization of Ady permitted her to be the first Black model in a leading American fashion publication. "The only model of color among those the artist posed sporting one of these headdresses, Fidelin is represented in all nine compositions in which she features in a manner that draws attention to her racial difference: bare shouldered (and bare breasted in several), outfitted with a tiger’s tooth necklace and ivory bangle, and seductively posed…This treatment is exploited in a spread in the September 15, 1937 issue of Harper’s Bazaar where selected images from this series frame an essay by the French surrealist poet Paul Éluard. In the full-page reproduction taking up one half of the spread, the Guadeloupean model is staged to evoke the fashionable 'African native' extoled in the article’s headline, 'The Bushongo of Africa sends his hats to Paris.' This fanciful projection of difference and the assimilation of Fidelin’s identity into a homogenizing notion of blackness literally and figuratively sets her apart from the white European models similarly crowned in Man Ray’s [other] photographs…Ironically, it is arguably this paradoxical treatment of Fidelin that led to the publication of the image even in the face of intransigent racial barriers in the fashion industry. This Guadeloupean woman in the guise of an African thus unceremoniously became the first black model to be featured on the pages of a major American fashion magazine." On the one hand, Nars' inclusion of Ady can be viewed as positive, since even former art history majors and Surrealism enthusiasts such as myself were not aware of her or the fact that she broke significant ground in the fashion world. On the other hand, it may have been more appropriate to use a less exotified image of Ady, iconic though it may be. Plus, if it was really an inclusive gesture meant to familiarize the public with Ady, the company would not have made the decision to sell the palette in a very limited market – to my knowledge, Love Game was only available in the U.K.
In any case, another interesting cosmetics connection to consider is that Man Ray himself dabbled in makeup, frequently painting the face of Kiki de Montparnasse, his lover from 1921-1929. According to biographer Neil Baldwin, "[Man Ray] designed Kiki’s face and painted on it with his own hand. First Man Ray shaved her eyebrows completely, and then he applied others in their place, varying the color, thickness, and angle according to his mood. Her heavy eyelids, next, might be done in copper one day and royal blue another, or else in silver or jade."2 Scholar Susan Keller notes that by applying her makeup in this way, Man Ray was helping to develop a public persona for Kiki rather than portraying a likeness of her. "Instead of representing her, Man Ray was producing her, creating a public mask that was impossible to view separate from her, unlike a portrait on canvas, where the original and the copy (the woman and the portrait) are easily distinguished."3
Man Ray also applied Kiki's eye makeup for his short 1926 film Emak Batia. The artist explains: "[Kiki's] penchant for excessive makeup gave me the idea. On her closed eyelids I painted a pair of artificial eyes which I filmed, having her open her own eyes, gradually disclosing them. Her lips broke into a smile showing her even teeth. Finis – I added in dissolving letters."4
Keller explains how Man Ray elevated makeup to a true art form. "[Man Ray’s] cosmetic games were hardly unique; countless women have used and still do use makeup to reinvent or to stabilize their appearances every day. Man Ray’s status as an artist, however, and his Surreal play with the conventions of makeup, serve to expose by making marvelous women's everyday behavior usually seen as too trivial or mundane to be contemplated in any depth…In keeping with the Surrealist themes of dreams and the unconscious, Kiki’s fantastic makeup shows her both literally awakening and what might be seen as a metaphoric awakening from the deadening world of everyday assumptions, moving from the world of the real to the more-than-real or surreal, just as the film itself was supposed to shock audiences out of their mundane lives into a receptivity for more utopian possibilities."5 This makes sense; however, I still think the idea of makeup as art in this case would not have happened if a Surrealist woman artist, such as Méret Oppenheim or Leonora Carrington, had painted Kiki for the film. The popular perception at the time was that makeup is art only if a man does it. It's akin to food preparation in that women are cooks but men are chefs.
As with all artist collabs, there was speculation about what Man Ray would have thought of his work appearing on a makeup collection. Personally I agree with Dr. Grossman that he would have been flattered, especially given his positive endorsement of Helena Rubinstein putting his art in a store window. "I think Man Ray would appreciate seeing his photographs embraced in this fashion. It would probably not surprise him that the invitation came from a Frenchman; he always felt that the French had a much greater appreciation of his vision and creative practice than did people in his native United States."
Now for a special treat. Via one of the Museum's board members, I had the incredible honor of talking with Dr. Grossman herself about this collection! She was also kind enough to share a photo of the PR box she received from NARS. Truly museum-worthy!
(image courtesy of Dr. Wendy Grossman)
What do you think of this collab and Man Ray? Would you like to see a deep dive into Surrealism and makeup?
1Man Ray, Self-Portrait (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1963), 257-258. For more on Rubinstein's usage of Man Ray's work, see Marie Clifford, "Brand Name Modernism: Helena Rubinstein’s Art Collection, Femininity, and the Marketing of Modern Style, 1925-1940," (PhD diss. University of California, Los Angeles, 1999).
2Neil Baldwin, Man Ray, American Artist (New York: C.N. Potter, 1988), 107.
3Susan Lynn Keller, "Making Up Modernity: Fashioning the Feminine in Early -Twentieth -Century U.S. Culture" (PhD diss., University of California, Santa Barbara, 2008), 238, ProQuest (3330475). By contrast, Lee Miller did not allow Man Ray to "create" her by allowing him to apply makeup: "Some said that Man had 'created' Kiki by designing bizarre makeup and painting it on her – even shaving off her eyebrows and replacing them with new ones at odd angles. Lee needed no embellishment, nor would she submit to being redesigned." From Lee Miller: A Life by Carolyn Burke, (New York: Knopf, 2005), 81.
4Man Ray, 272.
5Keller, 238.
Consumers have come to expect a good measure of dishonesty in makeup marketing. But given the lack of strict regulations for cosmetics labeling in the U.S. ("clean" beauty, anyone?), companies have considerably more freedom to concoct some rather outlandish claims, especially nearly 90 years ago. Case in point: Woodbury's germ-free face powder and germ-proof lipstick and blush.1 In 1933 Woodbury introduced two creams they advertised as germ-free, asserting that their special formula contained a "self-purifying ingredient" that totally inhibited the growth of harmful bacteria even after use: "The last fingertip of Woodbury's Cold Cream is as sterile and free from germ growth as the first."
The faux science in the ads is absolutely mind-boggling, and there's a lot to unpack: the agar plates, the completely made-up Element 576 and the emphasis on germs not causing illness but bad skin.2
(image from archive.vogue.com)
The mummy references are particularly fascinating, especially in the context of other brands that extensively appropriated Egyptian imagery in the name of beauty. Explains Advertising Age: "The illustration used is full of significance. In the background is a photograph of the head of the wooden casket used by ancient Egyptians to enclose mummies. To get the picture, it was necessary to make an exact copy of a New York museum piece…one of the problems was to give the illustration high character. The mummy has a classic connotation [that] suggests the historic beauty of the Egyptians and carries a desert-dry inference on age. Possibility of achieving similar results with a mask treatment was rejected because of frequent use of the idea in recent years."3
While the "historic" beauty of ancient Egyptians is acknowledged in Woodbury's ads, an image of a mummy is used to indicate an undesirable cosmetic trait. If Cleopatra and Nefertiti were represented as beauty icons, the mummy represents ugliness – essentially the opposite of most Egyptian-themed makeup advertising.
Another interesting aspect of Woodbury's marketing of the germ-free line was the inclusion of quotes from a real dermatologist. Many figures used in makeup ads were complete works of fiction, but there was in fact a Dr. John Monroe Sigman and he was indeed a Georgia-based dermatologist. Whether Woodbury got permission to use his name on their germ-free ads is unclear. Most likely they didn't, but the fact that they used an actual, existing dermatologist is a step up from entirely imaginary people like Dr. Charles4 or grossly misrepresented real women such as Mamie Hightower. Anyway, a few years later Woodbury expanded the idea from skincare to makeup. As we know, it's impossible to keep makeup entirely "germ-proof"; it can be sanitized, but the claim that any cosmetic will remain totally free of germs once it's been used is obviously quite the fabrication.
One of the things I was trying to figure out is why Woodbury introduced the germ-free line at this moment in time. There was some hand-wringing about makeup being unsanitary and able to transmit dangerous infections, which may have simply been part and parcel of the general dislike of makeup in the early days of the industry, but common advice to avoid breakouts or infections even by the beginning of the 1930s was the same as today: don't share your makeup, wash your hands thoroughly before handling skincare/makeup (or use a clean brush/other tool) and be sure to remove your makeup daily.5 It appears that the germ-free line was just another marketing tactic to try to set Woodbury's products apart using the latest spin on science-backed cosmetics. Then again, though Woodbury's ads tied germs to unsightly skin issues rather than illness and the flu epidemic of 1918 was long over, the public may have been generally more fearful of germs given their knowledge of how diseases were spread and that vaccinations available today were still decades away in the early 1930s. (Think about it: the moment COVID was declared a pandemic came a tidal wave of articles on whether the virus could live on makeup.) And as historian Shiho Imai points out, certain populations, particularly the Japanese-American community living in Hawai'i, were especially susceptible to the claims of germ-free products. "The bubonic plague and Chinatown fire of 1900 was still fresh in the memory of many Honoluluans. In an environment in which the Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Filipinos continuously changed the geography of race in the city, the specter of germs constituted a peculiar threat to Honolulu's elite community…Woodbury's took advantage of the public's fear of contamination, a strategy that resonated especially with Hawai'i's English-speaking community."6
In any case, while the Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint against Woodbury for several other false claims in 1938, it wasn't until 1941 that they issued a cease and desist specifically on the germ-free marketing, noting that their germ-free/germ-proof products were neither "sterile" nor had any antiseptic properties. The promises made by today's beauty products seem less unbelievable than those Woodbury made in the 1930s – there's no way a company now could get away with claiming any product to be germ-free – but the ad copy is much more vague so as to avoid legal liability. Take, for example, Clé de Peau's holiday 2022 collection, the face cream of which contains something called "Skin-Empowering Illuminator" with an exclusive ingredient the company has dubbed "4MSK." In some ways this sort of drivel seems worse than more specific claims.
Have you ever felt misled by makeup marketing? The vast majority of marketing is patently untruthful, but I think the one I've been snookered by the most is anything labeled "shine-free". As an oily-skinned person I can tell you that I've spent countless dollars trying to achieve a matte t-zone to no avail, yet I fell for it hook, line and sinker for many years. Needless to say, I would have purchased Woodbury's germ-proof powder to avoid the horror of "shiny nose".
1 In their official ads, Woodbury inexplicably appeared to use "germ-proof" for rouge and lipstick and "germ-free" for skincare and face powder. Newspaper ads for all products seemed to use both terms interchangeably.
2 In 1936 Woodbury had increased the percentage of ad copy dedicated to discussing the germ-free qualities of their products; nevertheless even the earlier ads were significantly focused on the products being germ-free. See Advertising Age, December 9, 1935, vol. 6, issue 49, p. 25
3 Advertising Age, May 5, 1934, vol. 5, issue 18, p. 18
4 I have yet to find any evidence that there was a Dr. Charles (or any doctor for that matter) behind Dr. Charles Flesh Food. If anyone can dig something up I'd be grateful!
5 These statements are based on a quick review of newspaper articles from the time, including "Girls Warned Lipsticks Are Germ Carriers," Indiana Gazette, June 24, 1924 and "The Removal of Makeup," Des Moines Tribune, February 20, 1929.
6 Imai, Shiho. Creating the Nisei Market: Race and Citizenship in Hawaii's Japanese American Consumer Culture. University of Hawai'i Press (2010), p. 49. This statement suggests that xenophobia and racism may have been at play as well in the marketing and purchasing of germ-free products. In this case, buying these items may have been viewed by Japanese Americans living in Hawaii as a way to assimilate and avoid accusations of uncleanliness or spreading disease. (Again: see the current pandemic and greatly increased hate crimes towards Asians.)
Multimedia artist Sylvie Fleury (b. 1961; Switzerland) is truly speaking my language. While her works involving fashion, rockets, and neon signs are certainly thought-provoking, it's Fleury's larger-than-life reproductions of makeup products that will be the focus of this post.
Fleury has long used cosmetics as a creative catalyst, providing an uncannily prescient commentary on makeup in the age of social media. A full decade before the popularity of makeup destruction ASMR videos, Fleury crushed several piles of assorted products with a Buick Skylark on a gallery floor. Her 1992, is reminiscent of today's haul and unboxing videos. And "Happy Clinique" (1998) could be considered a precursor to makeup swatch photos.
(image from artnet.com)
In 2017 Manhattan gallery Salon 94 opened a solo exhibition entitled Eye Shadows, and this group of works further honed the recurring themes of consumerism, art history, beauty standards, gender and the commercialization of art. In an interview with Vogue that year, Fleury explains how she arrived at supersizing makeup. "One day, after having seen these compacts for all these years, suddenly I realized, in fact, they are really good abstract paintings! My practice often takes me in the way of the ready-made, or there is often a temptation to do new things by reshowing what is already part of our world. But at the same time it’s about making abstract painting; it is also figurative because [the work] depicts something that exists, an object."1
Naturally, my personal opinion is that Fleury is a staunch ally in the makeup-as-art stance. By taking makeup out of its usual contexts – stores, purses, vanities, etc. – and placing it in an art gallery, along with other tactics, Fleury transforms cosmetic objects into literal art while acknowledging its base nature as a commodity.
(image from salon94.com)
It's no accident that the brushes typically accompanying luxury makeup products are removed. While many lower-priced makeup lines omit them regularly as a cost-saving measure, some mid- and higher-end makeup lines occasionally do this as a way of encouraging creativity in the user rather than ascribing to usual application methods. In their 2021 collaboration with MAC, for example, designer Harris Reed noted that brushes were deliberately left out of the collection's products: "Nothing is in a tube and nothing has a brush. It's really all very much like an artist palette." Going back further, Vincent Beaurin's Tablettes de Bastet palette for Dior, with its heavy stone slabs and primary colors, evokes ancient art materials and the ritualistic aspect of applying makeup. While any makeup aficionado can easily recognize the individual brands (if not the exact products) the lack of visible brand names is another key element in the transformation from consumer good to means of self-expression and objet d'art.
(image from vogue.com)
Along with ridding the makeup of visible branding and brushes, Fleury deliberately chooses to leave out what is usually considered an essential part of a cosmetic compact. The lack of mirrors forces the viewer to focus on their own interpretations of the piece rather than as a makeup product. No mirrors, she says, "was a purposeful choice, because in most cases, art already functions as a mirror…when you look at something, you are taken back to wherever you are in your own head." In some cases the viewer, depending on their shopping habits and whether they wear makeup, also contemplates their relationship with beauty standards and consumerism. As Alex Beggs ponders in a 2017 article for Vice, "If you blow up a makeup compact, something usually stowed away in the pockets of a purse, to bring viewers face to face with it, they'll begin to see something beyond the pigments. Am I unhealthily obsessed with painting my face? Or maybe I'm not appreciating how much beauty exists within the product itself? Are haul photos making me high? Do I have a Tom Ford lipstick fetish? Am I assigning value and meaning to bronzer based on its shiny black package? Do the round symmetrical shapes of the palettes signify some perfection I'll never attain?" Fleury's work blurs the line between fine art and makeup and in doing so, allows for deeper analysis of both worlds.
(image from dreamideamachine.com)
Though simple compositions, the paintings require elaborate and time-consuming work to complete. Fleury explains that she carefully paints precise layers of acrylic and uses a combination of matte and shimmer paint, sometimes adding glitter flakes to create exact replicas of makeup's many textures as well as that of the container itself. The painstaking process and resulting surfaces speak not only to the tactile nature of makeup – one visitor at the Eye Shadows exhibition confessed she wanted to put her hands across the paintings – but to women's labor in trying to meet traditional beauty standards. The artist's brushwork "achieves the smooth lines and surfaces of factory-manufactured goods, while simultaneously mimicking the ritualistic application of make-up, suggesting the pursuit of the perfect 'finish'." The process also serves as a reminder that makeup application, historically performed mostly by women and therefore perceived as a frivolous activity, parallels the lack of respect for women artists more generally. Fleury's response to this long-held patriarchal view was arguably voiced in a work at her first solo show in 1992. Entitled "Private Lessons," Fleury played a video tape of a makeup tutorial she had purchased from Bloomingdale's as a "comment on the male-dominated paradigms through which we define skill and artistry."
(image from ropac.net)
Fleury challenges the patriarchal tradition of male artists, or, "playfully redefines the canon in a decidedly feminine voice." By rendering makeup palettes in the same styles as art movements "pioneered" by men (Abstract, Color Field, Op Art, Pop Art, etc.), Fleury reminds the viewer of women's oft-ignored contributions to art history.2 In particular, some of the works in her 2018-2019 Palettes of Shadows exhibition served as a direct response a 1964 Guggenheim show of all-male artists: Paul Feeley, Sven Lukin, Richard Smith, Frank Stella, and Neil Williams contributed to The Shaped Canvas, an exhibition featuring sculpture/painting hybrids that play with shape and space, questioning the tradition of the two-dimensional, rectangular canvas in painting. Fleury's pieces, particularly the Chanel replicas, are curved to perfectly mimic the lines of the palettes as well as the rounded individual shades. "In her exhibition, Fleury has reduced and simplified the forms of femininity so that, for instance, a makeup palette becomes a pink sphere in one painting…through the clear dialogue she’s entered into with midcentury Pop Art, she questions these seemingly masculine stylistic modes, which, in addition to being gendered, also tend to be viewed as symbols of power. By putting her art into conversation with the aforementioned artists, Fleury has implicitly laid her own claim to their power — makeup and traditional femininity are, she ultimately implies, legitimate forms of power in their own right."
(image from ropac.net)
When gathered in a single painting, all of these elements – along with the lack of mirrors, brushes and obvious branding – collectively work together as a feminist response to the art history canon and rejects the misguided notions that makeup is shallow, is not art and does not belong in a museum/gallery. Fleury's work emphasizes that makeup's historic, cultural and artistic value literally extends beyond the store, and demonstrates that makeup artistry and the objects used to create it do indeed belong in spaces traditionally intended for fine art. In a 2019 interview with WWD, Fleury reiterates the importance of makeup and fashion in creating a serious discourse about broader issues. "In the Nineties, they felt that fashion was a lower kind of art. When I first started showing my work I got criticized for incorporating elements of beauty and makeup, but I wanted to show that it's not superficial and in fact, you can use fashion and beauty to talk about feminism, politics and consumerism."
(image from galleriesnow.net)
Along those lines, the works highlight the gatekeeping and snobbery so prevalent in the art and fashion worlds. "When I used bags from places where it was cool to shop at the time, it was also a way to refer to the art market and to the fact that gallery only exhibited artists whose names appeared in Artforum," Fleury recalls.
The paintings also challenge makeup's ephemeral nature and the latest barrage of products and shades. States the press release for the Eye Shadows exhibition, "Fleury has long been interested in the way the makeup industry discards the 'new,' mere months after a long and extensive research process into textures, colors, and names. The attributes the cosmetics industry takes into consideration when developing a product, Fleury argues, are not dissimilar to those an artist may consider when creating a new body of work. But while makeup is wiped clean nightly, art is meant to exist for eternity… these works point to the fleeting and cyclical essence of fashion and advertising. They hint at society’s broader concerns with temporality and permanence, and the disposability or temporary nature of value in contemporary society: the utopian promise has a pre-determined, seasonal shelf-life." By positioning cosmetics as permanent art objects, Fleury both acknowledges and resists the temporary nature of makeup, capturing its essence as a legitimate art medium.
(image from galleriesnow.net)
Perhaps the most crucial element in Fleury's metamorphosis of makeup into art is size. The monumental scale of these works could be perceived not only as a disruption of white male supremacy in art history nor as makeup's cultural and historical importance writ large, but also a reclamation of the space that the patriarchy has repeatedly told women they either don't belong in (in the case of "high" art and art history) or not supposed to take up more generally. Along with Fleury's self-description as a "punk feminist in disguise", I can't help but be reminded of Riot Grrrl's rallying cry of "girls to the front!". Their endeavors to carve out physical space for women at shows, figurative space within the male-dominated punk scene and society as a whole used entirely different tactics from Fleury, but the sentiment is very much the same.
Occasionally, however, Fleury's approach can veer into the trap of the gender binary. "Patriarchal, capitalist societies always fear women’s desire and creativity. What I was and still am interested in, is eliminating as many boundaries in as many fields as possible. My practice of referencing iconic artworks comes, amongst other things, from a desire to balance the gender of artworks. I freely select an iconic, male artwork and inject my yin into the yang. I think much of my work stems from this idea of rebalancing opposing views, lifestyles, attitudes – seeing also where these can meet sometimes." I think Fleury does a bit of disservice to herself with the phrasing of "balance the gender" and "yin into the yang", as her work is more complex than the rather simplistic view of gender she discusses here. The dichotomy of masculine/feminine somewhat undermines the fact that plenty of men and non-binary people wear makeup.
The size of the makeup palettes is also a commentary on the power these tiny objects have, our overwhelming desire for them and all-encompassing consumerism of our daily lives. Fleury states, "Why has consuming become such a big part of our world, and how did it become to be so? I see myself as a sensible woman, yet I can have these huge craving for new things, sometimes just by looking at (makeup) boxes…I have the wisdom to know I am being seduced; yet I’ll ask, should I deprive myself?" While the brands aren't visible, Fleury often uses the shade or product names as titles, further highlighting their seductive appeal. "All of these cosmetics have such amazing names; there’s a lot of literature on the boxes. For instance, the Chanel ones, they are called Multi-Effect [eyeshadow], and there’s the name of the collection and then each of the colors…the round one that’s all black is called Eyes to Kill—a perfect little title," she says.
(images from salon94.com)
Fleury's makeup paintings function as a simultaneous criticism of consumer culture and a celebration of our desire for certain objects; they are ambivalent towards the fetishization of commodities3. On the one hand Fleury seemingly endorses the power that objects have, especially those usually purchased by women. Citing fellow art historian Peter Weibel, Barbara Hess points out that "[while] there are countless works of art that legitimise male pleasures, there are hardly any that celebrate the indulgences of women in like manner."4 Adds Alexander Gawronski: "Some of the artist's own statements contradict this absolutely sounding like unapologetic identifications with global commodity culture: 'I urge the audience to enjoy! Whatever they must do to get their kicks'".5 On the other hand, Fleury says she hopes viewers of Eye Shadows and similar works will get "the feeling of satisfaction without having to consume," perhaps recognizing the harm that can result from constant over-buying of the latest non-essential items. Observes Laetitia Queryanne, "The obsession and addiction to newness functions perfectly to perpetuate the cycle of consumption, since its intangibility and ephemerality constantly leave one wanting more. And this 'wanting more' is precisely what the work of these artists expose, the desire for and yearning for fulfillment via an object or a commodity clearly reflect a serious dysfunction of contemporary consumer society."6
(image from artsy.net)
The makeup paintings also highlight the parallel between consumerism and the heightened commercialization of fine art. "We have become accustomed to looking, inspecting, admiring, desiring commodities that this kind of looking may inadvertently transfer to looking at art," notes Queryanne. Indeed, the authors of "M(Art)Worlds: Consumer Perceptions of How Luxury Brand Stores Become Art Institutions" discuss how many stores have appropriated museum layouts, displaying their wares as in an art gallery. "Objects for sale are displayed alongside actual art, rendering both products equivalent." While Fleury may be critiquing the overlap of stores and museums, a more cynical view is that ultimately she is profiting from the idea. The artist "can claim she’s providing a clever criticism while also reaping the rewards of their sales." The blurred lines between art and commodity can sometimes be interpreted as hypocrisy on the part of artists like Fleury whose work centers on issues of consumerism. It should be noted that in 2018 Fleury collaborated with artisanal belt purveyor J. Hopenstand to design a leather belt featuring interchangeable eyeshadows as well luxury as lipstick brand La Bouche Rouge, creating 4 shades of lipstick to be sold alongside sweatshirts quoting Gloria Steinem. Writes Lindsay Preston Zappas for Art Review, "Fleury offers us the lip shades of the season, and the feminist aphorism to match…[The] compact mirror and high heel are celebrated as weapons of war. That these symbols may have been opposed by a strain of feminism that rejected symbols of a certain ideal of femininity – high heels and makeup among them – further Fleury’s output. As if through owning conventions of beauty one might find a kind of punk-rock freedom."
(images from jhopenstand.ch)
While I don't think owning makeup is necessarily an act of feminist empowerment, for the most part I see little issue with artists collaborating to sell everyday objects; as I've said many times before, makeup and other consumer goods are a way to discover various artists, and an affordable means of owning their art. Paintings that are only accessible via museums (or through being a billionaire) can now sit on your vanity, your desk, in your kitchen cupboard, or hang in your closet. In Fleury's case, it's not as though most can afford one of her paintings (or the $2,500 belt, really), so a fancy lipstick is a somewhat satisfactory substitute.
In another art/commodity crossover, makeup artists and designers have borrowed Fleury's work for their own products. Aaron de Mey discusses the inspiration for his 2009 Pink Irreverence collection for Lancome: "Pink Irreverence is all about opposites and extremes—blacks and pinks, clashing colors and textures. I wanted to show that a collection based around a traditional beauty color such as pink could be surprising. Surprise is everything I'm about…In creating Pink Irreverence, I was inspired by everything from the punk culture of London in the 70s to the work of artist Sylvie Fleury, to the rose, which is the symbol of Lancome and New Zealand, where I'm from." Five years later, Prabal Gurung revealed that the gold pattern on the packaging for his MAC collection was taken from "the subversive beauty of Sylvie Fleury's gold-plated trash cans."
(images from popsugar.com and beyerprojects.com)
Perhaps the ultimate meeting of the fashion and beauty industry with the art world comes in the form of Fleury's color selection. Instead of using Pantone colors or nature-based hues, the artist prefers the shades found in fashion magazines and makeup products. "When I started doing installations, I was very fond of the practice of doing wall paintings and painting the pedestals. My work often dealt with fashion, so I would pick a favorite color for my show that you could find in the fashion world, whatever was in season. In the '90s, I had to send my information by fax to the galleries; for a wall painting, let’s say, I would send the typeface and the color. I never liked using the Pantones, so I would always use [my own] system—which is that magazines travel all around the world, and so does makeup. I would say, 'I would like the wall to be beige,' and then I would give the number and the brand of a foundation, and get the painter to go and buy it. Or I would say, 'The letters should be the same yellow as the bathing suit on page 92 of American Vogue for April.' Painters have palettes; I use makeup colors." This is yet another example of the blurring between cosmetics and art. The irony, of course, is that the concept has since been reversed and used to sell makeup.
Of all the artists featured in the Makeup as Muse series, I believe Sylvie Fleury most thoroughly explores the overlap of makeup and fine art. While I think I've presented a fairly in-depth discussion of her recent work, some questions remain: first, where does race fit in within these paintings? Take, for example, last year's Best of Me (Vanilla Cream). Gender has always been the main theme in Fleury's work, but it's interesting to consider what her take would be on the intersection of race, art history and the makeup industry – particularly through the lens of the food-inspired names that are ubiquitous for shades intended for deep skin tones, as she often uses the product names in her titles.
(image from karmainternational.ch)
Also, how does she avoid copyright infringement lawsuits from Estée Lauder and the like? Perhaps because her art is so entwined with the products and their marketing, makeup companies may see it as another form of advertising.
What are your thoughts? Though I am totally surrounded by makeup, I would absolutely love to have at least one of these hanging up on my walls! My other dream is to have a whole Makeup as Muse exhibition that features all of the artists discussed to date in the Museum's blog series, plus many others. 🙂
1Fleury adds that it's the composition of a particular makeup item that appeals to her and its ability to fit within her artistic practice. "I'm not reproducing the ones that I use or that I love the most. I'm reproducing the ones that strongly call to me because they look like miniature artworks and the ones that fit my purpose." Ma, Fiona. 2019. "Fashion Scoops: Makeup as Art." Wwd, Apr 08, 19. https://www.proquest.com/magazines/fashion-scoops-makeup-as-art/docview/2312169129/se-2.
2See Linda Nochlin's groundbreaking 1971 essay, "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?"
3"[It] is unclear whether consumerism, branding, and commodification is being celebrated or condemned. Yet, it is clearly asking its viewer to contemplate the dynamics of art's relationship with consumer culture." Serota, Kaitlin Leigh. 2017. "Art & Cultural Capital: The Economics of Art Investment." Order No. 10282887, Dartmouth College. https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/art-amp-cultural-capital-economics-investment/docview/1949711081/se-2., p. 63-64
Fleury herself states, "There is an ambivalence in my work. I have a tendency to contradict myself, and I don’t mind that. I fear things that make too much sense."
4Barbara Hess, "Sylvie Fleury: The World as a Shopping Basket," in Women Artists in the 20th and 21st Century, ed. Uta Grosenick, Koln: Taschen, 2001, p. 137.
5Gawronski, Alexander. 2021. "Art as Critique Under Neoliberalism: Negativity Undoing Economic Naturalism." Arts 10 (1): 11, p. 6. doi:https://doi.org/10.3390/arts10010011.
6Queyranne, Laetitia. 2012. "Displays of Desire: The Interrelationships between Art, Display and Consumer Culture." Order No. 1514975, Sotheby's Institute of Art – New York. https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/displays-desire-interrelationships-between-art/docview/1032785380/se-2, p. 55.
Hello! It's been so quiet on the blog because I've been prepping the Makeup Museum's latest exhibition. I am incredibly pleased and honored to announce that I was asked to organize an exhibition in conjunction with an academic conference! "I’m Your Venus: The Reception of Antiquity in Modern Cosmetic Advertising and Marketing", was hosted by Drs. Laurence Totelin (Cardiff University) and Jane Draycott (University of Glasgow) and "aims at better understanding the centrality of antiquity in the construction of modern standards of hygiene and beauty, as well as examining and critiquing the image of antiquity that emerges from the modern material. The conference seeks to explain the prominence of certain ancient figures, be they divine or human, in the modern cosmetic industry, and how these ancient figures are used to promote certain standards, such as whiteness or exoticism, thinness, femininity and masculinity, and youth." As you can imagine, over the years the Museum has amassed quite a few artifacts that fit the conference theme so naturally I jumped at the chance to organize an accompanying exhibition. Plus it was a good opportunity to really start planning the Egyptian exhibition. 🙂
The conference has come and gone (and I did a virtual walk-through of the exhibition!) but the program is still available here. There were so many wonderful presentations! I'm still adding objects here and there to the exhibition, but you can check it out at the Museum's special exhibition website here.
As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts and questions on this topic!
Over the past 4 years or so there has been an explosion of new Chinese makeup brands. Parts 2 and 3 of this post will more fully explore the how's and why's of this growth, along with a variety of brands, but in the meantime I wanted to focus on one called Florasis. Florasis (花西子, Huaxizi1) was founded in 2017 and celebrates traditional Chinese beauty and culture. It was certainly a breath of fresh air, since, as we've seen, makeup is rife with cultural appropriation when it comes to China.
What I love about Florasis is the artistry behind their collections. According to their site, the company hired master craftspeople to help design the packaging.
There are quite a few collections inspired by various aspects of Chinese culture, so I'll be presenting very brief summaries of each as detailed histories are far beyond this post – they could be (and some are) entire books!
First up is the Miao collection that was released in late 2020. The collection celebrates the silver work and embroidery that have been centuries-old traditions of the Miao people, one of 56 officially recognized ethnic minorities in China.
These two necklaces are at the Bowers Museum, whose guide to their Masters of Silver exhibition provides a good summary of Miao silver artistry: "Male silversmiths create a variety of ornaments through casting, smelting, repoussé (a reverse hammering technique), forging, engraving, knitting, coiling, cutting, and other methods. Concepts such as beauty, unity, fortune, and pride are expressed as visual abstractions and geometric motifs. Silver itself is symbolic of light, the moon, fertility, and protection against evil, but it also represents a woman’s wealth and plays a role in courtship. Families spare no expense in adorning their daughters, purchasing additional pieces as they are able. Worn mostly in large festivals, the headdresses, combs, earrings, necklaces, breastplates, bracelets, rings, ornaments, and the counterweights on display here can weigh up to twenty pounds. The fine work aims to attract suitors who look at each garment as measures of the wearer’s qualities. In marriage, silver acts a woman’s dowry and is eventually passed down from mother to daughter." The necklace on the right is actually a bridal collar. While the traditions surrounding Miao silverwork reflect a rather sexist patriarchal structure within their culture, some of the craftsmen are using it as a way to lift their community out of poverty and ensure the practice does not go extinct.
(images from guide.bowers.org)
The Miao produce intricate embroidered garments in addition to silver jewelry.2 As the National Museum of Asian Art explains, "Because the Miao people do not have their own written language, their embroideries often take the role of documenting their history and culture. Their embroideries reflect their world view, values, history, religions, and the social changes they have experienced over the centuries. Working with silk and cotton thread, as well as with horsehair, embroiderers adorn cuffs, sleeves, collars, and tunic fronts with designs of mythical animals (dragons and phoenixes) and ordinary insects, fish, and flowers. Vibrant colors—such as scarlet, pink, purple, dark blue, and bottle green—are frequently used." The box set from Florasis opens to reveal three drawers adorned with patterns in the style of Miao embroidery.
This beautiful example is also from the Bowers Museum. The butterfly is a common motif in Miao embroidery, as part of their folklore centers on the tale of the "Butterfly Mother" from which all Miao people have descended. The legend says that the Butterfly Mother laid 12 eggs, one of which hatched to become the Miao people, and the rest hatched into other earthly creatures so that the Miao would not be lonely.
Florasis named their Miao palette the Butterfly palette and claim the pattern consists of butterflies, although I can't say I see any. It looks more like a floral design to my eye.
Next up is the Impression of Dai collection, which also uses the art and traditions of another ethnic minority in China, the Dai people. According to this site, "the Dai are closely related to both the Lao and Thai peoples, having a closely intertwined history and a relatively close geographical position. There are over one million Dai living in China, primarily in the southern Yunnan province."
For the Dai, peacocks symbolize "beauty and peace, and are said to be a good omen." In fact, peacocks are so significant in Dai culture that they created a whole dance! This traditional folk dance goes back thousands of years and mimics the bird's graceful movements. In 2006, along with Miao embroidery, it was added to China's national intangible heritage list. Also, if you look closely at the background of the ivory side of the powder, there's a gorgeous embossed pattern. The Florasis site states that the collection was inspired by Dai brocade. Once again, there are entire papers written about Dai brocade so I can't go into much detail and I couldn't really find a brocade that resembled the pattern, but it definitely looks like fabric.
For some reason I completely spaced on getting the Impression of Dai lipstick. I think I thought I had purchased it and then realized I forgot when the package arrived. Ah well, I'll pick it up another time but I need to do it soon as it's limited edition. The lipstick features exquisite carving that's as intricate as the Miao one, but with a peacock motif. The Florasis site indicates that the lipstick formula contains essences of dendrobium nobile (a type of orchid native to southern China) and lotus flower, and claims these ingredients are used by the Dai. I can't find any hard evidence of that claim, but orchids and lotus flowers have been used for centuries in Chinese medicine and cosmetics so it seems plausible.
The Floral Engraving Forest Aura eyeshadow palette is a nod to the Dai people living in Xishuangbanna, a lush rainforest along the border of China, Laos and Myanmar.
Not only does Florasis use artists to design the packaging, for the Dai collection they also worked with Fang Langlang, an artist who recreated the collection using sand.
Next in Florasis's little trove of treasures is the Eastern Beasts face palette. Each section depicts an animal associated with one of the Four Symbols that are based on constellations, also known as the Four Auspicious Beasts (why Florasis is calling the palette Eastern Beasts is not clear).
First is the Green Dragon, representing spring. (I think they may have meant Azure Dragon…maybe they mistranslated azure as green and not blue.)
Then Vermilion Bird, symbolizing summer:
White Tiger, which corresponds to autumn:
Finally, there's the Black Tortoise who represents winter.
While I love the patterns and overall concept, it's driving me a little crazy that the Four Auspicious Beasts are out of order when one considers they are also seen as the guardians of the 4 cardinal directions. The Black Tortoise is associated with the north and the Vermilion Bird with the south so those should be reversed. The same goes for the Dragon and White Tiger (east and west, respectively). They should have been arranged in the palette as in this photo.
As with the Dai lipstick, I failed to purchase the Phoenix palette, the Blooming Rouge lipsticks and the Fairy Peach Blossom powder, so stock photos will have to suffice for now. I plan on adding them to the Museum's collection gradually – considering the lipsticks alone range from $29-49 each they're not inexpensive so I can't buy them all at once, alas. In the meantime, let's take a peek at these gorgeous pieces.
The palette's design is inspired by Chinese folding screens, and the engraved patterns depict scenes from the myth "All Birds Paying Homage to the Phoenix". According to the legend, the phoenix carefully gathered fruit and seeds while the other birds mocked him for being greedy. But one day there was a drought and the birds had nothing to eat. The phoenix opened his den to the other birds and shared the food he had saved. To show their gratitude, each bird plucked out their most colorful feather, made a crown out of them and presented it to the phoenix. Every year the birds return to the phoenix to thank him. The story inspired much vibrant visual art, but perhaps the most well-known influence of the legend is a musical arrangement by Chinese composer Wang Jianzhong (1933-2016), which you can listen to here. It really does capture the birds' liveliness and movement.
I'm particularly struck by the gold scrollwork along the edges, as it's a small but significant detail in making the palette truly resemble a folding screen.
(image from chairish.com and 1stdibs.com)
The original Fairy Peach Blossom powder (not the peacock-embossed Dai version) is inspired by the ancient Silk Road, a network of trade routes connecting China to the Middle East and Europe. As robbers were common, traders often banded together in large caravans with their camels and other pack animals.
Now let's look at the lipsticks. Some of them feature embossed dragons, phoenixes, azalea, and peony patterns, all of which are deeply symbolic in Chinese culture.
But some of the designs tell a more specific story. The Porcelain lipstick is a tribute to the Ding kilns, which produced beautiful white glazed ceramics for many centuries. According to this site, the kilns were "built during the late Tang Dynasty (618-907), flourished in the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) and declined in the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368)". The sites of the kilns were lost until about 1934 and finally excavated in the early 1960s. Florasis decorated the lipstick case with lotus petals, which resemble ones found on some plates produced by the Ding kilns, and sculpted the lipstick itself with images of kiln workers (I think?)
(images from bmimages.com and alaintruong.com)
This lipstick depicts the legend of the white snake. While the story circulated during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE), the first written version did not appear until the early 17th century and there have been many alternate versions. I'm greatly oversimplifying here, but basically the myth describes a shape-shifting white snake who assumes human form under the name of Bai Su Zhen and eventually marries a man named Xu Xian. He discovers her true form years later but they remain in love. Bai gives birth to their son, Xu Mengjiao, but is then imprisoned in a pagoda by her long-time enemy Fa Hai (another shape-shifter between tortoise and man.) Twenty years later, Bai is freed by her friend and fellow snake lady Xiao Qing. She reunites with her husband and son. As with "All Birds Paying Homage to the Phoenix", the story has inspired countless artistic creations, including traditional and modern operas as well as a TV series. Unsurprisingly, the star of the show, Ju Jingyi, was tapped as Florasis's first celebrity endorser in 2019.
The inspiration for what Florasis calls Blooming Flowers on the Way Home is not quite as clear, but I think it might refer to a love story about Qian Liu (852-932 CE), the founder and first ruler of the Wuyue kingdom (907-978 CE), writing a love letter to his wife. Each spring Qian Liu's wife would go out of town to visit her parents for a few days. One year he penned a letter to her letting her know the flowers had bloomed and were waiting for her at home just as he was: "Flowers by the path are now in full bloom, and I’m here expecting you to come back soon" (I don't know how accurate that translation is but it makes sense).
This one is probably my favorite of the Blooming Rouge Love Lock lipsticks. The embossing shows Zhang Chang, a government official during the Han Dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE) painting his wife's eyebrows. He would do this each morning as hers were damaged in a childhood accident. Painting eyebrows became a symbol of commitment and a loving relationship.3
(image from lifeofguangzhou.com)
Florasis cleverly spun the traditional story to be used in a Valentine's Day promotion for their eyebrow pencils.
Finally, there's this exquisite palette, which depicts scenes from the poem "The Nymph of the Luo River". The poem was written by Cao Zhi (192-232 CE) and painted on a massive scroll originally by Gu Kaizhi (ca. 344-406 CE). In a nutshell, Cao Zhi visits the Luo river with his servants and happens upon a beautiful nymph. They have a brief and ultimately unsuccessful love affair.
I'm not entirely sure the palette reads left to right, as the original scroll painting by Kaizhi is right to left, but Florasis may have arranged it that way for Western customers. Based on the copies of Kaizhi's painting, one of which hangs in China's Palace Museum, the two panels at the bottom and the second one from the left show the horses that escorted Cao Zhi to and from the river. The light gold color is embossed with the nymph.
Towards the right of the palette, we see Cao Zhi observing and falling in love with the nymph. The far right panel I'm not sure what it could be – if the palette does indeed start on the right, then it would be Cao Zhi and his servants arriving at the river, but if it starts on the left, he would be leaving.
In any case, here are some details from Gu Kaizhi's painting.
(images from eclecticlight.co)
So far Florasis's practice of highlighting traditional Chinese culture while leveraging the latest online sales tactics has proved fruitful. By 2020 sales reached approximately $442 million. That same year it was the top selling beauty brand on Douyin, an app nearly identical to TikTok. There are a few reasons for the brand's popularity. As many Western makeup buyers have not been previously exposed to many aspects of Chinese art and culture (myself included), Florasis's products represent something new and different; they go beyond stereotypes or cultural phenomena such as Lunar New Year celebrations that are now well-known in the West. Learning more about China's cultural heritage via makeup is very appealing to Western audiences. As Juliette Duveau, a co-founder of the marketing consultancy The Chinese Pulse remarks, Florasis has both "a super interesting brand identity and storytelling for Western countries."
The novelty of foreignness is the other side of the same coin for Chinese customers. Florasis is proving popular there as well precisely because the culture is familiar. The various artistic traditions and folklore are things they grew up with and are a source of comfort and national pride, particularly as the appetite for guochao in China (literally "national trend") grew in 2020. "Part of the wave Florasis has caught is a resurgence in reverie for culturally Chinese brands and products…sentimental resonance has been cast inward by many Chinese consumers and accelerated in a post-pandemic landscape in need and want of a little more local," writes Alixanne Hucker for The Challenger Project.
Another reason for Florasis's success is the relatively small product range and price point. While it can't be categorized as affordable, it's not a luxury line either. The product range is small compared to other brands, many of which seem to churn out new collabs and collections each week. The overall effect helps shed the "made in China" stigma of cheap, poorly made goods and delivers quality products at a reasonable price.
Finally, packaging is key to Florasis's popularity. Other C-beauty brands such as Maogeping, Zeesea and Flower Knows (stay tuned for posts on these!) incorporate eye-catching design and celebrate Chinese culture, but none have quite the level of detail of Florasis. Nor do any of them, to my knowledge, use master artisans to assist in the creation of the product designs. As one article notes, the products "have an 'instantaneous heirloom' quality about them. They sit comfortably in opposition to the Western giants that have previously dominated the market, and the wider category’s fixation on functionality."
I have two slight critiques of Florasis. First, I would like to see more of the proceeds being diverted to organizations that support the cultural heritage of China. Their website states, "We proudly sponsor activities in disaster relief, poverty assistance, female empowerment, and intangible cultural heritage to create value for society." The only evidence of their "social responsibility" I could find was the donation of 1 million yuan (roughly $150,000) to the Wuhan Charity Foundation in 2019, and the launch of the Miao Girls' Educational Assistance Program, a charity project run in conjunction with the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation (but I can't find any solid proof of as it was only mentioned in one article). While these initiatives are certainly better than nothing, it would be great if they did this for all their products, such as giving a portion of the profits from the Impression of Dai collection to an organization that helps the Dai people. If a Chinese brand (or any brand, for that matter) is going to profit off of a particular culture, even if it's one's own, they need to do their part in giving back to that community.
Second, as with most C-beauty, K-beauty and J-beauty brands, Florasis needs to greatly expand their base shade range if they want to be more fully accepted in Western markets, especially in the U.S. Explains one consulting firm: "While many Westerners do enjoy the design and aesthetic of Florasis packaging, the skin tones and the color preferences are different. China’s beauty preferences are reflective of the homogeneous society whereas the West has much more diversity. Westerners are used to beauty brands that increasingly cater to a wide variety of skin tones, which means Chinese beauty brands [that] enter the West will need to adapt to the diverse preferences." Not only is a comprehensive shade range necessary to profit in the U.S., it's important from an optics standpoint. Any brand that doesn't participate in this, even if they don't believe their main market requires a vast shade range, is generally not perceived as diverse by conscious consumers in the U.S.
What's your favorite object here? I love all but my favorite is probably the lipstick portraying Zhang and his wife. It's too perfect for a Chinese heritage-focused makeup line!
1The name was inspired by one of the "four great beauties" of ancient China, Xi Shi, as described by poet Su Dongpo (Su Shi).
2There's a whole book on Miao embroidery if you're keen!
3For information on eyebrow styles and makeup more generally throughout the Tang Dynasty, this paper was great.
CW/TW: racist imagery and slurs for Indigenous, Asian, Latinx, and Black populations as well as those of Middle Eastern descent.
It's been nearly a decade since I discussed one of the many ugly parts of the beauty industry: cultural appropriation in makeup advertising and collections. The purpose of this post is to see what's happened on that front since 2013, highlight yet more historic examples and examine where we are now and where we're going. Is the industry moving in a positive direction with respect to cultural appropriation? How about the broader makeup wearing community and artists? The usual caveat applies, which is that cultural appropriation in makeup could be an entire book, but I think at least scratching the surface might be helpful in terms of reminding people about this issue and informing future research.
As covered in the previous post on this topic, cultural appropriation within a fashion and beauty context is defined as companies taking a culturally important symbol or idea (usually of a non-dominant or marginalized group) and using it for profit rather than true cultural appreciation. (This primer is still really good). Cultural appropriation is marked by a failure to acknowledge the significance behind a cultural artifact/practice or the reduction of a group to a harmful stereotype. Something that I didn't clarify in 2013 is that cultural appropriation is not different than racism but rather a form of it, along with stereotyping, fetishization and othering of BIPOC cultures. I mistakenly stated that appropriation "ties into racism", but that's not accurate. It IS racism, full stop.
So what are some of the culturally appropriative ads and collections that have been released in the past decade or so? Summer 2016 brought both Essence's Lights of the Orient and MAC's Vibe Tribe collection. In Essence's case, the design appears to be a mishmash of a watered-down Middle Eastern-looking pattern and a Greek key border for some reason. The packaging for Vibe Tribe, meanwhile, looks vaguely Navajo but does not reference any particular Native American tribe.
(images from beautycosmetic.biz and refinery29.com)
With the 2017 Lise Watier Luxotikka and Givenchy's 2018 Africa Light highlighter, it's not clear which culture they're ripping off. Once again, Africa is not a monolith. Some "tribal" print and a Black (?) model do not automatically refer to Africa. What is clear is Watier's portmanteau of "lux" and "exotic", and the latter word should not be used in this context.
(images from beautycrazed.ca and beautyalmanac.com)
Colourpop's 2020 Sandstone palette was more or less a Vibe Tribe redux.
(image from temptalia.com)
Nomad's Shanghai palette was more complicated. As the company name suggests, Nomad is dedicated to creating palettes and collections named for the two (white, European) founders' globe-trotting adventures. Some argued that their products are meant to represent their experiences in the places they've visited rather than capturing the spirit of a particular locale. And travel-themed collections and lines are generally innocuous. But unlike Nomad's other releases, most agreed that the Shanghai palette seemed completely ignorant of the city (despite Nomad's claim that they worked with Chinese colleagues living there) and reduced it, along with much of Chinese culture, to stereotypes. People also felt it was tone-deaf given the rise of violent attacks against members of the AAPI community in 2021, which Nomad did not acknowledge at all.
(image from reddit.com)
And now for some vintage pieces I've come across. Cutex's Aztec Treasures refers to "pagan" colors, which in this instance is synonymous with some other racist terms ads love to use when describing ancient, non-white cultures: savage or primitive. The sculptures and architecture are reduced to props for white ladies. Using art to sell makeup is not new, nor is it problematic for a brand to be inspired by white/European artists since they are referring to a dominant culture, but in this context and combined with the ad copy, it is most definitely appropriation.
Revlon's 1969 Mexicolor collection ad isn't the most offensive, but inventing words like "Mexicolor" and the model's styling contribute to stereotyping. And once again the art serves as a backdrop.
I don't even know where to start with Yardley's China Brights ad from 1972. The shade names, the styling and the entire concept are just…awful.
The assault on Native American cultures ranges from garden-variety offensive to OMG-how-did-they-get-away-with-this-even-back-then. Embarrassingly, I purchased this Richard Hudnut compact a while ago. I knew it was named Thunderbirds, but because it was released in 1941 I believed it was referencing the U.S. air force group, which, in turn, I thought was named from the fact that planes were sometimes called birds and military jets make a ton of noise – I literally thought thunderbirds referred to WWII planes and the compact's imagery was an interesting representation of the name. I usually don't find military themes appealing and tend not to buy them for the Museum, but I honestly enjoyed this particular design. Little did I know that thunderbirds are mythological creatures from the folklore of many different Native American tribes. (According to this museum, the air force group's adoption of the thunderbirds name and symbol in 1939 was a result of their previous insignia – a swastika – being synonymous with Nazis by that point.) In any case, I don't think this compact had anything to do with the U.S. Air Force, but even if it did, it would still be appropriation.
It's bad enough that Tussy refers to the "Pow Wow" face, but to equate Native American speech with that of a Neanderthal is truly abhorrent. The ad copy reads like a cave man cliché.
(image from reddit.com)
The copy for Revlon's Sun Canyon Colors collection, meanwhile, erases the fact that land was outright stolen from Native Americans, instead opting for the narrative that the West was a "new frontier" to be "discovered". And let's not ignore the fact that the white model is appropriating Native garb as a costume.
(image from archive.vogue.com)
Mary Quant's 1981 Brave Face collection makes "savage" Native American culture palatable and "civilized".
Indeed, the colonialist overtones are strong in several ads.
(images from archive.vogue.com)
As in the Shem el Nessim line, Middle Eastern cultures were also ransacked and stereotyped. The fonts in these ads are particularly bad.
"Harem Elegance" and "Bagdad Beauty"?!
(image from pinterest.com)
(image from etsy.com)
Cutex seemed to be on a cultural appropriation streak in 1961.
Well-to-do, London-born Madeleine Mono made her entire cosmetics career off of a product she introduced in 1974 named Indian Eyes, a kajal pencil liner. Mono copied a genuine Indian formula she had purchased in an Indian-owned store in London, put it into pencil form, added a sizeable price markup and shopped it around to department stores. By 1981 the company had sold over 500,000 Indian Eyes pencils and was worth $8 million. I guess Mono couldn't get quite as rich if she had imported original ingredients from India or worked with an Indian business partner, so she opted for appropriation. Like white-owned brands that sell traditional Asian skincare tools, Mono really didn't have any business profiting off of Indian cosmetic practices in this manner. While there is a vast array of kajal pencils from non-Indian owned brands on the market these days, Mono's exotification of India made the product problematic, and while it's not her fault she was born in England, the whole operation smacks of British imperialism. (As a side note, I'd love a full history of how kohl and kajal pencils became normalized in the Western makeup world…but that's a project for another time.) The company also managed to branch into stereotyping Middle Eastern heritage with their Arabian Lights highlighters – shade names included Genie Gold and Bagdad Blue – and further mined Asian culture by releasing brushes with bamboo-shaped handles.
Around the same time, Mary Quant's Desert Chic collection similarly appropriated cultures from Middle Eastern countries.
(image from archive.vogue.com)
I'll be discussing appropriation of ancient Egypt in the Museum's fall exhibition later this year.
I don't want to get too off-track – the focus of this post is cultural appropriation – but I did want to mention that along the spectrum are the more overtly racist objects/trends/incidents or those that are offensive for different reasons, including but not limited to (again, literally too many to list and describe in detail): the fox eye trend, blackfishing, a blush named after Anne Frank, ads that dehumanize Black men, an influencer casually using an Asian slur during an eyeliner tutorial, an incredibly tone-deaf and insensitive email from Ulta, and an eyeshadow palette with shades named after various diseases. This is to say nothing of offensive shade names more generally. And of course there's a slew of vintage products such as Halloween and stage makeup kits, Blackamoor compacts, the late '50s craze for the "O——-l eye" (led by Elizabeth Arden* and perhaps a precursor to the fox eye trend), Revlon's 1981 G—y Gold collection and the entire Chen Yu line (which, incidentally, was produced by James Leslie Younghusband, the jerk behind the equally fetishizing Tattoo brand.)
So why do makeup companies engage in cultural appropriation? Obviously they're out to make money, but why was/is plundering various cultures such a common tactic, especially when there are other options available such as working with an artist or consultant who hails from that particular culture? I can think of a few reasons. One is the over-saturation of the cosmetics market. As noted in the Museum's post on Tattoo, so many brands and collections, companies seem to think that anything marketed as "exotic" will stand out from other products and catch the customer's eye. Second, the industry still misses the mark in terms of racial and cultural diversity in the U.S. The people responsible for creating and marketing collections aren't necessarily sensitive to cultural appropriation because the majority of them have never had to deal with it.
Another question is what to do with culturally appropriative objects and trends. Should they be purchased/participated in? On the one hand, it pains me to spend money on anything that's overtly bad and I certainly would not knowingly engage in an derogatory trend. On the other hand, basically all makeup is problematic on some level; it's a matter of which brands and influencers get exposed for their wrongdoings and the relative level of offensiveness. From a museum standpoint, I think it's necessary to discuss and display everything. If a museum is going to cover makeup from all eras and cultures, it has a responsibility to call attention to the bad along with the good. However, there's a line between educating museum visitors and traumatizing them. So more importantly than purchasing, how does a museum go about displaying and talking about the really awful stuff and acknowledging that the whole industry was built on racism and discrimination, worker exploitation, harmful ingredients, animal testing and the negative impact beauty packaging has on the planet, while also highlighting the things that aren't quite as egregious? I don't have an answer yet, but I hope to sort it out in the next MM Musings, which will discuss museums as agents of social change.
Anyway, it may be naivete on my part, but I believe makeup is moving in a positive direction with respect to cultural appropriation. The general public seems more aware of appropriation and in some cases, this leads to companies actually working to remove appropriative products from shelves and ads. Colourpop's Sandstone collection was repackaged after people spoke out about its questionable design, and in 2019 Fenty's Geisha Chic blush was pulled immediately from distribution and renamed. Nomad also shut down production of its Shanghai palette within days of revealing images of it and the ensuing backlash on social media. Arguably companies felt pulling a product hurt their bottom line less than a controversy, so they most likely removed or repackaged products to protect their reputation, not because they genuinely learned why they were wrong or felt any remorse. Still, makeup enthusiasts who are not industry professionals are now debating whether it's permissible to wear ancient Eyptian-inspired makeup as well as looks from a variety of cultures. Along those lines, over the past few years there's been more dialogue among consumers regarding collections and looks inspired by Lunar New Year and Day of the Dead celebrations. Slapping red packaging on a random product and marketing it for Lunar New Year, especially by a non-Asian brand that does not acknowledge the holiday's traditions or the larger Asian community, is a mindless cash grab. Some argue that the commodification of Lunar New Year can help raise awareness of Asian heritage, while some feel that any products sold specifically for the holiday are appropriation. (For the record, I'm still not sure of where I stand on this…I used to think the majority of LNY items were more cultural appreciation, but now I'm not sure. I know that in 2022 I purchased much less LNY makeup than in previous years because a lot of it was so uninspired and there were more non-Asian brands who don't even have a sizeable market in Asia releasing it, which didn't sit well with me.)
Cultural appropriation is still happening, of course, but anecdotal evidence suggests it does seem that people are more educated and speaking up. While it's going to be many more years before we don't see any instances of cultural appropriation or other more overtly racist collections and ads, it appears there's been infinitesimal improvement as compared to 2013. When I wrote part 1 of this post there were few major publications calling out cultural appropriation in the beauty sphere. Most of the links included in that article were from beauty bloggers who, like the Museum, had a relatively small following. But as of this writing, a quick Google search for "cultural appropriation cosmetics" shows at least 5 pages of articles by trade publications and mainstream media, including WWD, Brydie, Beauty Independent, and Teen Vogue. What needs to happen, as I've noted previously, is structural change. Until there is true diversity and inclusion at the upper echelons across the entire industry and major media outlets, there will still be cultural appropriation. One last point is that there's been significant growth of brands whose cultures have been ripped off. I don't think new makeup companies or products are a solution to cultural appropriation – the planet is drowning in beauty waste – but newcomers such as Prados and Florasis are helping raise awareness of their respective cultures while also reclaiming them from an industry that historically mistreated or ignored them. And I do think they contribute to structural change in the business in that they help offset the endless onslaught of white-centered brands, particularly those by celebrities. If there are new brands entering the scene, they should be culturally diverse.
Thoughts?
*Interestingly, a 1955 press photo for Arden's Eye Kohl was used on the cover of Kathy Peiss's Hope in a Jar.
Today the Museum is featuring a flash-in-the-pan brand from the 1940s. Shem el Nessim was a very short-lived line, lasting only about 6 months during the second half of 1946. I couldn't find much info, but one thing I can say is that it's not related to the fragrance of the same name by British perfumer Grossmith. The collection consisted of a lipstick, lipstick set with 2 refills, face powder, and a face cream.
Let's talk about the cultural appropriation aspects first. Shem el Nessim appears to be an incorrect, or at least outdated, spelling of Sham el Nessim, a roughly 5,000 year old Egyptian festival/holiday that is celebrated the day after Orthodox Easter (which, this year is today…yes, I've been planning this post for a while). The day marks the beginning of spring and is accompanied by several traditions, including dyeing eggs and enjoying picnics and other outdoor activities. Shem el Nessim loosely translates to "smelling the breeze". Why Grossmith spelled Shem with an "e" is beyond me, but it seems this new brand did too. And while Grossmith engaged in cultural appropriation to market this fragrance and others, they came relatively close to understanding the holiday and translating it correctly. The Shem el Nessim cosmetics line, meanwhile, claimed it was Arabic for "bloom of youth," which is totally off. Also, the name of one of the three lipstick shades appears to be nonsense. "Garfoz" does not seem to be an actual word in any language.
Next, the face cream container is shaped like an "Aladdin lamp"?! No information turned up about the brand's founder, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Shem el Nessim was started by a white American who wanted to capitalize on Western fantasies of the "exotic" Middle East. It's certainly an eye-catching design for a face cream , but completely inappropriate for a brand with no roots in or discernible connection to Egyptian or Middle Eastern heritage. Not to mention that if the entire jar was filled, it would be cumbersome to dig out product from the pointy front part of it.
In addition to using an existing product name, Shem el Nessim may have been looking at Amor Skin's lamp-shaped face cream, which debuted in 1927. It seems Amor Skin's lamp was originally a "Pompeiian" design, but by 1929 they were largely marketing it as an Aladdin Lamp.* Additionally, in the fall of 1946 Amor Skin heavily increased their advertising for the lamp and emphasized the Aladdin aspect, perhaps as a direct response to Shem el Nessim. Of course, the uptick in advertising may have been a simple coincidence, as Amor Skin had just returned to the market in the fall of 1946 after temporarily shutting down production during the war.
(image from archive.vogue.com)
Lastly, the collection, or at least the lamp, was allegedly designed by a "Viennese sculptor" named Peticolas.
After a fairly exhaustive search, it seems this artist did not exist. There was a Sherry (Sherman) Peticolas who lived in L.A. and was active in the 1930s-40s, but as far as I know he was American, not Austrian. Additionally, his style was markedly different from the pieces in the Shem el Nessim line, and I couldn't find a record of Peticolas designing cosmetics.
So while it's certainly possible Peticolas was involved in the design, there's no concrete evidence to confirm. As of July 1946 Shem el Nessim had hired advertising agency Klitten and Thomas, so I'm wondering if the claims about the meaning of Shem el Nessim and the Peticolas design in the ad copy were entirely their doing. In any case, there doesn't seem to be any mention of Shem el Nessim after December 1946. I'm guessing Grossmith put a stop to the company very quickly, as the Shem el Nessim fragrance was most likely trademarked, and perhaps Amor Skin also told them to back off. Or it could have happened in the reverse: Shem el Nessim's owner(s) were unaware of either the Grossmith fragrance or Amor Skin lamp when creating the line, quickly realized their missteps and abandoned the business. What's interesting is that the Shem el Nessim Sales Co. did not seem to change names, they simply disappeared. Oh, if only all businesses that ripped off existing brand names (knowingly or not) would go away forever…the world would be much better off, yes? I also suspect the price points for a fledgling brand that was not an offshoot of a fashion/perfume house or other well-known entity were too high. A more established brand, or one started by a big fashion name or celebrity might have had better luck charging the 2022 equivalent of $110 for a lipstick. Per the ad copy, Shem el Nessim was intended to be "exclusive" and not mass market, but that may not have been a profitable tactic to start with.
(image from ahbelab.com)
(image from commons.wikimedia.org)
Cultural appropriation and unoriginal name aside, the Shem el Nessim lipstick case remains a unique specimen of makeup design. The style recalls both classical busts and Surrealist art, with a dash of Camille Claudel in the graceful tilt of the head, dreamy, far-away expression and rendering of the hair. It could also be considered a more sophisticated and artistic precursor to the doll-shaped lipsticks that would prove popular some 15-20 years later.
Finally, while I haven't seen actual photos of the other items, the lipstick looks to be the most elegant, albeit impractical, design – certainly more visually appealing than the powder urn (the poor woman looks decapitated) and lamp (overtly culturally appropriative and the figure's silhouette and pose are a bit tacky).
Thoughts? If anyone can contribute any other information on this brand I'm all ears. 🙂
*While nearly all of the newspaper ads between 1946 and 1950 referred to the Amor Skin lamp as Aladdin's, a handful of them along with the November 1946 issue of Drug and Cosmetic Industry used the previous Pompeiian description.
Get ready for some cute overload this Easter! I'm pleased to finally highlight 5 bunny-themed collections, 3 of which were released in spring 2019 (when I was preoccupied with other things) one from 2018 and one from 2016. Interestingly, all 5 are from K-beauty brands.
First up is Colorgram's Miffy collaboration. Miffy is a character created in the '50s by Dutch illustrator Dick Bruna (1927-2017) and is quite well known outside the U.S. I have to admit I had never heard of her until Colorgram launched this collection. It was a pretty massive lineup – while it looks like I bought all of it, I think the Museum ended up with less than half of what was released.
The character was inspired by bedtime stories Bruna told his son while on vacation in the summer of 1955. "Sitting on a rug near the shore, the family spotted a rabbit skipping around in the sand dunes. Bruna’s son Sierk, who had his own little woolen rabbit, was delighted, and Bruna was reminded of his own love of rabbits as a child. Later that evening, Bruna would tell Sierk a bedtime story featuring Nijntje, a shortening of the Dutch word konijntje, meaning ‘little rabbit’…This bunny became the inspiration for Miffy. Later, when Dick began sketching Miffy, he decided he would prefer to draw the bunny in a little dress, rather than a pair of trousers, and so Miffy became a little girl bunny." Coincidentally, Bruna was born in the year of the rabbit.
Bruna wanted to follow in the footsteps of the modern artists of his time, particularly Matisse, Picasso and Léger, but turned to commercial illustration to pay the bills. Nevertheless, the influence of these artists is apparent in Miffy's design, which was unique compared to the illustrations founds in children's books then. "Bruna’s Miffy creation looked more like a flat cuddly toy, with a little bit of Léger and Matisse mixed in. The ears flopped to the side and the eyes were a little askew, not yet communicating so directly with the reader. Over the years, her head became more round, the general shape flatter, the ears sharper and more symmetrical, the eyes bigger and wider apart. Bruna’s clarity, use of primary colour and lack of perspective was a breath of fresh air among the busy, narrative-led children’s publishing that typified the 1950s. But his minimalism was also expansive: by a minute tilt of the head, a blink of the eye, or the relation of Miffy to a particular room or a landscape, he was able to capture much of the emotion of early childhood experiences: celebrating a birthday, visiting a playground, going to school, going to the seaside. Miffy’s eyes and mouth, Bruna explained, always required particular attention. 'With two dots and a little cross I have to make her happy, or just a little bit happy, a little bit cross or a little bit sad – and I do it over and over again.'"
(image from thamesandhudson.com)
Miffy is nearly at Hello Kitty levels of merchandizing, which, again, why I was surprised I had never heard of her. Miffy's likeness is sold on everything from cookie cutters and baking dishes to chalkboards and book ends, and has appeared in a slew of non-makeup collaborations. And in addition to the Rijksmuseum's collection of over 100 original Miffy prints and several temporary exhibitions, the character has her own children's museum.
(images from miffyshop.co.uk)
(image from milled.com)
I am so sad I missed the Miffy Chinti and Parker collection! I stumbled across this brand a few years ago while hunting for a mermaid sweater and fell in love. Currently I'm waiting for the Care Bears lineup to go on sale.
(image from drilicensing.com)
Next up is Lilybyred's and IPKN's Esther Bunny collections. Esther Bunny was created by Korean American artist Esther Kim. Kim has a lifelong love of drawing and originally started in fashion illustration, but kept including bunnies in her drawings. Eventually she decided she wanted to focus more on them. The bunny character is Kim's alter-ego of sorts, expressing the feelings of isolation and foreignness that resulted from growing up in several different countries. "I wasn’t conscious of it when I was drawing it, but the bunny really represents me as a person. My parents took me [from LA] to Japan when I was a teenager, so I’m just really used to living in other people’s cultures and always being self aware and sensitive about that…I had so many cultures: Korean, American, Japanese. In any one situation I could react many different ways. It stressed me out. I was like, ‘Should I be American right now? Or Korean? Or Japanese?’ That’s why my bunny is so aware of other people." The big ears and sideways glances show Kim's introverted, sensitive and highly observant nature. "I think I can be very outgoing but I also have a very quiet reserved side that I think my bunnies capture. They are always looking sideways and their mouths are not really open or moving. They are quietly watching the situation, peeking. In some sense a big part of my identity is being an outsider or foreigner always a bit different so I’m watching the situation. It’s hard for me to have a strong opinion sometimes because I can imagine the situation from many perspectives so I take a long time to process my thoughts."
Esther Bunny seems like a cheerful little rabbit at first glance, but a closer look reveals how she captures the artist's own struggles. "Esther bunny looks cute on the surface, but underneath that, I think there’s a lot of sadness and loneliness that I’ve experienced in my life. I have a parent who has been very sick for over 10 years. I worked on my own trying to be an artist for over 10 years. I didn’t have any help. My bunny looks very soft on the outside but she’s been through a lot," says Kim.
Still, Kim concludes that the creation of Esther Bunny was therapeutic for her and led to a new audience. "I'm so happy that I came upon Esther Bunny. A lot of people identify with it. I’m really happy that I’ve made this character that can be so universal… I'm very grateful to my art; it's taken me so long to make it my career, but it’s given me a place in this world."
Like the Miffy collaboration, both the Lilybyred and IPKN collections were huge.
I am really kicking myself for not getting more of the IPKN lineup. I wasn't aware when it launched and ended up with just one palette that was still available several years after the initial release.
Especially this additional summer collection – she looks so adorable in her little pool float and bikini!
Esther Bunny has become a brand in her own right with many successful collaborations under her belt.
(image from estherlovesyou.net)
This next collection by Innis Free was released in spring 2019 to celebrate the 13th anniversary of their No Sebum Mineral Powder. The company partnered with Korean illustrator Gyung-seon Gu, who created 13 cushion compact designs featuring her rabbit character, Benny. Like Esther Bunny, Benny is a sort of alter ego for the artist, but in a different way. A fever caused Gu to become deaf at the age of 2. She continued to draw throughout her childhood and was eventually inspired to draw a bunny with long, pointy ears so that it could hear on her behalf. In 2007 Benny was officially born. As one article explains: "[Gu] looked for a spokesperson who would carefully listen to every sound in the world. From the animal encyclopedia, she learned that one of the animals with the best hearing ability is the rabbit. On the spot, she chose the rabbit as her character without a hint of hesitation. This marks the birth of Benny and of her career an illustrator, as she illustrates Benny as a very own representation of herself." Benny is also meant to be a symbol of comfort and encouragement in the face of adversity. The 13 designs are titled Follow Your Dreams, No Pain No Gain, Do What You Love, Ace Your Grades, Best Friends Forever, Seize the Day, Crazy Rich Bunny, Upward Facing Bunny, YOLO, Cheering For You, Way To Go, There For You, and LOVE, Bunny (you can guess which are which).
(image from shopee.vn)
I regret only buying 3.
While Benny may not have been in as many collaborations as Miffy and Esther Bunny, they're a popular emoticon in the Korean messaging app Kakao Talk. Gu also had a solo exhibition in 2017 featuring over 120 original illustrations of Benny, which were later published as books, as well as a fragrance. In 2013, Gu was again struck with bad health news. This time she was diagnosed with a rare retinal disease that causes a gradual loss of vision, and the possibility of total blindness at any given time. But Gu refused to worry about her condition, choosing instead to celebrate the sensory abilities she has retained. "[Gu] set her sights on what she still has, not on what she may lose. With her olfactory sense intact, she embarked on assigning a signature aroma to her Benny."
Finally, there's The Saem's Over Action Little Rabbit collection. Like Benny, Over Action Little Rabbit quickly became a popular character on Kakao Talk as well as LINE. I'm not sure if there was a specific artist behind Little Rabbit, but apparently the "over action" refers to the character's exaggerated reactions to, well, everything.
This was another huge collection, with two smaller Valentine's Day and summer launches.
While Over Action Little Rabbit has garnered several other collaborations and a pop-up cafe in Japan, the character's popularity seems to have peaked in 2018.
Overall, I'm kind of in awe of how many bunny characters there are and pleased that K-beauty brands seized the opportunity to put them on their packaging. I'm suffering from collab fatigue at the moment – several American companies have been recycling the same old licensed characters/brands ad nauseum – so looking back at previously released ones that haven't appeared on the packaging of at least 4 different makeup brands was refreshing. Plus, it was great to learn about cultural touchstones outside of the U.S. such as Miffy and Kakao Talk stamps. Speaking of which, stay tuned for makeup collabs featuring Kakao Friends, LINE Friends and BT21. 😉
What do you think? Which little bunny is your favorite? As precious as these are, I would love to see a Velveteen Rabbit themed collection. (Incidentally, the book just turned 100!)