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 Shem el Nessim appears to be an incorrect, or at least outdated, spelling of Sham el Nessim, a roughly 5,000 year old Egyptian festival/holiday that is celebrated the day after Orthodox Easter (which, this year is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.
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.
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.'"
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 temporaryexhibitions, the character has her own children's museum.
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.
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.
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).
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!)
Curator's note: For several years now I've been wanting to discuss the trend of non-makeup merch being sold by beauty brands but was having a difficult time getting around to it. Fortunately, another wonderful MM volunteer and aspiring beauty editor, Hannah, kindly stepped up to write the article. I am so very grateful to have this contribution to the Museum!
The Rise of Non-Makeup Merchandise in the Beauty Industry By Hannah T.
For as long as we’ve been dressing our faces in creams and colors, makeup brands have been able to dominate the lifestyle "industry" from a sort of bubble. Cosmetic products and collections have amassed success in sales and popularity while staying within the realm of beauty. These products have stood boldly on their own, independent of other lifestyle influences such as fashion, travel, or fitness. Even collaborations have only been extended to influencers who are part of the makeup niche, or other beauty brands. This is a big bubble, mind you. According to Forbes, the beauty industry is a $532 billion business, which will reach or exceed $800 billion by 2025. The makeup industry could have stayed in this beauty bubble and continued to command the lifestyle craze from afar. So, what changed?
Brands with a wide array of followings and aesthetics began offering their own non-beauty merchandise and collaborating with non-makeup brands to include items outside of the makeup bubble in their new launches. What used to be a "freebie" or gift-with-purchase is now an entirely separate product, intended as part of the brand or marketed and sold as a partnership between two separate industries. Whether small or large, indie or mainstream, makeup companies are now selling fashion and accessories like sweatshirts, pins and mugs.* “It’s no longer enough just to sell a product. We crave the full experience. It’s become commonplace for fashion brands to expand into cosmetics (along with housewares and even food). But it wasn’t common to see the reverse, [until now],” writes Heather Chichowski at The Fashion Spot.
Other companies collaborate with non-makeup brands for limited-edition collections such as footwear and home decor. With these marketing and collaboration techniques, anything is possible. Two of your favorite worlds come together to create a product out of your wildest dreams, and you just have to have it. Or you’re a rabid fan of the brand and feel a pressing need to show your devotion via bags and keychains in addition to wearing the makeup. Remember, this is no longer a freebie – this is a big-ticket product with double the value behind it, and it deserves to be sold separately from the makeup items the brand has to offer.
This non-makeup merch sticks out to your brain as unique, special, and innovative. It refuses to blend in with the onslaught of punchy blushes and lipsticks that all seem to boast "payoff". In contrast to makeup, merch functions as a keepsake. Makeup goes bad or gets used up; non-makeup items have a considerably longer shelf life by comparison. And while makeup brands pump out new finishes and formulas, their trendiness is just that – a trend. The collaborative merch is memorable and fresh, guaranteed to catch your eye and your bank account.
Bite Beauty’s partnership with the undergarments brand Parade is a great example of this. Underwear and lipstick seem to be a part of two vastly different worlds, and it’s unthinkable that they would ever touch, but they did, in a marketable and attractive way. Both brands live in a sustainable neighborhood with an individualistic kick. Their products embody being kind to the planet, and looking good while doing so! Bite’s makeup products are both clean and powerful, demonstrating that strict, high standards during the production process don’t have to result in monotonous colors and textures. Lipsticks and foundations with "supercharged performance" qualities take ethics and expression to the next level.
(image from usmagazine.com)
Similarly, Parade offers vibrant styles of undergarments in recycled, regenerative materials that benefit the planet. This green brand markets to bodies of all shapes, sizes, and colors in a way that isn’t performative or tacky. It’s a trustworthy brand, one that empowers you to live a colorful life in a way that’s comfortable to you. Suddenly, the collaboration between Parade and Bite becomes an obvious choice! The marketing idea behind the partnership was "Match your favorite Bite Beauty lipstick to your Parade underwear", and I'll be damned if that’s not as personally expressive as it gets. If you hold the same values that Bite does, you’re bound to love Parade just the same, and vice versa. It’s a match made in branding heaven, and one that’s destined to grab attention from clean beauty connoisseurs.
One collaboration that makes a lot more sense at first look is between Colourpop and Powerpuff Girls. When beauty and pop culture collide, which seems to be the current trend, makeup lovers are even more inclined to purchase products that feature their favorite icons. Buttercup, Blossom, and Bubbles make a sweet, almost candy-like appearance on an eyeshadow palette, blushes, and roll-on lip glosses that take you back to your childhood. The real non-makeup treat is the collection’s crime fighting hair clips, which are marketed to “complete your look” as makeup tools and accessories. Each clip is branded with a Powerpuff girl, and the name Colourpop in its signature casual font. The connection between the brands is clear – it’s a playful, nostalgic one!
With both of these brands working together to make a complete collection, rather than one individual product, there’s a kind of persuasion to collect it all. Each set of two clips is $5 each, which in total, add up to a cost greater than that of the individual makeup products themselves. They’re accessories meant to strengthen your look in a cohesive sense, and Colourpop does a great job of advertising that. The reasons for this specific brand collaboration and the motivations behind it are clear. It’s meant to catch your eye, stir up childhood memories, and bring you a sense of satisfaction once you have the entire set.
Partnerships between beauty and lifestyle brands can also help to blur the lines between luxury and affordability. By working with a more affordable lifestyle brand, a luxury makeup brand can market to a wider audience with differing budgets. When Byredo, a high-end fragrance and beauty brand, collaborated with Ikea on a candle collection, they were able to create a product within their realm of beauty at a lower price. This set of 13 candles was advertised as a fragrance product that assists in curating a more cohesive, comfortable home. A simple, yet beautiful design of the candles succeeded in blending aesthetics and function, much like the values of the two brands involved.
Byredo’s home fragrances usually go from anywhere between $45-$90, but the Ikea/Byredo candles sold for only $5-$25, which seems to feel much more reasonable to your average, mid-budget beauty geek. One quality that both Byredo and Ikea fans seem to have in common is valuing the amount of use you can get out of a product. A candle will last as long as you want it to, depending on how you use it. The same could be said about furniture and decor that is meant to last through the wear and tear of daily home life. Plus, once you’ve burned through the entire candle, you have your own piece of decorative storage to make a part of your home.
When considering each beauty brand and the partners they chose, you can understand the motivations behind the union. It could be viewed simply as a desire for better profits and expanded customer reach. It could be seen as beauty companies dipping their toes into the lifestyle waters, wanting to expand and burst the bubble they’ve kept to in the past years and build hype for their brands. As noted earlier, merch is a way for customers to show their enthusiasm for a brand and for brands, in turn, to increase their visibility and strengthen customer loyalty under the guise of fostering community. According to Glossy, in 2021 several brand owners reported that the demand for merch has actually come from customers. Companies leveraged this fandom by turning customers into "ambassadors" of the brand. "People like to support brands that they believe in and that share their same values, and that’s been especially true over the past year," said Amy Liu, founder of Tower 28, a makeup brand that’s also sold sweat sets and bucket hats. Adds Charlotte Cho, founder of skincare brand Then I Met You, "Our community had been asking for [sweatshirts] since we launched. They love our signature periwinkle color, and they wanted us to make everything from candles to cozy sweaters. It took us years to find the right color and quality of our periwinkle pullovers, and when we launched, we were met with so much excitement and enthusiasm from our community…When a community resonates with your brand, they want to incorporate it into their lifestyle and be an ambassador of the brand."
No matter where this trend came from, it’s going in the direction of redefining what we deem beautiful. The beauty industry is sneaking its way into lifestyle categories, making you forget why you came to that specific makeup brand in the first place. You showed up for the transformative products, the vibes of a brand that match your own, and the "bigger message" that the brand displays through their goals and values. But now, you’re here for the underwear, the hair accessories, the candles, the shoes, the stickers, and whatever else is on the horizon, no matter how far from beauty it seems.
*Of course, non-makeup merch isn’t a new idea. A few examples: Avon has been selling everything from mugs and figurines to figurines at least since the 1960s, and Elizabeth Arden started selling ceramic trinkets by themselves (i.e. not as gifts-with-purchase) in the late 1970s. Around the same time, Helena Rubinstein, in collaboration with Unives, created an eyewear line to coordinate with the company’s latest eye shadow colors. And both Harriet Hubbard Ayer and Revlon partnered with the Ideal Toy Company to produce children’s dolls for their respective brands in the 1950s.
It's another incomplete history, but I wanted to highlight the few bits I was able to locate about the makeup line founded by supermodel Naomi Sims, born on this day in 1948.1 (This post will not cover her collection of wigs, fragrance or skincare as these are not technically makeup, nor will it serve as her biography. Also, more light would be probably shed on Sims' intentions for her makeup line if I had remote access to her papers, which are unfortunately available by in-person appointment only. Sigh. Maybe in a few months if it's safe to travel I can dig through her archives and provide a more thorough profile.) Sims, a 5'10" beauty originally from Mississippi, began modeling in 1966 to help pay for college. Her true passion, however, was entrepreneurship. After becoming the first Black model to appear on the cover of Ladies' Home Journal in November 1968 and Life in 1969, Sims focused her attention on various business ventures. "Modeling was never my ultimate goal. Since I was 14 I wanted to manufacture beauty products," she stated.
On May 15, 1970 Sims announced she would be starting a beauty company that would specialize in cosmetics for Black customers. Like many Black women, Sims was frustrated at the lack of wearable and affordable base products for deep skintones. While a few lines for women of color existed they were not as plentiful or accessible as other brands. Fueled by relentless systemic racism, the barriers to entry for Black beauty entrepreneurs were multiple and substantial – lack of access to capital and loans, discriminatory policies that prohibited their products being sold in most stores2 and the claim that Black women either didn't want/need or couldn't afford makeup were just a handful of the challenges faced by Black entrepreneurs looking to set up shop. In short, despite the significant inroads made by pioneers like Carmen Murphy and Anthony Overton, there weren't many makeup options for Black women. Sims wanted them to feel confident and glamorous, which was difficult given the limited choices. "Black women have an inferiority complex concerning their physical appearance and I want to give them confidence. Black women want the same genuine psychological boost out of cosmetics that other women do, and one simply does not get that glorious feeling of glamour by adding burnt cork to the darkest shade of sun tan powder available," she said.3
The company, called Naomi Inc., was founded in partnership with ad agency Cadwell Davis. The shades were supposedly inspired by a Brazilian painter who used "earth" as a medium. It appears that Sims was nearly a decade ahead of the spate of clay-based products (stay tuned for a post on these!) that would flood the market starting in the late 1970s.
Sims took a keen interest in the formulas, stating that she wanted natural, beneficial ingredients and noted her desire to go back to school for chemistry. "[The] makeup we'll introduce will be almost medical makeup and skincare products. I'll visit stores and tell women how to use them…I want to know really what goes inside those cosmetics."4 As of 1971 the line was still being developed (in Japan), according to Harper's Bazaar.
Plans for the cosmetics were still on the table a year later. (Also, can we please take a minute to appreciate the baby blue on her waterline?! It's a gorgeous twist on the white liner trick to brighten eyes.)
Rather than continuing with Naomi, Inc., in 1973 Sims largely retired from her modeling career to focus more on her beauty business ventures, debuting a line of wigs called The Naomi Sims Collection. Three years later she published All About Health and Beauty for the Black Woman. While both the beauty guide and wigs sold well, it appears Sims tabled the makeup idea for the time being as there is no mention of it anywhere, not even in her book (or at least, this excerpt that dispenses makeup advice.) One would think someone with her own makeup line would recommend it, but she suggests a Revlon product instead.
In 1978 and at the launch of her fragrance in May 1979, Sims mentioned she was planning both skincare and makeup for the fall, but neither materialized. As of October 1979, according to Vogue, the makeup allegedly was still in development and was slated for a spring/summer 1980 release. "How to find makeup to blend in with our complexion," was still a problem, she noted then. "The colors available just aren't right. And from working with [makeup] every day [while modeling], I wanted to know why someone couldn't develop colors for Black women, and I wouldn't take no for an answer."5 Despite her persistent dedication to establishing a cosmetics range, it seems that the one Sims envisioned in 1970 did not actually come to fruition during that decade. There are several possible reasons as to why she chose to delay it. At first glance, given Sims' access to chemists (whom she worked with to develop new fibers for her wigs) and the overall success of her other endeavors, it's puzzling that she did not forge ahead with makeup. But as we know, makeup, particularly for women of color, has unique hurdles not shared by other beauty product categories. Secondly, early on Sims faced criticism from both white and Black customers. The June 26, 1970 issue of Women's Wear Daily mentions a quote from some Karen who thought it was unfair that Sims' proposed makeup line would cater to Black women (insert eyeroll here), while the April 1971 issue of Essence included a letter from a reader who did not approve of Sims' "white beauty secrets."
The advice from Sims herself was questionable as well. While she encouraged Black women never to minimize full lips, she echoed the sentiment about using makeup to ensure one would be appealing to Black men. "Cosmetics should not minimize the lip shape that many [Black] women have. Cosmetics should bring out the best features in a woman and those include her lips." In the same 1970 article, she advises: "A woman should always use some makeup but it should have a natural look…natural is the way Black men want their women to look."6
Thirdly, it could be that Sims decided she didn't want to compete with other makeup brands or collections intended for Black women at the time. The Naomi Sims Collection launched in 1973, the same year as Fashion Fair Cosmetics. Actress Barbara Walden introduced her eponymous line in 1968, which went on to be sold in department stores two years later. The white-owned Flori Roberts was still going strong, having been established in 1965, and mammoth Avon began marketing to Black women around the same time. Finally, Sims noted that she decided to postpone the line until after the Vietnam War to focus more on makeup. "I think I will wait until the war dies down…there will still be plenty of business left for me," she said.7
Sims never abandoned the idea for makeup products, however. In 1985 she co-founded a new business separate from her wig and fragrance companies, Naomi Sims Beauty Products Ltd., with her brother-in-law Alex Erwiah. Erwiah was a native of the Ivory Coast and a veteran cosmetic marketer who owned a successful import/export company that represented American and European brands throughout Africa. In 1987 a three-step, hypoallergenic skincare system was unveiled. While this sounds awfully similar to Clinique's famous three-step plan, Sims claimed that it was the first allergen-free line formulated especially for Black skin concerns. A year later, the cosmetics line, named Color Enhancers, was finally launched. Advertised as a natural-looking alternative to other cosmetics on the market and specifically formulated for a range of Black skin tones, the products retailed from $7.50 to $18 and were sold via phone order, Macy's, Saks, Nordstrom, Sears and other department stores.8
Sims enlisted makeup artist Byron Barnes to develop the products and join the company as Creative Director.9 Barnes' tenure with Sims was fairly short; in 1993 he left to pursue similar roles for a makeup range founded by another Black supermodel, Iman, which went on to become very successful. On the surface, Naomi Sims Beauty also sold well even early on, with Erwiah anticipating sales of over $5 million in 1989. But later that year he pointed out some challenges faced by the brand. The New York Timesreported: "Erwiah calculates that it will be at least two years before Naomi Sims shows a profit. Promotion and penetration of new markets are costly, and the company has invested heavily in new products, adding color cosmetics to its original skin-treatment line. Erwiah has another problem: for reasons that are not clear, Naomi Sims is no longer on the scene. Sims, whose title is chairman of the board, is unavailable for interviews and has no scheduled department store appearances. When asked to describe Sims's current role, Donna Italiano, the company's spokesman, will only say, 'I guess primarily the same as an Estee Lauder. Naomi has established the brand, and now she has taken pretty much of a back seat. Alex is the sole owner and Naomi Sims collects royalties.' Italiano does confirm that Sims has been ill and was recently hospitalized in Manhattan. While some observers question whether Naomi Sims Beauty Products can succeed, absent a compelling, credible figure with whom black women can identify, others declare that the day of beauty queens like Estee Lauder has passed. 'Today's cosmetics companies are selling image more than personality,' says consultant Natalia Holynskyj of Kline & Co., a market research firm in Fairfield, N.J. 'Even Estee Lauder has changed. The company doesn't use the Lauder name with its Clinique and Prescriptives lines.'"
Despite these obstacles, in 1992 the collection was doing well enough to launch in the UK, and was still being promoted through the summer of 1996.
That summer the company released a eyeshadow primer called Chalk. This is quite innovative due to the fact that there were basically next to zero eyeshadow primers on the market at the time (I distinctly remember being advised to use concealer or a matte beige/ivory shadow applied wet as a base), and the ones that were available certainly were not formulated for deep skin tones. "While most [eyeshadow primers] come in a sharp white, Naomi Sims' is a banana yellow that blends better with darker skin and helps colors appear more vibrant," reported the L.A. Times.10 Yellow toned or not, it was a strange name choice given that a common problem with eyeshadow primers is that they can appear quite chalky on dark skin. In November of 1996, an article in Drug and Cosmetic Industry cited two makeup artists who raved about both Naomi Sims skincare and the Skin Enhancer foundation. The same issue featured an interview with Mikki Taylor, then beauty and cover editor of Essence, who called the line "superb". But despite these accolades, the makeup didn't seem to be around much longer. While hair and skincare products from Naomi Sims Beauty Products were available in 2003, the makeup line appears to have been abruptly discontinued in late 1996 as I couldn't find any mentions of it thereafter.
It's not clear when Naomi Sims Beauty officially folded.11 What we do know, however, is that Sims was yet another visionary for Black women's cosmetics. Without models/seasoned businesswomen like Sims, who had first-hand experience with the issues surrounding beauty aids for Black women as well as Black entrepreneurship more generally, even less ground would have been covered by now in terms of suitable cosmetics for Black customers. I think the fact that her line was relatively short-lived and not as well-known compared to other Black-owned brands had nothing to do with product quality, marketing or the public's perception of Sims, given that her wigs were very popular for many years and her beauty guide sold even more copies when it was updated and republished in 1986, a decade after after its original run. I suspect it was related to heavy competition from the flurry of new, "multicultural" collections by mainstream white-owned brands in the early '90s (such as Maybelline's Shades of You, Prescriptives All Skins, and Revlon's ColorStyle, just to name a few – stay tuned for a post on these too!), revamped heritage Black-owned brands (Fashion Fair, Posner) and stylish newcomers like Iman. Nothing about Color Enhancers appeared to be lacking. It was simply unfortunate timing. And, of course, the role played by racism cannot be overstated.
What do you think? I really wish I could track down some of the makeup for the Museum's collection, but I found no trace of it offered for sale.
1Some sources indicate 1949, but Sims's obituary states she was 61 at the time of her death, so that would mean her birth year was 1948.
2Most brands that catered to Black customers were only sold via mail order or direct sales (i.e. door-to-door sales agents.)
3"Beauty Plan – Color It Black," Associated Press, May 16, 1970.
4"Top Model Naomi Sims Has Personality Plus," Courier Journal, Louisville, Kentucky, December 3, 1970.
5"Naomi Sims Brings Preview of Her Wig Designs to County," Joan Tarangioli, The Herald Statesman, Yonkers, New York, October 21, 1979.
6"Beauty Plan – Color It Black," Associated Press, May 16, 1970.
7"Everybody Is A Winner in Black Cosmetics War," Nina S. Hyde, Washington Post, July 1977.
8"New Beauty Lines Cater to Special Needs, Problems of Darker Skin Tones," Marylin Johnson, Atlanta Constitution, January 1, 1989.
9Barnes indicated he began working with Sims in 1989; however, the August 1988 issue of Seventeen lists him as the brand's creative director.
10"Changing Their Tones," Jocelyn Y. Stewart, L.A. Times, June 6, 1996.
11Interestingly, there is a 2016 trademark for Naomi Sims Beauty filed under Alex Erwiah's name, 7 years after Sims passed away.
Took a while, but I'm pleased to finally talk about Mikimoto's gorgeous collection from holiday 2020. As with the holiday 2018 and 2019 collections, the company enlisted an artist to create the packaging. For the Twinkle Pearls lineup, Mikimoto collaborated with London-based illustrator (and southpaw!) Fee Greening.
Greening illustrated a charming zodiac theme using her signature dip pen, ink and watercolor process.
As with the 2018 collection, the moisturizer is housed in a luminous, iridescent sphere that imitates the brilliance of genuine pearls.
Strands of pearls border the zodiac design on the palette, while the blush is delicately embossed with stars and an oyster shell opened to reveal a shiny pearl.
Gemstones surround a rather regal goddess wearing an elaborate crown made of pearl strands affixed to an oyster shell in the center. The star motif and wave-like clouds in the background fuse the celestial and oceanic atmospheres.
The interior of the box depicts a disembodied hand festooned with pearl strands, while the goddess perches on a lion escorting her through the heavens.
Both the makeup pouch and travel case display more of the lovely illustrations as well as a quote. I'm assuming the latter is from Mikimoto.
Fee Greening (b. 1990) always wanted to draw. Seeing famous paintings in galleries on travels with her parents, she would try to replicate them at home, with much frustration. But she found the right medium when she received a dip pen and ink as a gift. "I used to go to galleries in London with my family and try to recreate oil paintings unsuccessfully with my crayons at home and get very frustrated," she says. "When I was around ten, someone in my family gave me a Murano glass dip pen from Venice. It took a long time to get used to it. For the first few years it was hard to get the ink to run off smoothly and it would often drip. Now I have developed a muscle memory of what angle to hold my pen and it no longer happens."
As evidenced by the above photo of Greening, intricate dip pen illustrations require a lot of time and attention to detail. The finished product is well worth it, however, for both artist and client. "It is a very slow process, the pen can only draw 1/2cm before you need to re-dip it. I also have to wait for it to dry for couple of minutes so I don’t smudge or drag my long hair across the wet ink. Although there are many wonderful aspects of living in a digital age, it has given us very short attention spans. I think we crave traditional analogue outlets to balance out our scrolling culture. A detailed drawing is not only precious because of its beauty but also because of the time dedicated to making it," she says.
Thematically, since childhood Greening has been fascinated by the common narratives within medieval, Renaissance and Gothic art. "I always had a flair for the dramatic as a child, and loved storytelling. I think that’s where my interest in Renaissance and Gothic art came from…There are so many great heroines and doomed love affairs depicted in those artistic eras that I was really drawn to. I think, even though I didn’t know it then, I was very interested in fate and divine will. Characters fated to unavoidable doomed love like Tristan and Iseult, characters answering a calling like Joan of Arc or characters whose decisions had so many repercussions like Pandora and Eve. Maybe it was something to do with coming of age." This interest is expressed through the fairy tale quality in Greening's work. Take, for example, the story she created for Gucci's Acqua di Fiori fragrance in 2018, which depicts half-human, half-flower girls "blossoming" into women. Greening explains, "I explored the perfume’s themes of female coming of age, friendship and metamorphosis, I wanted the girls to literally blossom into women. I looked specifically at mandrakes in medieval illuminated manuscripts. Mandrakes were said to be half human half plant and when pulled from the soil let out a high pitch scream. I wanted to create an idyllic floral world for the budding mandrakes to frolic in and transform into women. I’ve known my closest female friends since my late teens. Drawing these reminded me of our early years of friendship, lazing around barefoot in a sunny garden surrounded by flowers." The inclusion of butterflies completes the theme of transformation.
What's wonderful about Greening's Instagram feed, in addition to seeing work that's not on her website, is that it occasionally includes the artworks that inspire her. Here are some illustrations of mandrakes from medieval books, along with a detail of the mythical Daphne turning into a tree.
Indeed, the concepts of transformation and magic through the lens of medieval and Renaissance art – whether earthly pursuits such as astronomy and botany or mythical like mandrakes and alchemy – figure prominently in Greening's work. While she delights in the fanciful side ("if money was no object I would happily just draw demons and angels," she notes), ultimately her work centers on revealing the magic of natural processes and phenomena. "I enjoy looking for something hallowed and fantastical in every day life." A good example is the triptych Greening created for Martin Brudnizki's Linnaean spa project. The spa's namesake comes from Carl Linnaeus, a Swedish naturalist who developed a "flower clock" in 1748* by planting certain blooms that opened and closed at specific times of day. The center panel of Greening's triptych combines a joyful rendition of an original flower clock illustration with surrounding flora and fauna arranged symmetrically, reminiscent of those found in medieval manuscripts. While the flower clock is based on various scientific principles, Greening uncovers the wonder of this concept and reminds us of the magic hidden in nature. Who would ever think one could use flowers to tell time?! That sounds quite fantastical to me, like something from Alice in Wonderland.
The same periods in Western art history also influenced Greening's style. "I think my fascination with medieval and gothic styles comes from visiting churches and museums in Italy with my family when I was young," she says. After graduating from London's famed Central St. Martin's in 2012, she received a Master's degree in illustration from the Royal Academy of Arts in 2014. It was at the Academy that she further developed her aesthetic, diving into the plentiful examples of medieval manuscripts and alchemical drawings offered there. "There was such an extensive section [on them] in the library. I was already drawing similar themes and using dip pens, so the more research I did on the era the more it reinforced my style. I tend to use the same straight on perspective, heavily detailed borders, hand written text, natural color palette, botanical specimens and symbology. Alchemical drawings are detailed but laid out in very simple, ordered compositions which is something I try to emulate in my own work." These influences are especially apparent in Greening's capitalized letters, which emulate a modern, light-hearted spirit while distinctly retaining their medieval origins.
These plants fused with jewels and a print entitled "forget-me-not" embody the strange, somewhat surreal nature of alchemical drawings. Seemingly disparate elements floating in the ether – flowers, gems, insects, hands – are merged with text to form a dreamlike yet orderly space.
It's unclear how Mikimoto's partnership with Greening came about, but it's not surprising given her previous collaborations including beauty illustrations for Sisley. Perhaps the company observed Greening's love of pearls, shells and coral. Additionally, Mikimoto may have spoken to the artist's interests: pearls can be considered a symbol of metamorphosis or alchemy, as sand is transformed by oysters into a precious and beautiful material.
Once again, it's great to observe the images that rattle around in the artist's brain as she conceives of her drawings. Here are a few pearly details from Greening's IG page.
The selection of a zodiac theme is a bit unexpected for Mikimoto. Something that looked out towards the sea rather than skyward may have been more appropriate. However, it's obvious how much Greening enjoys illustrating the zodiac and other celestial motifs. It looks as though she slightly modified her Celestial design for Mikimoto to make it more fitting.
I love how she pays homage to and re-imagines some of the details from various 17th century illustrations in the collection for Mikimoto, such as the scrolls, stars and fine line work.
These next two zodiac designs from the 1600s have not popped up in Greening's Instagram feed, but I would be surprised if she hadn't looked to them for inspiration. I'm also certain she owns a copy of this book.
My only complaint about Greening's design is that mermaids were strangely absent. Given that the artist has incorporated them into previous commissions and even chose bathroom tiles with a mermaid pattern for her home, I'm a bit disappointed not to see them on the Mikimoto packaging. Plus, they would have aligned nicely with the mer-folk on Mikimoto's previous holiday collections. These invitations and the mermaids therein are inspired by medieval and Renaissance maps…
…especially the ladies in the invitation on the right below.
Absolutely adore these tiles. The mermaid comes from a volume called Solidonius Philosophus, published around 1710 (there appear to be a couple different versions.) The mermaid is depicted with the 4 elements.
Overall, while it wasn't a perfect match in my eyes, Greening did an excellent job for Mikimoto. I wish the company had come up with any sort of narrative as they did with the previous two holiday collections. While they weren't the most coherent – I think something was getting lost in translation – Mikimoto at least tried to tell a story invoking the magic of the holiday season and tying it back to pearls. Greening is a skilled storyteller so her talents were somewhat wasted in that regard. Nevertheless, it's a visually beautiful collection, and my inner art history geek greatly admires Greening's style and influences.
What do you think of this collection and Greening's work? If she ever makes a mermaid print I'm buying every single item!
– I was truly honored and overjoyed to be interviewed by the great Arabelle Sicardi for an article on makeup and beauty packaging over at SSENSE magazine.
– Another piece of makeup history I worked on in the past month was finding specific information on Keystone Laboratories, the Memphis company that manufactured the La Jac and Hi-Hat lines. The company was founded in either 1923 or 1925 by Morris Shapiro and chemist Joseph Menke. Like the Chicago-based Valmor Products, Keystone was white-owned and sold beauty goods alongside spiritual products to Black customers. Due to segregation they had to rely on direct sales agents rather than selling in stores and at the company’s height, they employed 4,000 salespeople nationwide. The two things I’m most interested in are that: 1. Keystone allegedly had a Black chemist on staff by the name of Jackson Green. I was very intrigued by this claim, because if it's true, he would have certainly been one of the first Black cosmetic chemists; and 2. Keystone also hired "professional artists" to create their packaging and I was really hoping to suss out their names so that they are acknowledged (like Charles Dawson). I chased quite a few leads to find info on Green, access Keystone’s archives or get in touch with the founder's granddaughter, but they all were dead ends. If anyone knows this information or where else I can look please let me know!
On average, the Museum receives one inquiry a week. It doesn't seem like much, but if it's something that can't be identified easily or a broad question about historic trends, they can take up quite a bit of time. Here are a handful of inquiries I worked on over the past year or so.
First, we have some questions about wartime makeup. One of the Museum's Instagram followers asked about this lovely set she had purchased on eBay. She suggested it may have been a kit provided to service women during the war.
The following week, by pure coincidence, another person got in touch with an identical kit in red.
As it turns out, the hunch from the tan kit's owner was spot-on: this is Elizabeth Arden's service kit, which dates to about 1939-1956. I don’t think the company provided them for free, but it seems like the kit with Stop Red was recommended specifically for the women in the Auxiliary Fire Service in the UK, at least initially. A book called the Home Front Pocket Manual contains an excerpt from the Nov. 1939 issue of a British publication called Britannia and Eve, and it mentions the set.
The kit was sold in Canada starting around 1942 and continued to be sold there into the 1950s, but was advertised just as a regular travel kit for the “busy” woman, not service women. It also looks like the red leather was not available until 1942. In any case, it's a compelling piece of wartime women's history – kits were actually created to help women adhere to the "beauty is your duty" motto.
So this was mostly solved…except for the number that appeared on both kits. If anyone knows what "R.D. 1941" means please get in touch. The only possibly relevant thing I found was "Reserve Decoration" which is an award for the Royal Navy Reserve in the UK, but it doesn't seem like that would be appropriate to put on this particular kit.
Next up, a vintage enthusiast and YouTuber, Katie May, asked about the use of gravy browning as leg makeup during the war. As silk and nylons were scarce, liquid leg makeup was sold as a substitute for stockings.
But in the UK, where shortages were even more dire and cosmetics prohibitively expensive, more women tried to DIY liquid stockings through a number of substances. According to some sources, ladies tested out a bunch of things to mimic the look of stockings. Along with gravy browning, cocoa, wet sand, tea, iodine, walnut juice and brown shoe polish were all experimented with. Katie wanted to know how the gravy was applied and whether it was a widespread trend. I'm afraid I couldn't turn up much concrete information given the limited access I have to resources, not to mention I know very little of where to begin looking for sources on WWII history in the UK. This BBC archive provides a brief 1st person mention of the stockings, but my findings consisted mostly of newspaper snippets and book excerpts, which may not be reliable and don't provide exact figures as to how many women were actually partaking in the practice.
So it's really difficult to say how widespread DIY leg makeup was, at least on a regular basis. It must have been so cumbersome to mix and apply, and it definitely was not waterproof. Even the expensive pre-made leg makeup sold by cosmetic companies were not necessarily waterproof formulas despite their advertising. The gravy browning in particular was rumored to attract dogs and flies. I can't envision women applying it themselves or going to the leg makeup "bars" to have others apply it every day, but maybe they did. It was a very different time; one woman remarked that it was "embarrassing" to go without stockings, so perhaps the social stigma was strong enough to force women to try DIY alternatives, and the cosmetics shortage in the UK was a lot worse than in the U.S. As for face makeup, the same ideas apply – I'm skeptical of how widespread DIY makeup was, but it seems most women in the UK could not afford cosmetics during the war even if they were readily available (which, again, they weren't…lots of shortages. While the UK government believed that cosmetics boosted morale so they didn't completely stop producing makeup, it was still difficult to obtain.) I must point out that men enjoyed making fun of us silly, shallow women's efforts to keep up with the constant societal expectation of beauty. And of course, they always had it worse. I can't roll my eyes hard enough at these clippings.
In any case, some sources state that beetroot juice was substituted for lip makeup and blush, shoe polish or soot (!) for mascara, and starch for face powder (NOT flour, as proposed by the sexist windbag above). Some women melted down whatever was left of their existing lipsticks and mixed them with Vaseline to make a balm. The two sources I found to be most useful on DIY makeup were 1940s Fashion by Fiona Kay and A People's War by Peter Lewis. Madeleine Marsh's book Compacts and Cosmetics (p.124) and Geoffrey Jones's Beauty Imagined (p. 136) also have brief mentions of DIY wartime makeup. Finally, I also recommended to Katie that she reach out to Kate Thompson, who has written several historical fiction novels about women who worked at the Yardley cosmetics factory in the UK during the war, and my understanding is that she's done quite a bit of research into WWII makeup. Anyway, Katie bravely tried out the gravy browning and a bunch of other homemade wartime beauty substitutes! Kudos to her for re-creating these unusual and rather messy cosmetic practices.
Next, an antique store owner asked about some old cosmetics sales kits by the name of Velens that she had come across. I didn't turn up much on the brand's products, but here's what I was able to find. The company was founded in 1930 by a Swedish ex-pat named Leo B. Selberg. Selberg had a background in chemistry and previously worked for Luzier, another cosmetics brand at the time. The Velen's Educational Cosmetics name was copyrighted that same year, as well as something called "Paul Velen's Color Harmony Chart". As it turns out, a man by the name of Paul Velen (based in Kansas) had actually come up with all the formulas prior to Selberg's involvement. The relationship between Selberg and Velen isn't clear; however, from newspaper clippings it seems that before moving to Missouri, Selberg socialized frequently with an older brother of Paul, A.R. (Reuben) Velen, so I'm assuming they knew each other. Paul also had a degree in chemistry, although what inspired him to start a beauty business remains a mystery. Maybe Leo approached Paul about being the owner of the business while continuing to sell under the Velen name and keeping the formulas, but it doesn't seem like either of them were too involved/hands on with the line. Selberg sold Velen's in 1959 to a company called Greer and Associates, but I couldn't find any mention of Velen's Cosmetics after 1955 so it may have been on its last legs by that point anyway. Paul Velen died in May of 1969 at the age of 68; Selberg in 1979 at the age of 83. There was also a man named Albert Colborn who served briefly as Chairman of the Board of Velen's Cosmetics from 1930-1933 and started his own beauty company called the Modernistic Beauty Service in 1933, but I couldn't turn up much about him other than his obituary.
Anyway, the Velen's line wasn't used for training at beauty schools but rather for demonstrations in salons to sell to salon customers. In fact, it was almost exclusively sold in salons with some direct sales (door-to-door/traveling) agents, not in department or drug stores. The "educational" part of the name meant that beauty salon employees would "educate" their clientele on the best products for them and how to apply them. It looks like it was sold primarily in the Midwest and Texas, with some salons as far away as California and New Hampshire, which is why it's a little surprising there aren't more records or product photos. So this was quite a find and an interesting tidbit.
Skipping ahead to the late 1950s, the Museum received a few questions about Helena Rubinstein's Mascara-Matic. First, someone sent in a box with some adorable packaging, which was released for the holiday season in 1958.
I couldn't find a magazine ad, but there were a couple of newspaper ads. A year later Rubinstein released another holiday edition of Mascara-Matic with a Christmas ornament design on the box. As far as I know the "harlequin" style in the photos sent in to the Museum was only released in 1958, and it doesn't seem like Rubinstein released any other holiday edition boxes of Mascara-Matic except for 1958 and 1959.
Then another person wrote in asking about the value of an original Helena Rubinstein Mascara-Matic, believing that the one she had found was from its first production run and worth a whopping £3,000 according to this Daily Mail article. It's hard to say with certainty whether any Mascara-Matics are from the first run. Perhaps those had the patent number and everything after that was marked "waterproof" or did not have any markings around the middle. However, the one I purchased for the Museum has the patent number but also came with a refill, and refills were not sold until 1958, a year after the mascara's debut. Even if the one the person had was original, it's not clear where the figure of £3,000 comes from. The Museum does not do valuations, but I will say Mascara-Matics, either with patent numbers or marked "waterproof" typically sell for about $50 so I can't see an original being worth 60 times more, unless there was proof it belonged to a celebrity or something like that. There was also a listing for one with a patent number at eBay – from what I can tell it was unsold with a starting bid of £49.95. If it was in fact sold, again, I can't see it going for £3,000 even in mint condition.
Lastly, another vintage store owner inquired about a skincare kit sold by blender brand Osterizer. (There are larger photos of the jars at Etsy.)
Based on the coupon included in the photo and some newspaper ads it was sold between 1971 and 1975. It looked like quite the gimmick. There wasn't a ton of information on it, but it seems Oster was trying to cash in on the "natural" cosmetics trend of the late '60s/early '70s and sold these kits for those who already had a blender and wanted to make their own organic skincare with fresh ingredients.
But who really needs brand name pink jars and labels for homemade cosmetics? One could go to any craft store and get their own supplies. And while Google didn't exist back then, the recipes would have been pretty easy to find as well. I'm just a bit astounded at what they were trying to sell, as it really seems to be a cash grab. Anyway, it's a fascinating bit of beauty history and definitely an expression of the era.
Which one of these were you most intrigued by? While I'm not the best at solving makeup mysteries I do enjoy receiving them, so please don't hesitate to send any objects or questions to the Museum!
It took me way too long to return to Dream Teams, but it's back in time for Black History Month! The second installment features five more Black artists whose work I think would make fantastic beauty packaging. Sadly, since the first edition of this series in the summer of 2020 there has not been a single Black visual artist featured on a mainstream makeup brand. My pleas continue to fall on deaf ears. Since companies still aren't collaborating with Black painters/photographers/multimedia artists, I figured it may be at least somewhat useful to keep sharing the work of notable Black artists within the context of makeup. As noted previously, the artist bios are kept quite brief for now – especially because the volume of information is overwhelming – but if they ever appear on beauty packaging I will go more in-depth. And obviously I acknowledge that artist collaborations, particularly imaginary ones, won't magically solve the beauty industry's racism problem, but it's a relatively easy step towards better representation and increased visibility.
The artist: Lorna Simpson
The brand: Adwoa Beauty
Why: The collages of Lorna Simpson (b. 1961) are a perfect match for modern, gender-neutral hair care brand Adwoa Beauty.1 Both celebrate the beauty of Black and/or multicultural hair textures – Simpson through combining vintage magazine cut-outs with vibrant colors and naturally occurring phenomena, and Adwoa through normalizing natural hair. Haircare is usually beyond the Makeup Museum's purview, but the similar perspectives of the artist and brand were so obvious I had no choice but to highlight them. Adwoa Beauty was founded by Liberian-born, New York City-raised Julian Addo, who was frustrated by the lack of modern, non-gendered products for natural hair. Every item on the market was being continually updated except products for natural hair. "I didn’t see the [modernization] happening with textured haircare," she says. "The packaging and the branding looked the same in 2015 as they did in 1994…Initially, I didn’t want to start a company. I was used to working behind the scenes. So I pitched a concept [about a modernized haircare brand for textured hair] to Sally Beauty and some of my other clients, but no one really moved on the idea. That’s how Adwoa Beauty was born–out of my frustration with the industry and how it represented Black women, and from my desire to have a clean, modern, gender-neutral brand that caters to textured hair. That didn’t exist prior to us launching in October 2017."
Around 2011 Simpson stumbled across her grandmother's old copies of Jet and Ebony magazines while cleaning up her studio. Her first instinct was to preserve them in archival sleeves, but then she was inspired to make collages. Over 150 of these pieces from 2011-2017 are included in the compendium Lorna Simpson Collages. A selection of images from the Phenomenon and Earth and Sky series would be fitting for Adwoa Beauty's packaging. Pairing women from '60s and '70s issues of Ebony and Jet with geological and astrological illustrations from old science textbooks, Simpson replaces their hair with gems and galaxies. "The overall effect – both regal and otherworldly – is a joyful homage to the irrepressible stature of Black hair," notes Emma de Clercq at Infringe.
Simultaneously celestial and earthly, the works do not erase Black women's hair but rather elevate it. Black hair re-asserts itself as a locus of self-expression and beauty instead of discrimination. As author Elizabeth Alexander writes in Collages' introduction, "In Lorna Simpson’s collages 'the black and the boisterous' hair is the universal governing principle. Black women’s heads of hair are galaxies unto themselves, solar systems, moonscapes, volcanic interiors. The hair she paints has a mind of its own. It is sinuous and cloudy and fully alive. It is forest and ocean, its own emotional weather. Black women’s hair is epistemology, but we cannot always discern its codes."
The simplicity of the collages' design and attention paid to the advertising aspect are echoed in some of Adwoa Beauty's marketing. Compare Simpson's thoughts on makeovers used to sell products and the brand's images. "I try to keep the collages very simple, as well as the character, the facing, and all the tropes of advertising from those particular moments. In a lot of the advertising from the sixties and seventies, there’s this whole focus on before and after in terms of makeup and appearance. The forlorn, concerned expression is before the makeover. They are amazing portraits, even for that time, because there is a subtext of political strife in terms of the before and after during the civil rights era. You have these expressions of concern that appear in advertising that are somewhat parallel to what’s going on culturally." While Adwoa Beauty's before-and-after photos don't hold the same significance described by the artist, they are powerful in their own right for normalizing and celebrating the hair textures of people of color. "Our images and marketing can fit in anywhere that beauty products are sold," Addo says. "'Normalize Being Kinky' is one of our taglines, and we are making sure that people of color know that there’s an assortment of products for them, including in prestigious retailers like Sephora. They can walk in and shop in the same aisles, not just the ethnic aisle."
Both Simpson's work and Adwoa Beauty's products enhance rather than "correct" and express the true meaning of Black hair, and for this I believe they are meant for each other.
The artist: Richard Mayhew
The brand: Viseart
Why: The abstract landscapes of California-based artist Richard Mayhew (b. 1924) have some of the most exquisite color schemes I've ever laid eyes on. Just like the eyeshadow palettes of French brand Viseart, Mayhew's use of color is vibrant but not overpowering, and provides unusual yet harmonious shade combinations.
Mayhew is inspired by his Native American and African American heritage and chose the landscape genre to express his peoples' spiritual connection to nature. "What I do with landscapes is internalize my emotional interpretation of desire, hope, fear, and love. So, instead of a landscape, it’s a mindscape…My mindscapes are also about the healing of the long trauma that Black and native communities have experienced collectively," he says.
He does not sketch or plan his paintings; they are mostly improvised, much like the jazz he listens to while working. "I just put paint on the canvas and that’s suggestive of what will emerge," he says.
While Mayhew, an active arts advocate and teacher, has had over 40 solo exhibitions over the course of his career, his work is not as recognized as other Black artists of his era, especially compared to the ones from Spiral, a notable group of Black artists he helped establish in the 1960s. Unlike other Spiral artists, Mayhew's work isn't overtly political and does not employ figurative or narrative components. "Even though he was very much part of the movements in New York City, he doesn’t really fit that niche that some people want Black art to fit into: narrative quality, political and Civil Rights [imagery]. Because of that I think a lot of people don’t know how to address his work," says ACA Galleries curator Mikaela Sardo LaMarche. "And as a consequence, he’s been on the sidelines a bit." Adds Richard’s daughter Ina, "His contribution was different. It is spiritual. He’s taking on the spirit of the time and Civil Rights movement in tones of color."
As for Viseart, the brand was originally intended for makeup artists; most of the palettes were geared towards the needs of professionals. In the past 3-4 years, however, they've expanded their eyeshadow palette selection that skew towards the average makeup user, creating appealing color stories and textures that retain an artistic spirit yet are foolproof for regular consumers. While the color combinations are unexpected, they are tremendously pleasing and different than most of what's on the market, much like Mayhew's landscapes.
The artist: Alma Thomas
The brand: Clinique
Why: Maybe because I'm still in awe of the Alma Thomas exhibition I had the great fortune of seeing back in December, but her work is truly stunning and I would dearly love to see it on makeup packaging. Heck, I want to see it on everything. Thomas (1891-1978) taught art at public schools in DC for most of her life, only taking up painting seriously in 1960 upon her retirement from teaching. Previously she attended art classes at American University and while she painted and exhibited still lifes in group shows, it wasn't until the 1960s that she embarked on abstract color paintings. As art historian Regenia Perry explained in the 1992 book Free within Ourselves: African-American Artists in the Collection of the National Museum of American Art, "From the window of her house she enjoyed watching the ever-changing patterns that light created on her trees and flower garden. So inspired, her new paintings passed through an expressionist period, followed by an abstract one, to finally a nonobjective phase…Color was the basis of her painting, undeniably reflecting her life-long study of color theory as well as the influence of luminous, elegant abstract works by Washington-based Color Field painters such as Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, and Gene Davis…Earliest to win acclaim was her series of Earth paintings — pure color abstractions of concentric circles that often suggest target paintings and stripes. Done in the late 1960s, these works bear references to rows and borders of flowers inspired by Washington’s famed azaleas and cherry blossoms. The titles of her paintings often reflect this influence. In these canvases, brilliant shades of green, pale and deep blue, violet, deep red, light red, orange, and yellow are offset by white areas of untouched raw canvas, suggesting jewel-like Byzantine mosaics."
Thomas began a second major series entitled Space, which was inspired by the moon landing in 1969. "Like the Earth series these paintings also evoke mood through color, yet several allude to more than a color reference. The majority of Thomas’s Space paintings are large sparkling works with implied movement achieved through floating patterns of broken colors against a white background." My favorite of this series is The Eagle Has Landed. (Pardon the quality of the next few photos…the lighting at the Phillips was not the best.)
Clinique has done a number of collaborations over the years, but to my knowledge, none have been with Black artists or designers. Unlike the work of some color field artists that can appear a bit somber despite their vibrant palettes, Thomas's work appears remarkably upbeat, making it an excellent match for the playful mood of Clinique. And while fragrance is not in the Museum's wheelhouse, I would absolutely buy a bottle of Happy fragrance if Thomas's work was on it, as it conveys a wonderful sense of joy (or at least, I got immense joy looking at her paintings.)
Here is a reproduction of a dress she wore to her exhibition openings, originally designed by Maceo E. McCray. Per the wall label at the Phillips, "Thomas was known as a fashionable dresser who often selected clothes that coordinated with the palette of her works. McCray's design went further, using texture and color to both complement and contrast Thomas's paintings, ensuring the artist would shine at her exhibition openings."
So I also think Thomas, with her interest in fashion, would have been in favor of her work appearing on a makeup line.
The artist: Gordon Parks
The brand: Fashion Fair
Why: Gordon Parks (1912-2006) was a truly legendary master of photography. Entirely self-taught, he purchased a camera at the age of 25, referring to it as his "choice of weapon": "I saw that the camera could be a weapon against poverty, against racism, against all sorts of social wrongs. I knew at that point i had to have a camera." While Parks is best known for photojournalism, spotlighting social justice issues relating to race and class, more recently his fashion imagery has garnered attention. Along with many other outlets, Parks worked for Life, Vogue and Ebony magazines. Ebony co-founder Eunice Johnson created Fashion Fair and its accompanying line of cosmetics, so a collection featuring Gordon Parks is meant to be, especially considering both Parks and Johnson broke barriers in their respective fields. Plus, the minimal design of Fashion Fair's current packaging would make an excellent vehicle to display the quiet elegance of Parks' subjects and his equally graceful images of them.
Parks launched his photography career in 1939 at a high-end department store in St. Paul, Minnesota. He wrote in his 1990 autobiography, about Vogue: "Along with its fashion pages, I studied the names of its famous photographers—Steichen, Blumenfeld, Horst, Beaton, Hoyningen-Huené, thinking meanwhile that my own name could look quite natural among them."
Dr. Deborah Willis, professor and author of an essay from the catalog that accompanied the 2018 exhibition Gordon Parks: The New Tide, Early Work 1940-1950, believes an 1890 photo of Parks' mother, Sarah Ross Parks, was responsible for his interest in fashion photography and the notion of Black women asserting both their personal agency and sense of style through photography. She explains, "I imagine Gordon understood his mother through the lens of that image, his mother outside of raising children…I see this image as pivotal of what it meant to have a portrait made at that time. It allowed Sarah Ross Parks to create the personality and character of a woman who, within a 30-year period after Emancipation, and how she is using this space as a place to acknowledge not only her femininity and her sense of self as a free woman…Gordon was placing these women in this clothing in these high powered places like New York or Chicago – and seeing these spaces, they had a right to dress and be in these environments."
This photo is noted as an outtake from a 1978 Revlon shoot so we can assume Parks was responsible for photographing the Polished Ambers campaign, or at least some of it. Here's proof he was skilled at beauty photography too, which makes a collab with a cosmetics brand all the more apt.
I'm envisioning the above photos on palettes encased in heavy-duty acrylic (like NARS' Man Ray collection), as that simple yet sophisticated design would be a fitting tribute to Parks' photographic style.
The artist: Charles C. Dawson
The brand: Sweet Georgia Brown
Why (and what?!): Charles Dawson (1889-1981) was the artist and designer behind the packaging for, among other notable brands, the Chicago-based Valmor Products. Dawson essentially served as the brand's first creative director, establishing an early pop-art style that fused traditional femininity with bold sexual appeal. (Jay Jackson later took over for Dawson at Valmor.) However, the (white) owners of the company would not permit Dawson to sign his work. It wasn't until recently that Dawson was finally credited for his work for Valmor.
In a very informative article on Valmor at the Made in Chicago Museum's website, curator Andrew Clayman notes, "Though he might have been caught up in some of the cultural assimilation trends of the era—a survival requirement for some black professionals—Dawson was far from an apologist for blackness or someone running away from his heritage…his designs used sex to sell mainstream products in a way rarely seen before, with characters of ambiguous race, if not overtly black or Latino, and women who were just as pleased to seduce a man as pine for one." The article also features the insight of the "godmother of brown beauty blogging", Afrobella creator Patrice Grell Yursik. She adds: "The packaging by Charles C. Dawson spoke directly to the aesthetic of the time. There absolutely is a light-skinned ideal in his design, but the fact the products existed in a time of need and offered a glimpse of black beauty in a Eurocentric landscape makes this far from a shameful chapter. I believe the products and positioning of Valmor ultimately helped to inspire future generations of beauty entrepreneurs to create even more products for an always-underserved market, celebrating more accurate reflections of diverse beauty over time."
My fellow Gen X'ers might recall a brand called Sweet Georgia Brown from the mid-late '90s that used the same graphics as the original line owned by Valmor. But instead of catering to Black clientele, this iteration of Sweet Georgia Brown was geared towards the tween/teen set and featured lots of glitter and scented products.
So how did this happen? Well, according to the Made in Chicago Museum article, Valmor was sold to Richard Solomon, owner of RH Cosmetics, in 1985. Though most of Valmor's archives and products were thrown out (the horror! Solomon was only interested in the hair pomade), Richard's wife Myra apparently took notice of the Sweet Georgia Brown packaging, for she is credited with "revamping" Sweet Georgia Brown as a youth-focused brand.2 RH Cosmetics was sold to AM Cosmetics in December of 1996 and the sale included the Sweet Georgia Brown line.3 AM Cosmetics continued to produce it until 2003 or so.
Sadly, in all of the marketing, there was no mention of the history of the brand and zero effort to make it diverse. Not only did the fact that Sweet Georgia Brown was originally intended for Black customers go unmentioned, Dawson's role was completely unacknowledged once again. It's very probable that neither RH Cosmetics nor AM had any idea that Dawson was responsible for the graphics, and obviously diversity wasn't a priority for most cosmetic brands in the '90s, but both companies should have at least known Sweet Georgia Brown was meant for Black customers. All of this is to say that my recommendation is for a Black entrepreneur to take over the rights to the hair pomade (which is still available in some retail outlets, although it's not clear who owns it) and re-introduce Sweet Georgia Brown as a fully inclusive beauty line that ensures the public knows its origins, with Dawson's name printed on the packaging for every product. A brand new Sweet Georgia Brown website would have all of the company's history and extensive information on Dawson and his successor Jay Jackson.
What are your thoughts on these artists and the brands I've matched them with? Would they make good collabs or no?
1A year ago Simpson produced a series of collages featuring Rihanna for Essence magazine so it would seem that Fenty might be a better company match, but after exploring Simpson's work and other beauty lines, I thought a minimal hair care line made more sense for a collaboration.
2Women's Wear Daily, April 22, 2005.
3Myra Solomon sometimes used the name of her first husband, Smolev. Richard, Myra and her daughter Sydra were subsequently sued by AM for allegedly stealing trade secrets. Shortly thereafter Myra and Sydra began a new company called Just Having Fun Cosmetics, which mimicked AM's portfolio of teen/tween focused brands.
Whew! It's been a while since Curator's Corner made an appearance. Links from January (and maybe a few from December.)
– Semi-charmed kinda…nail? One of the weirdest '90s beauty crossovers is Third Eye Blind's collab with Smith & Cult, which re-named several of their nail polishes after songs from the band's debut album in honor of its 25th anniversary. Proceeds go to True Colors United, an organization combating homelessness in LGTBQ youth.
– Speaking of nails, Esquire covers the latest male polish brands. Sadly there was no mention of the history of male polish – does anyone remember Candy Man by Hard Candy? (My memory of Candy Man was jogged by seeing Smith & Cult, which is another beauty venture by Hard Candy founder Dineh Mojaher).
– The makeup world is welcoming back Stila founder Jeanine Lobell, who just launched a beauty subscription box.
– Another blast from the past: Bobbi Brown sounds off on contouring via Tiktok. As an aside, I have to say that while Bobbi's new Jones Road line doesn't interest me much (ditto for Lobell's), it's good to see them returning to what they know best.
– This is from December, but I had to share since it was one of the few bright spots (literally) of 2021. The Alma Thomas show at the Phillips was truly amazing and I'm so happy not only that I got to see it but also that it was my first museum visit since February 2020. Excuse the crazy eyes and messy hair…I was completely overwhelmed, overstimulated and running around the gallery like a maniac.
How did the first month of 2022 treat you?
I'm still a bit shocked that I haven't posted a single thing about Dior makeup in nearly 6 years! I guess Instagram has taken over the shorter posts I'd normally share here. But there have been some beautiful objects that serve as excellent homages to pieces of Dior's history and as today is the designer's birthday*, I thought it would be a good time to catch up. These are by no means all of the Museum-worthy Dior releases since 2016; I'm just focusing on the ones that have a more inspired relationship to the fashion.
Trafalgar blush and lipstick were released in fall 2019 as tributes to the designer's penchant for red as well as a fun little trick he used while showing his collections.
As the story goes, Dior would often send a surprise down the runway – usually in the form of a striking red dress – halfway through the show to keep viewers on their toes, dubbing this tactic a "coup de Trafalgar". Talk about audience engagement! I have no idea whether this "afternoon dress" from the winter 1955 collection was used as a coup de Trafalgar, but it is beautiful.
The brand named September 9, 2019 "#999 Day" to celebrate their iconic #999 shade in its cosmetics and announced the new Trafalgar collection then. According to the online Fashion Magazine, Creative Director of Dior Makeup Peter Philips designed the Trafalgar lineup to make "revolutionary variations on Dior’s iconic red," while the embossed motif on the blush and lipsticks "pays homage to Maria Grazia’s Chiuri’s work at the house, as well as the power of a true red."
The idea of a capsule makeup collection dedicated to the coup de Trafalgar must have been in the works for some time, at least since 2016, when Philips noted he was inspired by Dior's little runway maneuver. From the New York Times T Magazine backstage beauty report of the spring 2016 Dior couture show: "'Christian Dior had this idea: Halfway through the show when people were getting bored, he’d do a surprise — and quite often it was a red dress that suddenly came out of nowhere,' Philips said, referring to what has come to be known as the 'coup de Trafalgar.' He lined a handful of models’ lips with a Dior lip pencil in Rouge Royale before painting them with Diorific lipstick in Fabuleuse."
Next up is the Blooming Garden pressed powder. To celebrate the launch of Dior's Toile de Jouy fragrances, in spring 2021 the cosmetics division released a face powder embossed with the toile's floral pattern. I tried so hard to identify the part of the pattern that's on the powder, but couldn't find an exact match.
Before we get to Dior's use of toile de Jouy, a little background on toile de Jouy's origins is in order. My apologies for the laziness, but Pattern Observer has an excellent condensed history of toile de Jouy so I am copying and pasting it here. "Toile, or more properly, Toile de Jouy (meaning, “cloth from Jouy”) is a type of print that is characterised by complex vignettes scattered over the surface of the cloth. Originally, they were scenes carved on woodblocks or engraved on copper, printed in only one colour (often red, black, or blue) onto a white or cream background. To understand the print, it’s also useful to look at the history of the basecloth. Cotton was first imported in France in the 16th century, and quickly became the fabric of choice because it was cheap and easy to look after. Its ever-growing success was such that it began to threaten the local textile industries of wool and silk, and so eventually cotton was banned in 1686, with the ban stayed in force for around 70 years. Christophe-Phillipe Oberkampf was born during this time and had been working in the family textile business for several years. In 1759 when he heard the ban on imported cotton was going to be lifted, he took the only piece of furniture that he owned – a printing press – and set up business in Jouy-en-Josas outside Paris. There, influenced by Rococo art and its romantic zeitgeist, he joined with engraver and designer Jean Baptiste Huet to design idyllic pastoral scenes for their fabrics. These became immensely popular. The business grew and they began commissioning other designers, and by the time Oberkampf died in 1815, the company had a catalogue of over 30,000 patterns. Toile prints were the perfect medium for spreading not only populist themes, but political messages and recording historic events too; one by Huet proudly showed off France’s scientific advancement with scenes from the first hot-air balloon flight in 1784, and other toiles featured images of Colonial expansion with sailing ships landing on tropical islands and negotiating with tribal leaders. Other printing companies in France, England and America soon followed suit as the popularity of the toile spread."
Dior first used toile de Jouy for the medallion chairs and other surfaces in his boutique. Wallpaper explains that the designer's artist friend Christian Bérard – whose makeup ad illustrations I hope to cover later this year – recommended that Dior decorate his boutique with toile de Jouy. "Bérard understood that the pattern, typically associated with the rococo extravagance of the 18th century, could in the contemporary context of a Parisian boutique be used to create a modern, sumptuous aesthetic that was well-suited to the newly opened couturier. As Christian Dior later wrote of Bérard’s vision, 'it was he who advised us to hang the boutique with toile de Jouy and to scatter hat boxes bearing the name of the house everywhere, on top of wardrobes and in every corner. Beneath this semblance of disorder, he had created life.'"
According to Marie Clare France, Bérard designed a pattern based on some of Huet's sepia drawings and Fragonard's The Swing. Too bad I can't seem to locate a close-up photo of the toile de Jouy print used in the Dior boutique – I would love to see how it references the painting. (Side note: the article also mentions there is an entire toile de Jouy museum!) Dior began incorporating toile de Jouy in his fashion as early as 1956, when Roger Vivier created a pair of pumps in collaboration with the designer.
Apparently many Dior designers followed suit over the years. Alas, I don't have any Dior fashion books on hand – I only have the Art of Color book, which I used as a background for some of the photos here (see if you can spot which ones!) – so I had to make due with what was available online. The only other examples of toile de Jouy in Dior that I could find were these pieces from John Galliano's collections, and I don't even know what years they are. Browsing the runway shows at Vogue, I saw there were a few more by Galliano as well as Raf Simons that may have been toile de Jouy, but as I'm not a fashion historian or expert I couldn't tell for sure. The Marie Claire article notes that this piece from the fall 2010 lineup is toile, but again, my fashion eye is not trained enough to know with certainty.
Chiuri revived the pattern several times over the past few years, most notably for the spring 2019 collection. "The idea for the toile de Jouy came to me at the studio one day when we were all chatting together. The French on the squad weren’t sure what to think. But I, being Italian, saw this painting as something exotic. The main reservation was that we were touching on something so coded, so bourgeois, that it was going to prevent modernity," she says. Interestingly, it may also be another one of Chiuri's sneaky ways of calling attention to women's rights via fashion: as one blogger points out, "female workers comprised one-third to one-half the [toile de Jouy] workforce at various times. Female printers earned half the pay of male printers…Famously known for her “WE SHOULD ALL BE FEMINISTS” t-shirt, maybe [Chiuri] also knew a little history about toile."
Dior had also reintroduced the print for the holiday 2018 season. The pop-up stores were decorated entirely in toile de Jouy and sold a wide variety of accessories and homeware.
Getting back to the pressed powder, I think it's Museum-worthy, but might have been more interesting and versatile had Dior adhered to a toile color scheme, i.e. a red, blue or black pattern against a cream background. Perhaps the raised flowers could have been red or dark pink shimmer and set on top of a translucent powder, or they could have been rendered in black and/or blue and the background a shimmery ivory shade to make an eye palette. Those may have worked for more skintones than the the very pale pink powder. Although it was billed as an all-over "brightening and correcting" product and an Asia-exclusive (I think), more colors wouldn't have hurt. Also, purely from an aesthetic standpoint, in this case a dual color scheme would be far more visually appealing than using all one shade. I hate to say it, but to my eye the floral pattern bears a vague resemblance to broccoli or cauliflower, or something from a petri dish. There's a sense of growth but not a blooming garden – more like multiplying microbes.
Anyway, Dior regained its limited edition makeup footing (sort of) later in 2021 with the Millefiori blush.
As with the Toile de Jouy powder, the Millefiori blush was launched to celebrate the release of a new (old) fragrance in the fall of 2021. I'm sure a perfume historian could say exactly how many times the Miss Dior fragrance has been reformulated since its debut in 1947, but the latest iteration is called Millefiori. True to its name, the fragrance is described as an "olfactory 'millefiori', imagined like a bouquet of a thousand shimmering and colorful flowers." Chiuri designed a lovely dress for brand ambassador Natalie Portman to wear in the commercial.
I find it to be a gorgeous and modern take on the original Miss Dior dress, which was created for the spring 1949 collection and boasted a sumptuous embroidered mille fleurs design.
There wasn't quite as much product with the Millefiori theme as the Toile de Jouy. There were several scarves but no clothing, bags, housewares, etc. However, the Dior pop-up stores all got the thousand flowers treatment…literally!
The reason I'm mentioning the pop-up stores again is that I believe the imprint on the blush is actually from the pop-up store and not any of the Millefiori patterns on the scarves or dress. I pored over all of them and like the Toile de Jouy, none were an exact match. Then I spotted photos of celebrities in front of the pop-up and thought the wall decoration looked very familiar.
The pattern on the store, in turn, appears to be a mishmash of the flowers from the scarves.
I have no idea why Dior would "remix" their Millefiori patterns for decorating their pop-ups and then put it on the blush. Technology-wise it probably would have been just as easy to use a section from the scarf print or even one of the dress's flowers. Also, I'm baffled by the use of the Italian "millefiori"…why not call the fragrance the original French "mille fleurs"? I get that Chiuri is Italian, but the fragrance was not her creation, and her cruise 2021 collection centered on the mille fleurs motif and was not referred to in the Italian phrase (even though the show took place in Italy). Am I missing something?
Fortunately, the holiday 2021 collection was a bit more straightforward. Dior released a glamourous minaudiere and other items embossed with an image of Dior's first boutique located at 30 Avenue Montaigne. I wonder if the company was looking at Chanel's recent Poudre Cambon or if they remembered the Maison Lancome palette from 10 years ago. Depicting a storefront on makeup is not a new or even all that innovative idea, but I think Dior executed it nicely. I also thought it was a touch more inspired than their 2020 New Look '47 capsule makeup collection (which, mind you, I purchased immediately but still think it was a bit bland, especially compared to the Tailleur Bar palettes.)
Sadly, part of the embossing on the lipstick got mashed. It wasn't my fault (for once) – I think with embossing that intricate some of it is bound to wear off when swiveling up the bullet.
In any case, the imprint really does resemble the atelier's facade.
In my opinion, I believe it was inspired not just by old photos of the boutique, but also a detailed illustration by artist Xavier Casalta. Casalta was commissioned by Dior for the original run of the Dior: Designer of Dreams exhibition held from July 2017 through January 2018 at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs. (The show is wrapping up soon at the Brooklyn Museum; I am heartbroken that COVID is still proving too risky for me to get on public transport to see it.)
This piece took even longer than the Millefiori dress, clocking in at over 600 hours as compared to a mere 500 for the dress. I really wish I could have seen it in person. Anyway, I love the minaudiere's design and I believe the dimensions – at least for the compact portion – are comparable to vintage pieces. I won't know for sure until the vintage minaudiere I purchased from eBay arrives, but I will compare the sizes of the two as soon as it gets here and update this post. So stay tuned for that as well as a new post on Dior's use of houndstooth, which covered the spring 2022 makeup collection. 🙂
What was your favorite here? Are you inspired to learn more about Dior fashion? Truth be told, I liked all of these, but I'll be honest: none are really on the same level as, say, the Lady Dior palette. Speaking of which, they're still collaborating with artist for those bags, so I wish Dior would borrow their designs for makeup from time to time as they did previously.
*Backdated as usual since everything takes me longer than expected, plus a nasty bout of food poisoning struck me down so I was even tardier finishing up this post. Sigh.
