Beauty Archivist: How Winona Ryder’s Iconic Roles Confirmed Her as an Eternal Beauty
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Between 1988 and 1990 Winona Ryder starred in three cult classic movies: Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands, as well as Daniel Waters’s Heathers. She started filming as Lydia Deetz in Beetlejuice when she was just 15, filmed Heathers at 16 and by the time Edward Scissorhands was out she was still only 19 years old. Yet she had starred in nine movies, was half of the most high profile celebrity couple of the day and could go nowhere without the breathless attention of the world.
Ryder’s popularity marks a sort of change in the culture. She has gone on the record with Vogue about not being considered a beauty when she first started out - “I was the opposite of what was going on in film. In the Eighties, it was all about blondes and a very different look. The first five things I did, I was cast as what was literally described in the script as 'the ugly duckling'." And even at the height of her fame, post Edward Scissorhands, she was still described in weird terms like “the thinking man’s pin up” which is an interesting compliment that somehow feels like a neg.
It’s hard to imagine people not immediately recognising Ryder as one of the few truly genetically blessed, but she does have a sort of low key elfin quality that reminds me of Audrey Hepburn, who herself was described as a “gamine”, meaning sort of boyish and elegant and positioned in opposition to the “sex kitten” persona embodied by Hepburn’s contemporary Bridgette Bardot. Maybe it’s worth noting that both Hepburn and Ryder are beauty icons who seem to resonate more strongly with women than men.
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Winona Ryder was part of a new generation of 90s teen stars that included Julia Roberts, Alicia Silverstone and Angelina Jolie, all of who created some of the best movies and served the best looks of the decade. Amongst them though, Winona epitomised an outsider vibe. She felt like the grungier and more nonchalant version of the rest of her cohort and had the indie movie credit list to match. Taking a look back through these three movies that chart the beginning of her Hollywood ascent, you can clearly mark out some of the beauty moments that made her the fave of self identified misfits.
As baby goth Lydia Deetz in Beetlejuice, Winona already has the air of self possession that makes her so compelling. Her spiky fringe is gelled into sharp teeth, paired with a mega teased bird’s nest updo - a hair moment that is still referenced in shoots and shows in 2023. Lydia’s skin is an unholy pallor and she has greyish, reddish hollows beneath her eyes. It’s a much harder cultural debut to pull off than Julia Roberts’s - girl next door with the kilowatt smile in Mystic Pizza - which was released the same year. Yet Ryder’s natural, ineffable coolness manages to make the Lydia Deetz look a huge vibe and starts to position her as a more offbeat choice of teen idol.
Following Beetlejuice, cult classic Heathers hits so many incredible fashion and beauty moments, which even if it wasn’t such a perfect movie it would be worth watching for them alone. Enter Winona Ryder as Veronica Sawyer, who wears her naturally blonde hair dyed raven dark - a look she will keep from throughout her career - telling Vogue in a 1991 profile that it suits her pale skin better and that she never ever goes in the sun. Veronica’s voluminous, deep side parted bob is a masterpiece, maybe my favourite hair anyone has had ever. It ranges throughout the movie from perfectly roller set and brushed out, to teased into a kind of glam rock 80’s bouffant in the scene in which she attends a college frat party. It bounces out from her face then swooshes down over one eye like a 90s redux of Veronica Lake.
Her makeup is consistent throughout the movie, it just dials up and down in intensity. There’s a really soft taupey grey shadow creating the suggestion of a smokey eye, fringed with dark lashes, a soft matte complexion and gentle peachy blush. Her lip ranges from a sheer cherry chapstick to a pop of orangey red. Veronica’s visual foil is the saccharine sweetness of “mythic bitch” Heather Chandler, played by Kim Walker. This Heather’s fluffy strawberry blonde perm and affiliation with a more classic kind of 80s bombshell beauty serves to underline a vision of teen girl brutality. She wears a red scrunchie whilst meting out her brand of highschool cruelty and delivering the iconic line “Well fuck me gently with a chainsaw” with an ease only typical of an on screen teenager. Against Walker’s Heather, Ryder does look like a believable misfit. In the climatic scene where Winona emerges, against a cloud of smoke, from her fight to the death with Christian Slater’s J.D., her hair is a singed halo, her face streaked with dirt and blood and she grips a cigarette between her lips. It feels very Winona to be willing to really go there with this final look - it’s not necessarily pretty, but it feels so cool, and there are a billion stills of the image on Pinterest for a reason.
“Her ability and willingness to translate complicated characters on screen only adds to her sense of mystery and intrigue off screen.”
In her next movie, Edward Scissorhands, in which she starred with her then fiance Johnny Depp, Ryder goes against type in a cheer costume and blonde wig. Burton told the LA Times that “Winona felt very uncomfortable in her clothes. She had a real identity crisis, but still exhibited a real power and total believability. That’s what I counted on. Just like in Beetlejuice, I needed somebody to ground the movie so it wouldn’t spring off into the stratosphere.”
Ryder described the look of her character, Kim, as reminding her of the girls who bullied her in highschool, but Burton was right. Winona brings a tenderness and sensitivity to the part that feels real in an otherwise surreal film. In fact I think the warm blonde hair, actually closer to her natural colouring, makes Winona look beautifully ethereal.
What is interesting to me is whilst Heathers shows her as the most archetypal version of her own self, Winona Ryder still emerges from both highly stylised Burton get ups looking uniquely specific and recognisable. I think it’s this quality that makes Ryder such an enduring beauty icon. She has a delicacy and otherworldliness to her appearance, but still always feels relatable. She’s prettier than maybe anyone you've ever met but there is nothing performative about it. Regardless, you still believe that she represents the odd one out. Her ability and willingness to translate complicated characters on screen only adds to her sense of mystery and intrigue off screen. All that, and the best hair ever, make her one of the coolest girls of the 90s and an endless, major source of beauty inspiration.
Words: Grace Ellington
