Beauty Archivist: The Art of Christmas Makeovers
Make it stand out
What do The Phantom Thread and Batman Returns have in common? Nothing! Except of course they are both set at Christmas and both contain my favourite subject, makeovers. And so, if Christmas is the season of holiday roundups and listicles, I thought I might get away with a semi-intellectualised but faintly ridiculous comparison between two of my favourite films.
Is The Phantom Thread a Christmas movie? Yes! As well as literal Christmas scenes within the film, we get alpine snow, formal wear, a perfect fantasy of a New Year's Eve costume party and the sort of intense stressful interpersonal relationships that are psychologically linked with the claustrophobic feeling of Christmas with family. Also more importantly we get the Christmas movie staple: a lightly coercive makeover.
When we first meet Vicky Kreips’ Alma she is rosy cheeked and wholesomely fresh faced, a waitress jotting down the eccentrically extravagant breakfast order of Daniel Day Lewis’s tyrannical genius fashion designer Reynolds Woodcock. Throughout the film and their relationship we see Alma installed into the house of Woodcock as model and muse and, without ruining the ending, the power dynamics between the two continue to shift in unexpected ways. The makeover starts immediately. On their first date we see Reynolds take a tissue and wipe off Alma’s red lipstick saying, “I like to see who I am talking to.” It is a highly charged but unnecessary move on his part as Alma’s essential quality of naturalness and lack of pretension remain unaffected by her changing wardrobe and makeup. There is a subversion of the makeover trope in the power of Alma’s raw unaffectedness and the inability of the restrained elegance to stifle her. It is really this quality which is so appealing to Reynolds about Alma, her ability to breathe life into the woodenly structured dresses she wears. Yet it is a quality that he also attempts to capture and repress.
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The beauty moments in this film are mostly notable for their immateriality. Alma is the same whether she wears lipstick or not, or whether her hair is styled or undone. Despite her couture makeover, Alma continues to wear the clothes rather than they her. Before one of the most intricate and stunning set pieces of The Phantom Thread, the New Year’s Eve party, we see Alma tell Reynolds she wants to go dancing, after he refuses and she runs upstairs it seems as if she is storming off, but instead we cut to her coming back downstairs to leave. We don’t see her face as she heads for the door, just the beautiful gown of mauve silk satin, slinging on a jacket. Following her, we get Reynolds’ POV: of Alma in the crowd dancing, whilst “Auld Lang Syne” plays, the dress has slipped from one shoulder. He eventually finds her slouched against a wall, the dress rumpled around the waist but she looks fresh, youthful and beautiful; it is the opposite of the formal salon environments we have previously seen his clothes being worn in, the stiffness and beauty of them have not only failed to restrain Alma, it is like she has instilled her own life force into them instead.
The standout beauty moment in Batman Returns, a movie filled with excellent beauty moments, is of course the makeover of Michelle Pfieffer’s hopeful executive assistant Selina Kyle into Batman’s bombshell antagonist Catwoman. A turn that launched a thousand sexy halloween costumes. After hacking away at a single black vinyl trench coat to restitch into the best costume of all time, in her wrecked pastel pink apartment, Catwoman gives us surely one of Pfeffier's most iconic line reads of all time with “I don’t know about you, Miss Kitty, but I feel so much yummier.”
If Alma’s makeover is about her will to remain despite the changes, then Selina’s is about a true transformation. The most obvious difference is Selina creates Catwoman herself, when Alma is selected for the position of muse.
Pfeiffer's insane cheekbones, toneless porcelain complexion, and delicate eyebrow arch make her feel feline even when hidden behind Kyle’s huge glasses and frazzled bun. As Catwoman, her face is sectioned off by her mask removing the space between her features so she is all silhouette, eyes, brows and mouth. It reminds me of Irving Penn’s 1950’s Vogue cover of Jean Patchett with everything erased except these features. As if by dispensing with the structure of the face, you can boil it down to only the elements that represent femininity and seduction. Now Pfieffer’s naturally arched brows are pencilled dark and the extended tails are met by a perfectly matt black smokey eye, lipstick pillowy and curved in the classic bright red Marilyn shape.
“I think The Phantom Thread and Batman Returns are both examples of a refreshing subversion of the makeover trope that can often be so alienating.”
Catwoman invigorates Selina and she retains her new assertiveness even when back in her secretary look. She wears Catwoman's red lip and a suggestion of the smokey eye as Selina in the office where she is a new liberated version of herself. Feelings are messy and readable in Alma’s face, we see her nose turn pink, we see water and glassiness in her eyes, we see redness around her mouth, her hair has flyaways. Despite the elegant buttoned up nature of her new wardrobe she retains her natural rawness and connection to emotion. Catwoman’s makeover by contrast subtracts all of Selina Kyle's messiness and vulnerability and replaces it with sleekness and strength.
Although The Phantom Thread and Batman Returns feel like films with nothing to relate to each other - at least not in tone - I think they are both examples of a refreshing subversion of the makeover trope that can often be so alienating. On the one hand we get a heroine who’s makeover fails to affect and restrain her essential self, and the other one who’s transformation is born fully out of her own desire to empower herself, and not for the benefit of anyone else. Both films question the trope of the straight forward, ugly duckling to beautiful swan story without any further consideration.
Words: Grace Ellington