Gabrielle Chanel was never one to follow trends. Rather, she set them. And just as she created the quintessential little black dress, encouraged women to wear pants and fashioned handbags out of woven tweed, Mademoiselle entered the makeup game in 1924 with loose powder, blush and a heavier pigmented, creamier lipstick formula than anything on the market. Housed in a distinctive ivory tube with a unique metal slide to advance the bullet, a color collection was born.
The Birth of a Makeup Movement
Indeed, like fragrance, which Chanel debuted in 1921 after commissioning perfumer Ernest Beaux to create a “new” floral which would become the ubiquitous Chanel No.5, the iconic designer believed that the art of maquillage could change one’s mood. “If you’re sad, if you’re disappointed in love, put on your makeup, give yourself some beauty care, put on lipstick and attack,” she’s famously said. Chanel: The Allure of Makeup, out now from Thames and Hudson, aims to explore why.
The gorgeous coffee table book, a behemoth with 408 pages containing over 300 arresting archival images, takes a look back at the evolution of beauty at the French fashion house. Written by journalist Natasha A. Fraser, readers are taken on a journey that makes the case for Gabrielle Chanel as more than just a marketer, but a liberator of women. “She woke people up with her ‘life is not a dress rehearsal’ attitude,” notes Chanel’s global head of creative resources for fragrance & beauty Thomas du Pré de Saint Maur.
The Symbolism of Chanel Color
Chapters unfold through color, a visual storytelling rich with symbolism and purpose. Of course, the shades include Black, White, Beige, Red, Pink, Gold and Blue — significant because they exist, like talismans, throughout the history of the house.
It’s no surprise that most Chanel makeup, to this day, exists in high-shine black compacts and tubes. Mademoiselle chose to package the very first blushers in the 1924 launch collection in round compacts of black enamel. The hue — or rather the non-hue, according to the designer— represented what we’d call today a vibe… and was, perhaps, the driving force of the brand. Because central to Chanel’s ethos was liberating women from frills and corsets, and the candy-colored frocks of the time. Under Mademoiselle’s gaze, black shifted from a shade of mourning to one of undeniable elegance.
Another non-color beloved by Chanel is beige, inspired by trips to Deauville where the young designer experienced true love and later opened her first fashion shop in 1912. She even had the suede couch in her atelier dyed to match the sand at low tide in the seaside town. As Fraser writes, “with her taste and enthusiasm, Mademoiselle turned a supporting-role color into a lead.” Ahead of her time, she developed a you-only-better skin-tint fluid in 1927, and a groundbreaking group of bronzing products, Collection Tan pour l’Été, in 1932, the erstwhile mother of the no makeup-makeup movement.
The opulence of gold shows up as threads in fantasy tweed fabrications, on the coromandel screens in her 31 rue Cambon apartment (of which she had eight!) and, of course, in makeup meant to accent eyes. The famous Leo once said “I was born in the month of August. My good luck charm is gold.” From 1924 on, gold was used in makeup packaging.
Of every chapter, perhaps the one that reflects the import of Chanel’s impact on beauty is the one focused on red. She couldn’t launch lipstick in 1924 without having a red shade, her signature. This look is now revered as French Girl beauty. And it’s no accident that the brand’s iconic true-red is called Pirate, reflecting the renegade power of its founder.
Barrier-Breaking Icons
Also a delight to discover: A history of makeup muses, from Mme herself to Vanessa Paradis, Kristen Stewart, Whitney Peak, Gisele Bündchen and, current face of Chanel No.5, Margot Robbie in imagery shot by iconic photographers from Horst P. Horst to Mario Testino and Inez and Vinoodh.
Flip through the pages and the evolving imprint of each makeup creator through the years become clear — from Dominique Moncourtois in 1969 to today’s wildly unbound Cometes Collective, who are redefining what classic means for a legacy brand.
Books exist in print to both mirror the past and inspire the future; The journey of The Allure of Makeup ($175, thamesandhudsonusa.com) arms women with the agency to create their own look, their own destiny.
