Bushy, bleached, soft, spiky, tastefully tapered, or pencil-thin. The eyebrow’s cult of cool continues.
My poor bleached brows! I feel lost without them,” Cara Delevingne tweeted after a photo shoot in London, mourning at least the temporary absence of the two dark glories that have come to define her adorable kitty-cat face, the eyebrows that have launched countless Pinterest fan pages.
Some seasons argue for a glossy lip, some for a matte mouth. Sometimes we find ourselves obsessed with a mysterious lid or a rosy cheek, a sunburned glow or a deathly pallor. At this very moment it seems that all eyes are on eyebrows, even if there is no unanimity regarding what exactly a fashionable brow should look like.
Pat McGrath, the makeup artist behind the near-invisible brow at Givenchy’s spring show (apparently if you are a gladiator/toreador/gypsy queen you don’t need a bushy brow to add to the drama), was also responsible for the slender bird-wing brows at Prada. At Dolce & Gabbana, she promulgated a deep lustrousness, almost Frida Kahlo–esque in its intensity (though no one has yet embraced the transgressive unibrow).
At Rodarte, the chatter was all about the clatter of brow jewelry, since it seemed as if the poor models had undergone a plethora of piercings. (This was not nearly as painful as it may have appeared from the front row. Like a magician spilling his secrets, makeup artist James Kaliardos reveals that no holes were punched to achieve this proto-punk effect.)
All of which raises the question: How much, really, should you change your own brow, if at all? How much is too much? Makeup artist Wendy Rowe, who is known in some quarters as the inventor of the Cara brow (yes, such quarters exist!), believes that part of the appeal of the thick, unapologetic brow—which in truth could be termed the Arizona (Muse) or the Hilary (Rhoda), since both of these ladies share a penchant for the artfully artless emphatic streak—is that “a fuller brow indicates youth.” Even if you decide to buck trends, there is, Rowe warns, such a thing as being too thin: “You can go too skinny overall, which is not a good look! The shape needs to be gradually tapered.”
Aaron de Mey, the makeup artist behind the splendidly surreal image of Karlie Kloss you see here, is clearly spoofing our current fixation with more-is-more, suggesting that even a Halloween-ready Groucho brow can look lovely on a lovely girl.
If you are raising your own impeccably groomed arches at all of this, perhaps a little historical perspective is in order. Nancy Etcoff, Ph.D., a Harvard psychologist and the author of Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty, reminds us that brows are “the one bit of permissible hair on a female face! They’re like two exclamation points.” Brow styles sail in and out of fashion: The Renaissance favored a near-invisible brow, to give the illusion of chastity and innocence, while the pendulum swung profoundly in the other direction in the eighteenth century, when the requisite bushiness was achieved, swears Etcoff, with the help of mouse fur.
Etcoff offers an intriguing analysis of the contemporary fashion phenomenon, declaring that a definitive brow lends a more unisex look. “It’s moving away from the strictly female to something slightly more androgynous. But then again, they are perfectly arched, so it’s a mixture of masculine and feminine. These brows look mature, a little fierce.”
Mature and a little fierce! Could there be a better way to greet the new season?
Hair: James Pecis; Makeup: Aaron de Mey; Fashion Editor: Phyllis Posnick
Learn how to build the perfect brow with Lily Donaldson and makeup artist Alice Lane:
The post What’s the New Statement Brow of the Moment? The Season’s Best Options, from Bushy to Bleached appeared first on Vogue.
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