The 15 Best Lipstick Moments in Nineties Movie History: From Pretty Woman to Pulp Fiction

Today’s launch of Vogue Runway celebrates the nineties in all its grunge and glory, from the decade’s most important collections to the faces that defined an era. For true beauty purists, however, a study of its aesthetic influences doesn’t stop there: Because what better benchmark is there of the decade’s single defining makeup signature than a quick rewind through its best pop culture films?

From sleek, post-eighties Basic Instinct to Tarantino-inflected Pulp Fiction, lipstick was the unchallenged mainstay of the day. And judging from a look at our favorite nineties leading ladies, any scene-stealing moment came down to the pitch-perfect shade.

First up, Alicia Silverstone as Cher Horowitz in Clueless. The cult-film celebrated its 20th anniversary last month and yet, Cher’s super-pigmented pale pink lip-gloss looks as irrepressibly feminine now as it did then. Whether doing good deeds or driving in platforms, it’s a shade that has a place in any mini backpack today.

Of course, before there was Cher and Dion, there was Thelma and Louise. While the up-to-no-good Texan twosome, played by Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon, is perhaps best remembered for driving a convertible over the edge of a cliff, their coordinating, peachy-coral lips remain the universal beauty reference for road trip selfies—no matter where you fall on the Mason Dixie Line.

 

 

As Vivian Ward in Pretty Woman, Julia Roberts’s velvety crimson lip was as transformative as her matching red opera dress for a date with Richard Gere. (Note to reader: Passing up that particular nineties lipstick look would be a big mistake. Huge.) Just four years later, Reality Bites flipped the romantic comedy on its head, offering a new vision of the romantic heroine in the form of Winona Ryder as the quintessentially Gen-X Lelaina Pierce; she wore her thrifted floral dresses and cropped muscle tanks with a brick red, almost rust shade of lipstick and a Big Gulp.

Still darker, sheerer stains ranging from blackberry to raisin dominated in films from Pulp Fiction to Dazed and Confused. But by the middle of the decade, another offbeat lip hue reigned supreme: It could be argued that Drew Barrymore’s chocolate brown lips were as campily memorable as her opening cameo in Scream.

Above, fifteen of our favorites in nineties movie lipstick history—and the modern-day equivalents you’ll want to wear well past the credits roll.

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