The news today that the luminous Keira Knightley will bring the character of Thérèse Raquin, a murderous adulteress, to life on Broadway got us thinking about the Other Woman. You know, that man-stealing seductress with the cheating heart who, in film and fiction, usually manages to make being bad look really, really good. Cue a raven-haired Elizabeth Taylor in BUtterfield 8 or the incomparable Diana Ross in Mahogany.
What is it about the other woman? To start with, she usually has the benefit of a foil, the stereotypically colorless, or crazy, wife, or cuckolded husband. She needn’t be a bombshell: In fiction, the ingenue (Tess) often unwittingly becomes the third arm of a love triangle, and plain Jane (Eyre) lands her man in the end. Lore has it that man-eating vixens are big believers in lipstick—all the better to leave stains on collars, my dear.
Stray hairs are another telltale signal that there might be another woman in a man’s life, and hair often takes on symbolic meaning in tales of tortured or illicit love. After all, in theory—and sometimes in practice—the mistress is the type who lets her hair down. Take Catherine Deneuve as Séverine Serizy in Belle de Jour: In wife mode she favors a severe, immobile chignon; with her lovers she wears her blonde hair like a lion’s mane. In Breakfast at Tiffany’s and The Graduate, bold golden highlights subtly communicate a character’s wild streak, just as uncontrolled curls (Meryl Streep in The French Lieutenant’s Woman, Keira Knightley in Anna Karenina) hint at a certain wantonness.
As for those “lyin’ eyes”? We’re guessing that their lashes are heavily coated with waterproof mascara. In honor of Knightley’s new role, here are 24 women who played the mistress role to perfection.
The post The Mistress as Beauty Icon: 24 Infamous Other Women With Looks We Love appeared first on Vogue.
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