For those of you waiting anxiously for the release of reality TV star Lauren Conrad’s latest fashion line – debuting! Wednesday! at New York Fashion Week! – here’s a little tidbit: “For the makeup, she wants her models to be strong yet romantic with Jane Austen-inspired beauty looks,” MTV News reports.
It’s hard not to giggle at this, given that makeup in Jane Austen’s time involved lead-based skin cream to whiten the complexion, artificial eyebrows made out of mouse fur to replace the hair lost to all that lead, and mercury-based lotions to eliminate freckles (remember Sir Walter Elliot’s Gowland’s Lotion?).
Jane Austen-inspired makeup? Those models should demand worker’s comp.
OK, OK: I realize that Conrad knows nothing about actual Regency cosmetics. The video accompanying MTV’s story illustrates her yen for Jane Austen looks with a shot of Keira Knightley and Rosamund Pike as Elizabeth and Jane Bennet in the 2005 screen adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. “Very strong, female-oriented but romantic – Age of the Innocence, Jane Austen, very fair maiden,” explains Conrad’s makeup assistant.
Yes, we’re back to that Jane Austen, the sweetly unthreatening, hearts-and-flowers version. “Very fair maiden” indeed. Pass the mercury.