Paying homage to the most iconic beauty looks of all time and the women that created them 

May I present to you, the beauty icon of our times: Rooney Mara. You’ll know her as the one who picks the most interesting roles in all Hollywood (Ain’t them Bodies Saints has got Oscar written all over it), but she’s also managed to very quickly transcend the silver screen to become the definitive painting of modern-day elegance.

Elegance with stonking great capital ‘E’. A word that, in these heady times of faux-glows, spider lashes and sparkly everything, has been tossed away with a mountain of facial wipes. Elegance, in Mara’s modern carnation is the perfect marriage between effort and effortless. It’s a beauty statement that is happy to just… be.

But what are the sum of its parts? Where to begin? That skin! It’s like a silk pillow at the George V in Paris. Or a shielded statue of Venus de Milo. It’s milk and cream. Just heavenly. Her brows are thick but manicured and crucially, not laboured with pencil marks. Mara’s eyes are always gently defined, sockets dusted in fawn powder, with specks of ochre pattered through it and elongated lashes that never stray into cartoon-land.

She is, in person, more like a modern day Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel than any young chanteuse tumbling out of Paris; in full ownership of her look, not merely a plate on which fashion and beauty statements sit.

"That skin! It’s like a silk pillow at the George V in Paris. Or a shielded statue of Venus de Milo. It’s milk and cream. Just heavenly"

Still, she keeps it interesting. The elegance of her make-up would verge on bland if it was framed with old-Hollywood waves. Too literal. Mara knows the importance of juxtaposition and she does that with a modernist hair style. And so there’s always an underlying severity at play here, woven into every red-carpet appearance that Mara makes. But there’s a vulnerability too – a softness of soul that delineates the sharp edge that her look would emanate on a lesser being.

At a base level, this is classical make-up; it makes the best of every single face it meets. It’s not, despite her modernist fashion leanings, pushing the boundaries of make-up, nor trying desperately to emulate what’s current or ‘having a moment.’ On Mara, you’ll see no zany blue eye shadow, no sculptural black eye liner – granted, she’s partial to a gothy plum lip – but the elegance is always there.

It’s bloody flattering too. Despite the exposure of a ‘small head’ hair style, as it’s known behind the catwalk, it’s quite an empowering look. Each facial feature is gently pushed out so that none of them are shouting, not even really the lip. It’s a look that’ll still be at play in twenty years. Fifty years, even. And that’s the point o elegance, isn’t it. It’s timeless.

1. Bobbi Brown Dark Brow Kit, £35
2. Shiseido Luminizing Satin Eye Color Trio in Nude, £35 at Feel Unique
3. Eylure Naturalite False Eyelashes in 070, £5.35 at Boots
4. Nars Matte Lipstick in Heatwave, £18.50 at Selfridges

Photography: Hugo Yanguela