Paying homage to the most iconic moments in beauty and the women who created them.

When I think about the 90s – which I don’t do enough – I think not of polyester Union Jack dresses, boys with curtain cuts and Hooch. I think of Polly Jean Harvey, resplendent on stage in her aggressively feminised tranny make-up. Tranny in the sense that for PJ Harvey, make-up is a performance, a statement of intent, an expression of power. It’s irony not innuendo. 

The smashed crayon green eyeshadow, bat wing false lashes and a burst raspberry mouth became her Technicolor dream coat for an entire To Bring You My Love tour. And it’s unreservedly a look made for the stage, a slap in the face down the lens of a camera. She even took it away from the stage and used it to pose for her first i-D cover in 1995 (wearing, incidentally, a Union Jack bikini top).

What makes this exclamation mark of a look particularly worthy of note is that PJ Harvey is not a girl consumed with glamour or beauty or celebrity or fame. She is intimidatingly clever. She plays a gazillion different instruments and is also a celebrated sculptor and artist. In fact her mind is, quite frankly, cerebrally terrifying. And that’s detectable here. It’s make-up with a harder edge. There’s violence to it. It confuses and intrigues and stares you out. 

I splashed a flat eyeshadow brush in a cap full of water and delved into a palette of mint green cream eyeshadow (Bedaub, £17, Illamasqua) and stretched the colour across my eyelids. It would be uncomfortable enough to stop there, having not really worn any colour on my eyes since I poured a pot of glitter on them for New Year’s Eve. But on I went, with a raspberry pink lipstick and a swipe of black inky liner across the lash line. 

It’s feels a bit Patricia Arquette in True Romance, mixed with Divine the notorious 70s New York drag act. It’s reckless, yet innocent, sugary yet utterly vile. But it’s so far removed from the PJ Harvey I know and love today. I watched her on stage last year and she looked like a gothic Victorian nymph, covered in black lace with an entwined metal headdress. Which leaves her mint green motif (the look PJ Harvey described as ‘Joan Crawford on acid’) singing from a distance, something now resigned to the cultural beauty archive,  a ballsy, extroverted, obnoxiously loud piece of make-up artistry with an intriguing dichotomy between itself and its wearer. And yet, you won’t catch me nipping out for a pint of milk with it on. No chance. 

 

1 MAC Brow Set in Show Off, £11 at MAC Cosmetics

2 Illasmasqua Cream Pigment in Bedaub, £17, at Illamasqua

3 Topshop Lips in Macaroon, £8 at Topshop

4 YSL L'Eyeliner Noir, £24 at YSL Beauty

 

 

Photography: Hugo Yangüela