Last week, the trendy French Riviera outpost of St. Tropez commemorated the passing of an even more iconic French name. Brigitte Bardot, the dancer, singer, and actress immortalized by Serge’s Gainsbourg in “Bonnie and Clyde,” lost a battle with cancer in the latter chapter of a life marked with much controversy. Le Monde, the French newspaper of record, grappled with that legacy front and center in her obituary, as did a writer in yet another viral Vogue post. Both tried to reconcile the beauty of the slim-hipped gamine and her dedication to animal rights against xenophobic views so vociferously articulated that she was criminally prosecuted by the French government for inciting racial hatred several times, and failed.
Her passing marks a level of inevitable disappointment for lovers of style who want to believe their beloved celebrities are worthy of adoration. Parsing Bardot’s social legacy against her photographic one feels like a losing proposition – one bound to the sad realization that she negated the beauty for which she was an avatar. If Bardot made that wager, there are numerous French actresses as central – pstt, actually more so – to mid-century and Nouvelle Vague French cinema who didn’t, and whose legacies have stood the test of time. As a cinephile who believes beauty is more than skin deep, I prefer to focus on the screen sirens who better represent the glamour, urban chic, modern values, and iconic beauty of the archetypal Parisian It Girl – Jeanne Moreau, Catherine Deneuve, and Stéphane Audran.
Jeanne Moreau
The petite, slightly bronzed beauty Jeanne Moreau worked with cinematic titans Luis Buñuel, Louis Malle, Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Goddard, Orson Welles, and Roger Vadim as well as a litany of other international auteurs. Whether playing a chambermaid, a plotting adulterer, or the carefree spirit in a throuple, she rocked a cat eye to complement her husky voice more often than not.
Moira’s 1950s – Classic Hollywood? Tutorial features the essentials needed to get started with just a few flicks of Precision Liquid Liner in Black and Precision Brow Pencil in Ash Brown for a closeup–ready eyes.
Catherine Deneuve
If ever there existed an iconic French blonde who could eclipse Brigitte Bardot, it was and will always be Cathernine Deneuve. With a stunningly impressive cv of films including the Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Repulsion, and The Hunger with David Bowie, she serves old world French bourgeois glam in a post-modern age like no other. Unlike Bardot, Deneuve at the age of 88, has continued to work and champion French film while remaining beautiful and demurely defying mother nature with a well-calibrated face-lift. Known for many shades of blonde, including blinding platinum to golden highlights, she’s kept brass at bay with near religious devotion while experimenting with bold eye looks. Her preference for the cool, icy, iridescent shades once thought only appropriate for blue eyes, remains a longstanding makeup innovation.
For the brightest blonde without stripping sulfates, Peter Coppola Blondest Shampoo & Conditioner, and Treatment with Azulene always removes the brass and makes highlights pop with blinding brightness after just one wash.
To emulate Deneuve’s eye makeup, the light metallic shadows in shades of blue and purple found in Danessa Myrick’s Lightwork VII Freedom Palette, topped off with Colorfix Metallics, will always capture the starlet’s stunning looks.
Stéphane Audran
If cheekbones didn’t exist, Stéphane Audran would have willed them into being and let her face explain the necessity to us. Her couture bone structure, as if chiseled by hand from marble by the finest sculptors in antiquity, was as much a star in the racy films of Claude Chabrol as the Parisian backdrop. From the seductress in Claude Chabrol’s Les Biches and and rich bitch extraordinaire in Luis Buñuel’s The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie to a later in life turn in Babette’s Feast as a servant with a weakness for gastronomic achievement, Audran is the patron saint of artful cheek contour.
To approximate any degree of her zygomatic intensity, Kevyn Aucoin and his Kevyn Aucoin Beauty remain the master of the cheek sculpting. No matter how subtle or intense, start by layering cream contour like ultra-blendable The Contrast Stick in an appropriately darker shade after foundation.
Topping off with The Neo-Bronzer and The Sculpting Contour Powder will achieve a cinematic snatch that the French are known for.
