When Karen Elson opened Chanel’s Fall 2009 show in a black dress with a frothy white collar, the most embellished thing about her look was her eyes. Makeup artist Peter Philips had attached handmade pieces of tulle with black and white sequins (crafted by embroidery house Lesage) over Elson’s lower lashes.
Eyelashes were also enhanced by Pat McGrath at Dolce & Gabbana, Valentino and Versace. She opted for a more conventional feathery fringe on the top lids, heightening the ultra-womanly glamour expected from those Milanese shows. In New York, at 3.1 Phillip Lim, delicate quarter-inch clusters were glued to the bottom outside corners of the models’ eyes, resulting in a kooky effect. Even more odd-looking were the extra-long sprigs along the top lashline at A.F. Vandervorst, and Dior’s equally outrageously sized clusters, which were used on both the top and bottom lashes.
Fashion designers often rely on theatrics to drive home their beauty messages—and false eyelashes are, if nothing else, dramatic. In fact, film director D.W. Griffith conjured up the first pair of falsies for his 1916 film Intolerance—because he wanted to create the powerful image of actress Seena Owen’s lashes grazing her cheeks when she blinked. To achieve that, Griffith had a wigmaker weave human hair through gauze, and then glued the pieces to Owen’s lids. Hollywood makeup artist Max Factor quickly followed suit, creating a pair for Phyllis Haver, and by the 1930s they were standard issue among film stars such as Marlene Dietrich, Joan Crawford and Katharine Hepburn, underscoring the high melodrama of the films of the day.
But as any beauty buff can tell you, it wasn’t until the swinging 1960s, with the influence of trendsetting Twiggy and the Carnaby Street movement, that fake lashes became firmly entrenched in the pop-culture consciousness.
An immediate marker of femininity—just look at any female cartoon character, from Betty Boop to Smurfette—and a signifier of youth (witness the glorious lashes on most toddlers), long, dark, lush eyelashes will always be coveted. But while drag queens and showgirls hoard spidery fake clusters by the caseful among their frippery, you don’t have to wear a feather boa or a bedazzled headdress to appreciate them.
For that, we have Japanese brand Shu Uemura to thank. It leads the way with false eyelashes, offering some 30 different styles, from natural-looking to outrageous, utilizing crystals, sequins and vibrant colours. To understand the company’s heritage as the lash leader, you need only delve into its past to find that the man behind the brand, revolutionary makeup artist Shu Uemura, was using fakes in unexpected ways at the height of their popularity in the ’60s. Not only did Uemura defy traditional rules of application—placing them upside down in what he referred to as the “umbrella” lash, applying double layers or using blunt-cut clusters—he began to craft them from unorthodox fibres. “What he started doing in the ’60s was use materials and textures, whether it be feathers or some interesting material, to make whimsical lashes and take them to a completely different level,” says Gina Brooke, Shu Uemura’s artistic director. “He was a visionary, ahead of his time, and he always defied the norm.”
But it wasn’t until 2001, when Jennifer Lopez wore Shu Uemura’s red-fox-fur lashes to the Oscars, that a renewed interest in falsies really began to build. The buzz grew into a craze in 2004, when Brooke, also Madonna’s makeup artist, conceived a pair of customized mink lashes for the Material Girl’s Re-Invention tour. She approached Shu Uemura—“the first and only brand that came to mind”—to collaborate, and Uemura excitedly agreed, although interestingly, it wasn’t his first foray with mink; he had fashioned a pair in 1971. Once Madge batted hers onstage, the phone started ringing. “I started getting requests from every celebrity in Hollywood, asking, ‘Do you have those lashes?’ ‘Can I try those lashes?’” Brooke recalls. When Oprah’s makeup artist ordered 200 pairs, each priced at US$1,000, it became clear the demand for faux fringe had reached a fever pitch.
For Madonna’s next tour, Confessions, Brooke took her mink lashes one step further by encrusting them with diamonds at the base, but she never imagined making them for public consumption. “It was just an artistic thing that I thought would be interesting while she was onstage. But we started getting calls, saying that they wanted us to make the lashes available.” When the cost of the mink, diamonds and craftsmanship were factored in, each handmade pair was priced around US$10,000. The thought of people buying them seemed unrealistic to Brooke, yet they sold out. “That was when we thought, ‘OK, we’re going to focus on lashes because the market for them is astronomical,” she says.
Realizing the public is fascinated by fantastical lashes, Shu Uemura now releases yearly themed Tokyo Lash Bar collections designed by the company’s creative team. Styles are grouped in four categories: limited-edition “premium,” the most expensive and extravagant; “statement,” decorative but not as over-the-top; “natural” and “accent,” which are more subtle and affordable. Last year’s collection included lashes fashioned from black lace, emerald-velvet feathers and tiny pieces of silver sequins. If that wasn’t enough to satiate a lash lover’s appetite, there was also the Couture Collection collaboration with quirky Dutch fashion designers Viktor & Rolf—a meeting of avant-garde minds if ever there was one. This summer sees the release of the 2009 crop, entitled “Lashes in Nature,” inspired by flowers, forests, oceans and the sky. For the truly brave, Fleur-Ever is made with white-flecked black feathers that fan out like a peony, while Goldglam Leaf consists of real skeleton leaves saturated in gold. For the slightly less adventurous, there’s Mini Stardust, indigo lashes decorated with tiny stars. But a true Shu historian might gravitate toward Marine Tide. Its curl design is meant to mimic an oceanic tidal wave, but it’s also a reference to Mr. Uemura’s iconic “umbrella” lash, which he created exactly 40 years ago.
The 2009 Tokyo Lash Bar collection launches at select Holt Renfrew stores in July.
First published in FASHION Magazine June 2009
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