Cross-decade themes, threaded through the record and grounded in the measured houses and their real advertisements.
How a bar of soap learned to sell longing, and taught the whole century to do the same.
Read the theme →How Hollywood lent its stars to the beauty counter, and invented celebrity endorsement at industrial scale.
Read the theme →The compact, the lipstick, the powder puff: how cosmetics left the dressing table and went out into the street.
Read the theme →Under rationing and blackout, a painted mouth became a symbol of resolve, and beauty advertising learned to speak to the working woman.
Read the theme →How perfume became couture: the great French houses turn a bottle into a luxury with a designer's name on it.
Read the theme →The Technicolor close-up made a complexion a national concern, and Hollywood and the beauty counter became one industry.
Read the theme →