Rinse it in dead champagne 
Colm Tóibín
- War Paint: Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden: Their Lives, Their Times, Their Rivalry by Lindy Woodhead
- Diana Vreeland by Eleanor Dwight
The women who invented beauty came from far away. They lied about their ages and their origins and the source of their magic; their secrets were known only to certain chemists and secretaries and the maids and butlers who lived in fear of them, who survived long enough to tell and tell again the shocking truth, for example, that Elizabeth Arden, one of the world’s richest women, lined the inside of her shoes with newspaper, or that Helena Rubinstein’s lawyer chose ‘the budget option’ at the funeral parlour after her death until wiser counsel prevailed, or that Diana Vreeland’s hair was so hard that once, when her maid bumped into it with a tray, ‘it clinked.’
Subscribers to the print edition can log in to view the entire article. For information about subscribing to the London Review of Books click here. This article is available for purchase online. Buy this article.
Colm Tóibín is Stein Visiting Writer at Stanford University. His essay in this issue is based on a lecture he gave at the University of Genoa’s Ford Madox Ford conference.
Other articles by this contributor:
A Man with My Trouble · Henry James leaves home
How to be a wife · The Discretion of Jackie Kennedy
At St Peter’s · The Dangers of a Priestly Education
Issues of Truth and Invention · Francis Stuart’s wartime broadcasts
Roaming the Greenwood · A History of Gay Literature: The Male Tradition by Gregory Woods
Don’t abandon me · Borges and the Maids
Dissecting the Body · Ian McEwan
The Wickedest Woman in Paris · Rupert Everett
print layout
tell a friend