Rinse it in dead champagne

Colm Tóibín

  • War Paint: Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden: Their Lives, Their Times, Their Rivalry by Lindy Woodhead
    Virago, 498 pp, £20.00, April 2003, ISBN 1 86049 974 0
  • Diana Vreeland by Eleanor Dwight
    HarperCollins, 308 pp, £30.00, December 2002, ISBN 0 688 16738 1

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.’

You are not Logged In

  • If you have already registered login here
  • If you are a print subscriber using the site for the first time please register here
  • If you are not yet a subscriber you can subscribe here
  • If you are a member of a subscribing institution or University library please login here
  • If you have an Institutional print subscription and online access is not included, find out about our Institutional online subscriptions

Vol. 26 No. 3 · 5 February 2004 » Colm Tóibín » Rinse it in dead champagne (print version)
Pages 32-34 | 4683 words