Macron and his oily make-up? Give me Rab C Nesbitt any day
DON’T get me wrong, I cannot stand men who are t oo l azy, arrogant or blind to trim their eyebrows. Men too unimaginative to not wear the same shiny suit to work each day. Men who don’t brush their tongue, floss, or wash their hands after visiting the bathroom. Men who think they are macho enough to take on the sun, so don’t buy sun-cream, but who then turn red and peel (I don’t want skin flakes in my hotel suite!). Men who don’t iron their shirts, thinking creases are somehow left- field. Men who don’t unpack their awful holdall for 17 months after they return home. Men who think a pedicure is some kind of treatment for sex offenders.
But the news that over the course of three months, French President Emmanuel Macron – that youthful, lithe, feminist, anti-ageist petit pain – spent £24,000 on make-up artists, has made me long for the sartorial style of Rab C. Nesbitt.
Such publicly funded vanity seems undemocratic, shallow. Macron used a make-up artist called Natacha M. Employing someone with no real surname has got to be dubious: only rappers and DJs think that is cool.
Macron’s predecessor, Francois Hollande, spent even more on make-up and a hair stylist: £ 28,000 f or cosmetics and nearly £10,000 on a barber. The Elysee Palace justified Hollande’s bill by saying the hairdresser had to ‘get up early and fix the President’s hair every morning… and as many times during the day as necessary’.
You have to wonder what a man’s hair could possibly be getting up to to require such attention. Forming a Tintin quiff? Falling out and into the creme anglaise? Have the French not heard of Brylcreem?
Until news of this presidential profligacy, I had been worrying about leaving Europe. There will be no longer be Italian men on these shores who wear navy blazers with chinos and Tod’s loafers caressing perfectly buffed feet. No French men in narrow, black Dior suits that cost more than the national debt of Greece. The only British men who know how to team a burgundy Boglioli blazer with a raspberry tie and matching pocket square are gay, womenhating, Mr Porter-reading fops with painted-on beards, or footballers with the IQ of wasps. And that is as it should be.
Goodness, even our female leaders don’t use moisturiser, if Theresa May is any barometer. Like Mrs Thatcher, who didn’t wear blouses beneath her suits, merely bibs – meaning she could whip off a day one and replace i t with a spangled evening version without wasting time – Mrs May has learned that leadership has no time for foppery or foundation.
WHY men would want to become slaves to makeup and unguents, I have no idea: once you start wearing cosmetics, it’s hard to stop. I went bare-faced the other day and was told my face resembles two currants in a pizza of uncooked dough; my dogs went nuts, as they didn’t recognise me.
The pressure to wear makeup oppresses women more than the bound foot, or childbirth. And the pain! The glue in the eye from trying to affix Laura Mercier false lashes. The pressure to contour and highlight (unless you are superhumanly clever and beautiful like novelist Zadie Smith, who denounced the practice last week). The twice-daily cleansing, moisturising and exfoliating. The depilation of hair and exfoliation of dry skin. The fortnightly hair salon visits to stop you being culled should you stray into Somerset badger country. The fake tans that smell like a truck driver’s vest. The eternal question: should you get a gel manicure, or a normal one?
It’s no wonder women are paid less. We are always an hour late due to the fact that we are separating our lashes with a pin every morning.
Do you really want to vote for (or be married to) a man who wears so much foundation, he leaves stains everywhere, like a moth? Who wears trainers without socks? I voted Labour due to Tony Blair’s white smile and rakish hair; boy, what a mistake. I almost wished I lived in Manchester, too, just so I could have voted for Andy Burnham: such dark lashes, he reminds me of Heathcliff, but without the moods. Could I have been duped? Maybe it was Maybelline?
That’s the problem with makeup. It makes you wonder.
What on earth does Macron have to hide, apart from those open pores?