RISE OF THE PALEOCRACY
... or why real stars know tacky tans have never been less fashionable
LAST week, a woman the same age as me — but who was sporting a burnished, nut-brown tan — expressed incredulity over my youthful appearance. ‘how do you do it?’ she demanded. ‘your skin is so even — you haven’t a single age spot, or wrinkle. you’re 45, but look 20 years younger. And your complexion just glows!’
There was an awkward silence. Then her child piped up: ‘She looks younger because your skin is burnt.’ out of the mouths of babes.
Nothing ages the skin like the sun. And keeping out of it has become the simple, age-resisting solution that has taken hollywood by storm.
Where only a couple of years ago, redcarpet events were filled with celebrities bronzed to within an inch of their lives, now parties and premieres are awash with the pale and interesting.
Take actress Renee Zellweger, who looked incredible at this week’s premiere of Bridget Jones’s Baby, her jet sheath dress juxtaposed with swathes of radiantly creamy flesh. The 47-year-old has attracted attention for her ageless looks, and her pallor is a significant part of it. The woman gleams.
Meanwhile, fellow hollywood beauties Julianne Moore, Tilda Swinton, Cate Blanchett, Uma Thurman, Nicole Kidman and Christina hendricks are heralding the return of old- school alabaster glamour, reminiscent of a time when female stars always boasted milky skin, so that their complexions shone in black and white.
Moore has long been confident in her own ( ivory) skin, while Kidman’s appearance at this year’s Met Gala was as luminescent as ever: an expanse of snowy arm and bosom, set off by a fairystyle frock.
And Blanchett’s pallor is a key element to her elegance, as displayed at this year’s oscars ceremony, where her lavish mint confection was teamed with skin reminiscent of vanilla ice cream.
even former tan enthusiasts Charlize Theron and Catherine Zeta- Jones are getting in on the act. Charlize ditched her customary golden glow for a pale gleam at this year’s oscars, while Catherine traded her membership of the mahogany fan club for a pearly presence at January’s Dad’s Army premiere.
OFCoURSe, it is understandable that older stars may appreciate the benefits of a youthful pallor. But even younger stars are turning their noses up at tans. Michelle Dockery is a famous snowy complexion advocate, as are the lovely elizabeth Debicki, Keira Knightley, emma Watson and emma Stone.
Meanwhile, Carey Mulligan opted for a delicate, gothic wanness at the Suffragette opening in october.
In Blighty, eleanor Tomlinson’s Demelza is back on our screens in Poldark. Forget Aidan Turner’s naked torso, it is eleanor’s complexion that has us sighing.
The rest of the Cornish peasantry may bear hides as leathery as lizards, however the goddess Tomlinson is all milkyskinned loveliness, without a scrap of foundation in sight. Nor does the actress feel any need to hit the gravy granules for the red carpet. At the recent Poldark screening, her alabaster presence proved achingly beautiful, even including a pair of perfectly pale pins — legs being the area where the prettily pallid do sometimes buckle and crave colour.
This trend marks a return to a passion for pallor that existed for centuries — millennia, even.
Snowy skin was traditionally used to sort the sheep from the goats, with whiteness a matter of class. Before the 20th century, stainless skin was a token of aristocratic leisure, and tans the badge of a peasant lifestyle
irredeemably beyond the pale. In the Twenties, for the first time in history, these class associations were reversed: suddenly, it was the factory-bound masses who were pasty, while the beau monde globe-trotted and bronzed.
These days, with tans available to all, whether via an easyJet flight or a bottle, the world’s most beautiful no longer want them — deeming them too banal, too obvious, something to leave to the satsuma-hued cast of reality show The Only Way Is Essex.
Then there is the youthfulness factor. Wherever we sit on the skin colour spectrum, we are born (relatively) pale and even-complexioned, a situation that only changes as our faces become weathered with age.
By returning our skins to their pre-UV damaged milkiness, we immediately make ourselves look younger. Twenty years ago, the lightening products that existed largely issued from America and Asia and felt vaguely racist — a la Michael Jackson’s terrifying skin-whitening attempts.
Today, every skincare brand that’s worth its salt boasts a complexion- evening range, and we have a new generation of anti- pigmentation products that promises to restore complexions to their youthful flawlessness.
Mintel reports that more than a third of the beauty products launched this year in Britain carry some form of brightening or illuminating claim. Make- up wise, Becca, Hourglass and Tom Ford all sell excellent pearly skin- brightening primers. Even the typically teak-coloured Victoria Beckham has included a bright white Flash Illuminator in her hotly anticipated new limited- edition range for Estee Lauder.
In June, consumer analysts Technavio forecast that the global skincare products market would exceed $ 147 billion ( around £110 billion) by 2020, with ‘skinlightening products’ for ‘youngerlooking skin’ leading the way — and noting that men had caught on to the phenomenon, too.
Meanwhile, those women who have already tarnished their skins with sun damage are seeking out intense pulsed light (IPL) to rid themselves of the evidence, not least because topical products fail to have massive effect.
The approach can be effective, however it can render older, thinner skins curiously egg-like in appearance. Better by far to avoid damage in the first place with SPF 50 sun protection.
The best can be had from La Roche- Posay, Lancome and Creme de la Mer. Plus, as every make-up artist will tell you, these shields also lend your complexion a supernatural gleam in photos. And there’s another thing about pale skin — there is an element of smugness about i t . Without the security blanket of a tan — fake or otherwise — to hide behind, you’re showing the world that you have truly amazing skin. I speak as one of these insufferables. I’ve had a tan only once in my adult life, entirely by accident. While other Eighties teenagers basted themselves in oil and foil, I larded myself in sun block — a petrol blue gunk, lending me a sheen akin to a dead fish. (Happily, the technology has moved on).
For my pains, I was nicknamed ‘moon face’, ‘vamp’ and ‘goth girl’. At school, the boys trailed after me humming along to The Addams Family theme tune.
Still, if the upshot of this is that I still get asked my age when buying alcohol, then bring it on.