total artifice as a way to the truth

 

-------------- [continued-Excerpt from Jerry Hall book] -------------------------------------------------------- It was such an exciting time.  Wherever I went with Antonio, everyone would look and whisper my name, which I found unnerving at first.

        Everything was about how you looked.  I often hated the ruthlessness and shallowness of some people, but I found I could rise above it by making my exterior my own work of art.  I threw myself into studying art, fashion, and beauty.  I became obsessed and ruthless about my creation -- me.  

I tried every shape of eyebrow, until I finally got the right one; I had Marlene Dietrich's thin pencil line, Joan Crawford's thick brush-up brows, until I settled in the end for a high-arched brow, thick at the beginning and finishing in an elongated line.  

I found that with practice I could train my face muscles, suck in my cheeks, drop my jaw and arch one eyebrow; I became an expert at the haughty look.  I was obsessed with Italian film director Luchino Visconti's films and the way he used total artifice as a way to the truth and I tried to emulate that.

        I worked with great make-up artists at Yves Saint Laurent when I started doing his fashion shows -- Jose Louis and Jacques Clement -- and I watched and copied their make-up.  I felt like a painter with my easel, painting my face meticulously and trying to imitate what they had done.  

I also worked with the famous hairdresser Alexandre de Paris.  He had done Elizabeth Taylor's hair for the film Cleopatra.... He was a magician who sculpted my hair into the most wonderful shapes.

        Antonio knew everyone and everywhere we went he would introduce me to extraordinary people from the worlds of fashion, film and art.

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{Jerry Hall:  My life in pictures.  Written by Jerry Hall.  Curated by Jonathan Phang.  2010.  Quadrille Publishing.}

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