The woman on the program I was watching had eyelashes that resembled great black bats; when she raised her hands, she showed fake nails that were inches longer than her own. Not for the first time, I wondered how people were able to negotiate life with window shades that blocked the light and sabers that interfered with one’s ability to pick up a penny from a counter. I have watched in fascination as cashiers arch their fingers in (to me) awkward ways in attempts to press their fingertips onto specific keys of the register without clawing the surrounding keys.
As a former art director and assistant creative director in the advertising departments of three department stores (Stewart’s, L.S. Ayres, and Famous-Barr,) I am acquainted with the fashion industry’s requirements for enhancing the beauty of the models hired to wear the merchandise that we photographed for the catalogs that used to be mailed to your homes. For female models, we hired “hair and makeup” artists; for male models, we hired “grooming” artists. For the ladies, the artists would enhance the eyelashes and eyelids, and brighten the brows and cheeks. For the male models, there was some cheek dust and hair fluff. Once on set, the models would prance and the photographers would shoot, and anything that we art directors did not like, we would remove, using photo editing software. But we never added eyelashes and certainly not fingernails.
In the old days, women used to enhance their beauty by darkening their eyelashes and painting their fingernails. I’m not sure when fake lashes came into play, and certainly not lashes that have no resemblance to real eyelashes. And when did the idea develop that, fingernails had to be twice the length of the fingers to which they were attached? I can remember watching my 14-year-old granddaughter — who will soon be 18 — as she carefully applied the gunk she needed to attach her false eyelashes to her eyelids. Imani was — and is — an athlete, a New Jersey state champion in the discus and shotput. But she is also an adherent to the (apparent) philosophy that, when it comes to eyelashes, bigger is better. I guess the bat wings do not impede her vision as she lines up to put the shot.
Now beards. Men seem to have embraced the cultivation of face foliage. When the rock band ZZ Top hit the scene in 1969, they were distinctive in that two of the band members, Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill, had long beards. What I have dubbed the “ZZ Top look” has come around to the 21st century. A few men that I know have those “ZZ beards,” and a few others that I see in the pool hall have “ZZ-aspirant” beards. One young man that I see has a red beard that juts from his jaw, emphasizing his strong jawline. Several others have beards that seem to be products of a lack of commitment to mowing the face, or an attitude of “ain’t nobody got time for that.”
I am a hairless man; I cannot grow a beard. My facial hair forms a mustache and goatee. A friend asked if I shaved the hair to form the goatee, and when I told him that I did not, he smiled. “Got your cool from the gene pool,” he said. Weekly View columnist Al Hunter and I had a contest about growing a “soul patch,” which is a tuft of hair beneath the lower lip. Al grew a great bush, while I managed a few small and insignificant hairs.
Fake lashes, fake nails, fake beard?
cjon3acd@att.net