Making Faces

Is the pop star finally ready to reclaim her rightful position as beauty muse? Lady Gaga and Cardi B lead a new generation of icons who are waiting in the wings.

- Renee Batchelor

IN THE BEGINNING there was Cher, or was it David Bowie, or perhaps Madonna? Ever since the birth of the modern pop star circa the 1950s — when the idea of popular or ‘pop’ music was first born — the vision has closely been entwined with the sound. And the artists who make that leap from entertainers to icons seem to understand the impact of cultivating a strong beauty image.

David Bowie started out simply as David Robert Jones in the 1960s, but it was his various personas, from the glam rock of Ziggy Stardust in 1972 to the coked-out Thin White Duke that followed years later, that have seared into the public’s consciousness. Here was a man who was not afraid to don costumery, outrageous hairstyles, and yes, makeup, to create those larger-than-life personas, slipping in an out of these characters like a seasoned method actor.

In the 1970s, Cher — with her Armenian and Cherokee heritage — flew the flag for beauty diversity way before the Kardashians and Beyoncés of today. With her impossibly long and silky black hair, toned physique and gravity-defying false lashes, she was (and still is) a force of nature.