Where have our eyebrows gone?
When Aotearoa-based hairdresser Victoria Clare was in highschool, she had an necessary realisation. After arriving at class along with her pure arches overdrawn “at least two centimetres thick”, she learnt simply how divisive eyebrows will be.
“The boys in particular hated them,” she explains. “I thought, ‘Wow, this makes people emotional. I can really annoy people with the way I do my makeup.’”
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That was in 2012 – Victoria’s peak Tumblr period. From there, she continued to push boundaries along with her brows: bleaching them, shaving them off and pencilling them again on in shades of black, scorching pink and lurid inexperienced. It was, and continues to be, her little act of transgression, a subversive assertion that draws those that ‘get it’ and repels those that don’t.
Over a decade later, skinny (or solely absent) brows have turn into the look of the day on the planet of different superstar type icons. GabrieletteAmelia Gray, Julia Fox and FKA Twigs are all poster women for dramatically skinny or bleached-off arches, whereas Doja Cat has sported a vary of experimental eyebrows since shaving hers off on Instagram Live in 2022. I’d be remiss to not point out Riri right here, who was a step forward of the It Girls, sporting pencil skinny brows on the quilt of British Vogue in 2018, drawn on by then-emerging make-up artist, Isamaya Ffrench.
In actuality, the act itself is anticlimactic. It’s so simple as the swipe of a razor, a thimble of bleach or one devoted half-hour with a mirror and a good pair of tweezers. If eyebrows body the face, eradicating them leaves a clean canvas – one to fill with indignant, slanted strains; skinny, rounded arches; vibrant squiggles; forehead-touching eyeshadow; or maybe most daringly, nothing in any respect.
At the identical time, we’re seeing a rising shift in direction of conservatism on social media. With the rise of tradwives, Ozempic and traits comparable to ‘quiet luxury’, the pendulum appears to be swinging again to extra conventional magnificence requirements. Subtlety is again in a massive approach, and will be seen within the variety of girls posting about eradicating their tattoos, dissolving their filler and forgoing heavy make-up and unnatural hair colors in favour of a extra broadly palatable look.
For these trying to sign their counterculture standing, this transfer in direction of ‘natural’ magnificence solely makes a assertion eyebrow (or lack thereof) extra interesting. “Eyebrows are used by so many subcultures to push away and separate out from the mainstream,” says James Dobsona New Zealand-based designer and one-half of Beauty Bendersa social media duo that highlights subversive magnificence on Instagram. “They’re such a powerful way to redefine and reshape the face.”
On a mission to ‘degender makeup’, James and his Beauty Benders co-founder, Others Svencourage their followers to experiment with seems that exist outdoors of the gender binary. “I have bleached my brows numerous times – mostly because, having hooded eyes, it gives you so much more room to play with eye makeup,” James says.
The duo takes cues from drag, goth and punk subcultures, the place historically, pure eyebrows are glued down, plucked into oblivion or shaved off solely to increase the floor space for make-up. From there, a clean brow can bend to all eyebrow whims – just like the menacing 90-degree angles of Pink Flamingos actor and ‘queen of filth’, Divine; the straight, tapered strains of post- punk icon Siouxsie Sioux; or the lifted, hyperfeminine arches of RuPaul’s Drag Race alumni, Violet Chachki and Trixie Mattel.
“Both drag and goth are about reimagining and engineering the architecture of the face to transform yourself… even the most micro adjustment can make a dramatic statement,” James explains. “In saying that, both are still referencing historical precedents. Goth owes a lot to the pencil-thin brows of the ’20s, and a shaved brow goes right back to Ancient Egypt.”
It’s true, people have been utilizing eyebrows as a type of self-expression and communication for hundreds of years. In Ancient Egypt, brows had been dramatic, typically emphasised with kohl or shaved off solely to mark a interval of mourning. During Elizabethan instances, eyebrows and hairlines of the higher class had been closely plucked, made to intensify their excessive, clean foreheads and sign their the Aristocracy.
In the post-war Nineteen Twenties, magnificence became a technique of liberation. Women started to interrupt away from earlier conventional concepts of sophistication and gender in favour of opulence, glamour and overt sexuality. Modelled after stars like Clara Bow and Josephine Baker, bobs had been sharp, skirts had been shorter and eyebrows had been micro-fine. It was a rejection of the buttoned-up magnificence requirements of wartime, marking a second by which skinny eyebrows became distinctly political.
Fast ahead to ’60s Southern California, and a kindred magnificence motion was creating amongst younger Mexican- American girls. Now referred to as ‘chola’ type, it’s a look that usually combines dishevelled menswear and distinctly female make-up – like low-slung Dickies and a plaid shirt paired with dramatic cut-crease eyeshadow and barely-there, sharply arched eyebrows.
It’s a type we would affiliate with the ’90s however its roots lengthen again a lot additional. “[It] stems from the Pacheco era,” explains San Jose-based digital creator, Winnonah Sarahreferring to a interval throughout World War II when younger girls – referred to as pachucas – used make-up and clothes as a technique to revolt in opposition to White America’s notions of femininity.
Loved for her old-school magnificence tutorials on TikTokWinnonah’s make-up pays homage to her mum, a “tough yet elegant” Chicana lady who additionally wore dramatic winged liner, white eyeshadow and closely plucked, pencil-thin brows.
“My cousins plucked my brows off at age 13 and taught me how to heat up the liner pencil so it goes on smooth and dark. They also taught me how to trim my feathered hair, which I still maintain today as well.”
Now a mom herself, Winnonah tells me that whereas elements of her look have modified, one aspect has remained constant: her skinny eyebrows. “How else can I showcase my cool white- shadowed lids? Thick brows would take away from the true artistry of the perfect wing and shadow lines. Thin brows always have and always will represent non-conformity.”
In actuality, these patches of hair maintain as a lot or as little cultural subtext as you permit. Thin arches aren’t at all times an act of defiance, identical to thicker brows aren’t a signal of political apathy. But in a time the place magnificence requirements are swinging again towards subtlety, it’d simply be a skinny forehead – or lack thereof – that speaks the loudest.
This article was initially printed in Fashion Journal subject 198.
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