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What is the story behind the lipstick? Used since ancient times by women, lipstick has accompanied the emancipation of women, but also the most symbolic movements. Here is an essay that looks back with intelligence on the epic of a hit as glamorous as it is political.

Author : Rebecca Benhamou

Publisher : Premier Parallèle

Date Of Release : November 2021

It all starts with a simple gesture, that of making up one’s mouth. An insignificant gesture, associated par excellence with femininity, in which many invisible dialectics are played out. Symbol of women’s emancipation or of their submission, emblem of patriotism or of betrayal, of conformism or of rebellion, of pleasure or of alienation… It is a silent language, half ornament, half megaphone, which tells as much about the intimate as the collective.
Through the peregrinations of the red stick, whether it is placed on the lips of suffragettes, prostitutes, tomboys, soldiers or movie stars, it is the place of women in the public space that is discussed here. From the rush to the first department stores at the end of the 19th century to the post-MeToo era through lipstick feminism, Rebecca Benhamou’s account knocks on every door, giving voice to Zola as well as to Madonna, to Fitzgerald as well as to Colette, to Roosevelt as well as to Vivienne Westwood.