Marie Claire South Africa’s “Like Sweets from Heaven”

Sobaika Mirza

WHO DID THAT TO HER FACE AND WHY

muzan-e

The people who’re responsible for all those pink-and-orange ‘Spring 2012′ collections floating about the cosmetics world right now. Yves Saint Laurent’s orange lipsticks are particularly burnt into my retina, but really they’re all as bad. It’s that Pantone colour of the year thing, I think.
Dammit.
- Anonymous
  
  Whenever I see those super-saturated orange lipsticks, I think to myself, “Well, they’d never work for me, but maybe they’re for black women…”
  
  I’d like to imagine that this whole editorial was created just to say NOPE to that idea.
  - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1326120071 Gaby Ripoll
    
    I’ve worked orange lipstick. I think they look really flattering on olive tones.
    The problem is this is too much everywhere. Candy-colored makeup, I’m down, but ONE feature, MAYBE two if done well. This looks like the makeup just exploded on her face.
    - Anonymous
      
      Yes, aside from (or maybe more than) the colors, it’s the way they applied it that is awful. The eyeshadows are just tragic! That pink cheek is the only thing worth saving, IMO.
    - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1326120071 Gaby Ripoll
      
      Yeah the application is horrible. The model already looks like a doll, so the round lipstick applied way inside the line of the lips distorts her and makes her look a little creepy and possessed (like those creepy old antique dolls you see haunting people in movies), and in other cases she looks made up like “Sambo”, as another commenter pointed out. The clunky crayons used to apply her eye makeup should be returned to the toddler the makeup artist stole them from. That makeup artist must have had it in for this model, because they did their best to disguise a pretty girl’s pretty face.
      But seriously. They picked the worst colors for this girl’s coloration (or the worst color combinations) and just smeared them on. BAD.
    - Anonymous
      
      It reminds me of this girl who used to work here as our receptionist. Her makeup application skills were so bad that the guys here used to joke that she laid all her makeup out on the counter and just rubbed her face in it.
      I think she may have been partly responsible for our decline in sales that year.
    - Anonymous
      
      You used to work with Paz de la Huerta?
    - Anonymous
      
      Awesome.

Anonymous

the clothes are lovely as is the model, but what in gawd’s name were they thinking with that horrific clown makeup?

Lerae Kroon

“sassy” is an interesting word choice.

Sara__B

The Prada resort collection makes Marie Claire feel like kids in a candy store? Unfortunately, they made the model look like a kid got into her mother’s makeup. The model, clothes, and styling — lovely. The makeup — strange.

http://twitter.com/taijuuuh Taija HU!

I sort of enjoy the make-up in the last photo. Not that I’d ever wear it, but it she looks like a doll in it. Other wise, the make-up is just borderline crazy with a good serving of plain unfortunate. Ah well. I’m just glad it’s sure not to become a trend!

Terri Smith

Those clothes are beautiful and timeless, but hopefully this will be the last of Makeup: Lesley Whitby.

Anonymous

Love the clothes but that makeup is really really really distracting!

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1043171034 Tadiana Walton Jones

Yes to this. I had to scroll down and hide her face in order to even think about how the clothes looked. Complete and utter fail.

MilaXX

Clothes look super cute. I can deal with crazy cheek or eye, but somehow the crazy lip colors aren’t working for me.

Anonymous

Love the grid print dress!

Anonymous

Is it just me or does this kind of have an awful Sanbo vibe?

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_3JSTXMWWVZN2QNP2UEKJMTWD7U Isabel

Agreed! 100%
Anonymous

It’s so not just you.
Terence Ng

I felt the same, but it’s barely waylaid by the fact that it’s only in SOME shots… But good lord…
Anonymous

Oh wow, now that you mention it, I can’t unsee it.
Anonymous

It’s not just you.

I actually kind of like the makeup in the first two pictures – it’s a little nuts, but I could go with it.

I got to the third picture and went WAT.
http://www.facebook.com/vsticker Vera E Sticker

No, I totally thought the same thing. It’s uncomfortably close to minstrel in some of these.
- sweetlilvoice
  
  Agreed.
- Kristin Peri
  
  Thank you, thank you! That is EXACTLY my reaction. Neck down: FANTASTIC. Neck up: LIttle Black Sambo / Minstrel. I know it’s a long time ago but too close for irony for me.

Lauren Maier

What clothes? I thought there were pretty clothes? All I can see is a really bizarre makeup!
And what did they do to her lips in the second picture? o_O

http://heartprintandstyle.blogspot.com Vivi N

The makeup is killing me ever so softly. Like…why? Why.

Anonymous

I love the pink coat and the dress underneath. The last picture is very cute.. and I can see it as a “doll” type makeup. But the rest of the piece the makeup is flat out distracting.

Anonymous

That makeup distracts so harshly it’s all I can see. What a shame. And, yup, I’m getting a very, very faint Little Black Sambo vibe, too, which is why I guess these photos bothered me a good deal.

Anonymous

“Lollipop Cheeks” What every girl will be wearing this Spring…ya think?

Anonymous

This would be so lovely without the horrid makeup. So distracting it’s hard to notice the clothes. Why would you do that to, from what I can tell, such a kick-ass model?

Anonymous

Aww, I sort of love the makeup. Well, I guess someone has to. The super-opaque lips are sort of blah, but the eyes in the first photo, the lips in the second, and the cheeks in the last are all really lovely to me. Not in the sense that I would ever wear it, but in an editorial way.

Anonymous

agree! agree! high five!

Karis Cady

In Beyonce’s Countdown video she is wearing some similar eye shadow. Done better, definitely, but this may already be a ‘thing.’

Anonymous

Hm, you could be right. With all the 80s-inspired stuff going on in fashion, big eyeshadow could possibly become a thing. We definitely loved our eyeshadow in the 80s.

Anonymous

I really like the clothes – I’m getting a late 80′s-early 90′s kind of vibe from them. The makeup just makes my nerves vibrate. Reminds me of when my cousin and I would practice makeup on her giant Barbie head. With magic markers. When we were eight.

http://profiles.google.com/shannonlstewart Shannon Stewart

I’m all for bright make-up, but this is all done very badly and none of it really seems to go with the looks she’s wearing.

For instance, if you’re going with the bright eyeshadow, it should not go all the way up into the brows — lids only! And everything else should be kept kind of high contrast or neutral.

Anonymous

I’m so envious of her skin tone…I will never understand the lack of women of color in modeling let alone the lack of women with this dark tone. She is so beautiful and makes those clothes look so elevated. That make-up is so distracting from everything else wonderful that is going on.

http://twitter.com/starrika Ali

Me too – I barely noticed the makeup at first, as I was too busy noticing her gorgeous skin. I know, photoshop, but the color and tone is really pretty. I think she looks great in the colors of the clothes as well – she really makes the editorial pop. I don’t quite get the dearth of women of color in fashion editorials either. I’m a middle class, white woman from what would be considered a privileged background – seeing a black woman or an asian woman (etc.) doesn’t put me off the clothes or dampen my appreciation of an editorial. And yet, I often see the excuse that white women would be put off by more black women in fashion (or other ethnicity).

I mean, I can somewhat understand a lower percentage of Asian women on runways, given that they trend smaller in height, but that shouldn’t preclude editorials. And I’ve seen some stunning Asian models who ARE tall enough who aren’t getting work that they should.

I don’t get it. Is there really such a subconscious reaction from white people, or is this more of an excuse by the people who control fashion?
Anonymous

Whoever lit her needs to go to Hollywood and follow Viola Davis around. THAT’S how you light a dark-skinned woman. She’s just lovely (except for that f’ing makeup).

Anonymous

Guys, I’m not sure sassy is the best description for a black model, particularly since she’s mostly just sitting there with her mouth open. Lovely girl, fun clothes, yummy eye makeup, really unfortunate lipstick in shots 3, 4, and 5 (see previous commenters re Sambo vibe).

Rebecca Johnson

Other than adding the Krusty make-up, they pretty much took the Prada press photos and switched up the model. Two-tone background with blue on beige, office chair, prim poses. To paraphrase Scott Van Pelt, this is a poor effort.

Anonymous

Gorgeous model. Beautiful clothes. Hideous makeup.

Anonymous

The makeup is really awful, and I don’t know why they made her wear that hat in every picture. She seems to be a beautiful woman in beautiful clothes.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1326120071 Gaby Ripoll

I love hats, and I was disappointed they used the SAME HAT in every picture. Really? Couldn’t have borrowed two or three more?
Anonymous

That’s what I thought, too. The makeup doesn’t bother half as much as that awful hat.

Anonymous

“Prada’s Resort Collection” makes us feel like kids in a candy store!”

Really? Cause unless your “candy stores” are all in 1970s USSR, I’m not feeling that way. J’adore the clothes but forcing them unnaturally into a blatant shill for MAC gift bags or Cirque De Soleil tickets ain’t really where I see them going.

Mariah J

The clothes are adorable but it’s like they didn’t take the model into account at all when picking the makeup.

Lisa

Who the hell did that to that poor girl’s gorgeous face???

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1344922354 Eric Scheirer Stott

It’s as if they said “This is for White women but it will show better on a Black woman”

Anonymous

The clown make-up totally distracts from the clothes

Anonymous

Nobody on the shoot thought that maybe–just maybe–putting bright, candy-colored lipstick on a dark-skinned model would make her look like a racist caricature?? Because it’s all I can see.

http://twitter.com/starrika Ali

Her makeup does have a similar look to the illustrations of a “Little Black Sambo” storybook that I have. It was my grandmother’s and I loved that story growing up – the illustrations were very colorful and I found the tigers turning to butter so fascinating when I was tiny. And then I grew up.

I’m assuming that the persons involved in this shoot were adults. Shouldn’t they know better? I am making an assumption that South Africa has a history of minstrel/racist caricatures similar to America, given its colonial roots. If someone knows differently, please correct me. I’m not sure if the persons involved in this are oblivious or indifferent.
- Anonymous
  
  I had that book too! I loved when the tigers ran in a circle so fast they turned to butter. I wondered how tiger-flavored butter tasted…
  - http://twitter.com/starrika Ali
    
    It always made me want to have pancakes with lots and lots of butter.
  - Anonymous
    
    Inspired by those tigers I actually “ground” the tail of a stuffed tiger in the workings of a metal toy truck (back in the good old days when nobody blinked at giving 5 yr-olds a working model of a dump truck in cast metal that had to be several pounds of concussion-potential). When the blackish lube came off the truck’s axle onto the tiger, it made perfect sense to me that tiger-butter would be weird looking and taste bad (oh yes I did. I was 4 or 5, o.k.?)
- http://tigergray.blogspot.com/ Tiger Gray
  
  However many South African people include bright colors in their dress. I find this very interesting:
  http://www.myweku.com/2010/04/african-street-fashion-makes-an-impact-on-the-world-scene/ To me suggesting that all bright colors and clothing of this kind evokes minstrel shows is pretty offensive if only because it erases an organic fashion culture taking place on the street, not even on runways. We should be vigilant about racist stereotypes of course but this kind of clothing is even used to differentiate youthful attitudes from old in parts of African, and to many evokes traditional African cloths as much as it does globalization and racism. (as much as a thing can be said to be “African.” It’s a big and diverse place, after all.)
  - http://twitter.com/starrika Ali
    
    I don’t think it’s the bright colors, necessarily, but the clownish application on her face that brings it into minstrel territory.
    - Anonymous
      
      At first I thought ‘Wow, that’s what I call Othering a beautiful black woman,’ Then I thought, well would the South African women buying this issue of the magazine read it the same way that we do? Do they see ‘Sambo’, minstrelry, etc? I dunno.

http://twitter.com/MandySCG MandyJane

I want the bag in the third picture!

Anonymous

Wow, these cloths are so beautiful I don’t even notice the makeup

Anonymous

The makeup makes me very uncomfortable. Reminiscent of black minstrels wearing blackface to perform to be accepted by (white) audiences. The model is beautiful, so why?
I don’t really like the clothes, either. Reminiscent of a 60s bland, waspy midwest look, in luxe fabrics.

Anonymous

Exactly! Too much minstrel for my comfort. But, the fashion industry rarely misses an opportunity to minstrel it up. Sigh….

Anonymous

I don’t mind the bright lipsticks–she’s pulling those off all right–but the EYESHADOW. NO. STOPPIT.

And yes, the clothes are amazing. I wish she’d come up with an expression other than “Oh!,” but she’s making some lovely shapes with her arms.

Anonymous

Even with the crazy-ass makeup, this makes me want to wear the clothes a lot more than the Elle.com slideshow did – and it’s practically the same set-up. Model, chair, blue wall. Just shows what getting the right girl into the outfits can do, I guess.

Anonymous

Beautiful. Model. Clothes . And make-up. Yes. I love the make-up , Especially the first two with the rainbow eye. I also love the circular pink rouge.Not as in love with the day-glow lip.

http://orangtunes.blogspot.com BIG MAC

It looks like they let some child do her make up! That make up wouldn’t look good on anyone!

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_2B3TBNSECS4EWG25HA45LZZPS4 c8h10n4o2

I did some crazy stuff with green, yellow, and blue makeup and nail polish during the last World Cup, and even coming off a weekend long cachaca binge, I did it better than Lesley Whitby. And I’m not that great with makeup to begin with.

Anonymous

For goodness sakes. The girl is lovely. The clothing is gorgeous. And then they go and spoil it by smearing Crayola colors all over her face. I think it’s distracting and adds nothing.

bookish

This month’s Glamour (with Rachel McAdams on the cover) has a feature with really similar, crazy bright eye makeup. I can’t imagine anyone wearing this out and about, but we might see it in some more magazine spreads.

Anonymous

Looks to me like they’re trying to make her look like a doll. And an adorable one at that.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jane-Morris/1076502799 Jane Morris

Oh My God! What is wrong with these people? Where is Spike Lee when we need him? Almost hilarious that they put her clown/minstrel make up in that first shot with the big word BEAUTY, as though they are making fun of her. Christ on a cracker.

http://tigergray.blogspot.com/ Tiger Gray

I don’t really get minstrel show from that first picture. Minstrel show makeup tended to exaggerate qualities people thought of as ‘African’, at least in the U.S., and that intended to include comically large lips and so on. (people were frighteningly still in the Black = primate mentality) I personally don’t associate colors like those in the first picture with that. To me candy shades more evoke a kind of retro quality; retro doesn’t just belong to white women, after all. People have the best intentions talking about racism and so forth but I think it might be sliding in to offensive in another way to suggest that any heavy, exaggerated makeup is always going to be minstrel-y when it happens to be on a black woman. That said, picture four up from the bottom does ping to me as a bit minstrel-y and thereby makes me uncomfortable, if only because of the exaggerated pale lips. In a lot of the old pictures and posters still available from minstrel shows, very similar makeup is shown.
- Anonymous
  
  I don’t really get minstrel vibe in the pictures, either–I was wondering if I was missing something! I agree that it more screams retro than anything else. It’s really the last picture, to me, which hearkens back to the very old pictures–maybe not specifically “minstrel” makeup, but perhaps just more vintage, newsboy styled, what with the tie, the hat and the “ladypose”. To me, if they were trying for minstrel, they would’ve gone much more obvious and purposeful (big red lips, no eye makeup) route. She’s dressed head-to-toe here, popping eye makeup, vintage 60′s vibe.
  
  I’m more slighted by the fact that they felt the need to keep the hat on in every single picture.
- Anonymous
  
  A really thoughtful answer, and, I believe, on the money.

Anonymous

Oh, I love it! It’s so obviously tongue-in-cheek that it’s just playful fun. Great clothes as well.

Anonymous

The makeup is so focus-pulling, you almost don’t notice Muica’s reliably fab work here. Although I have to admit, it does kind of work in that last shot.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Mary-Elizabeth-Poytinger-Baumer/1516981341 Mary Elizabeth Poytinger Baume

i actually like her makeup, she looks like a china doll in a way, i think it makes her face pop and the colors in the clothes pop as well

Anonymous

I did not respond well to this at all. Frankly, it all just hearkens back to that 1976 look. And those looks were HORRIBLE. That blue raincoat thing? That brown print? I am sorry but I just HATE this. And the weird make up just is horrifying. NO NO NO.

Anonymous

These are some gorgeous clothes. The last few Prada collections have left me underwhelmed.

The second picture down looks almost exactly like a photo I have of my Aunt Nelly from the late ’60s – orange lipstick and all.

I don’t mind the make-up at all. Think Grace Jones and it makes sense.

Anonymous

Gorgeous styling, HORRIBLE make up.

Anonymous

I covet that buff and green bag in the WORST way!!!

Anonymous

Bloody hell, that orange lipstick makes her into pickaninny kitsch. Minstrel-show stuff. Not A Good Thing. Damn straight it ain’t gonna catch on!

Anonymous

this face-paint is so atrocious i can’t even see the clothes. the second photo looks like she bit her lips until they’re bloody raw. the third photo is straight up al jolson.

http://tigergray.blogspot.com/ Tiger Gray

Love that last outfit. That shade of yellow in the cardigan is to die. Normally I love bright makeup but this is just garish, for the most part.

Anonymous

My first thought was china doll.. . . but I don’t think that’s quite appropriate.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Matthew-Vella/666619877 Matthew Vella

My god that make-up’s distracting! Rest is really pretty though

Anonymous

scottyf,
Where did you go?

Anonymous

Er, sassy?

She’s gorgeous, though, and it’s so refreshing to see an editorial like this in a nearly all-white fashion world whose only use for non-white cultures is to appropriate them as exotic backdrop for their white models. I agree with most of you, the clothes are cute (I love the flowery dresses in particular) but the make-up is terrible.

Zach Ng Zheng Yang

i like the makeup for the last two shots, but the rest were just in bad taste.

http://profiles.google.com/phyllis.craine Phyllis Craine

Pretty sure the nail polish in the last photo is China Glaze “For Audrey”, a really fabulous color that almost anyone can wear

http://www.facebook.com/ChereeWinston Cheree Winston

I don’t mind the make-up…. isn’t it about fantasy?

Anonymous

She is ADORABLE!

http://twitter.com/carelessriver Cassie (C.M.W.)

I might mind the makeup less if the model had been allowed to look human. As in, not like a mannequin. This shoot falls right into the Uncanny Valley…

Anonymous

The makeup in the second photo is unfortunately reminiscent of black face. How someone saw that photo and okay-ed it, is really beyond me. I get what they’re trying to do as a story, but they really missed the mark there.

sweetlilvoice

The last photo is amazing, she looks like a mannequin.

http://twitter.com/DarthJaeda Jaeda Laurez

I’d really like a photoshoot where a dark skinned model (other than Naomi) was just allowed to be pretty- Inevitably, if they are dark, the makeup is almost used as a caricature- let’s take this African thing and make it up like a demon/sculpture/animal.

Now I don’t necessarily have beef with this particular shoot- the clothes are lovely, and the heavy use of color fits the clothes, even if I dislike it- but it is something I think about when I see these shoots and the African models are always made up like cartoon characters.

Anonymous

I agree with you in a general sense, although to me it seems the intention here was not cartoon character so much as showcasing spring makeup colors – the copy under Playful Peepers, Show Off Your Pout, Lollipop Cheeks, etc has how-to practical suggestions for toning down the colors for real life. Allure does the same kind of thing every season (although I think their makeup artists & photographers do a better job).

I do think it’s fantastic that they put these typically WASP-y clothes on an African woman. She wears them beautifully and the colors are gorgeous on her.
- http://twitter.com/DarthJaeda Jaeda Laurez
  
  And that’s what I’m saying- this, for me, is not an example of what i referred to. Even if I’m not a fan of the makeup, i think it makes sense, art-wise. But it is something I think of every single time an African model is made up in an extreme fashion.

Anonymous

The makeup is unfortunate but the colors are striking against her skin. It’s definitely an editorial that will make you stop and look.
I find I’m loving the scarves more than anything here.

Anonymous

Love that window-pane dress and coat…actually, I like most of it even though I’m not much of a pastel-y person. Make-up is very unfortunate.

Anonymous

That model is gorgeous

https://profiles.google.com/104791269167429064986 Judy S

I have been thinking about these images. I actually kind of like the first pic with the green and yellow eyes. I don’t like the rest but the model’s coloring and features make the looks interesting anywya. The last one is bizarre because it looks almost like a negative of a conventional rosy-cheeked girl, with the cheeks bleached pale instead of darkened red.
Clothes? What clothes?

Anonymous

Did they use the makeup bazooka on her face? She’s so pretty they must have tried REALLY hard to find the worst possible make-up colors/applications on her.

Anonymous

I found myself having to put my hand over her face so that I could even see the clothes. It’s really a shame, because she’s such a pretty girl. That makeup artist should be drawn and quartered.

oohsparkley!

Whoa! Scary clown makeup – I didn’t even notice the clothes.

Anonymous

Whelp, looks like somebody found Homer’s makeup gun again.

http://twitter.com/rgmx Mercy

She’s wearing the same stupid hat in every frame. Hate it.

Warmheartedgirl Seattle

Not loving the makeup but LOVE the collection! I want almost all of it!

Anonymous

What have they put on her face — housepaint?

Anonymous

it’s nice to see Prada on a woman of color(other than Shala Monroque), since Miz P herself never casts her shows that way.

Anonymous

Why helLO, blackface makeup. I actually had to scroll back up to look at the clothes (which are in fact adorable on the model, who is also adorable) because the makeup was so distracting.

Anonymous

Maybe someone commented on this, but if so I missed it: The editorial text is 90-some per cent about “how to” do this makeup. The same makeup 90-some per cent of us either dislike or find offensive or both.

Either WE are missing the boat, or the folks at Marie Claire South Africa missed it. In either case, by a wide margin.

In other news, I agree with BigWhiteGrannyPanties (I believe you were the first to air this opinion) that most of the clothes evoke the least inspiring, if not necessarily ugliest ['cause that is a deep, deep well], color combinations and prints of the 1970s. Final photo excepted. I am feeling a particularly virulent dislike for the dress in two shades of blue with piping, most egregiously on the over-large collar.

Anonymous

Ok, as a gay black fashion lover I have to say at no point did I think black face or ministrel show. Maybe I’m missing something or maybe I’m not as overly sensitive as everyone else seems to be.

My initial thought was: “Wow! These photos look a lot like photos I have of my mom and aunts from the late ’60s.”

My second thought was “Wow! I’m getting a Grace Jones vibe circa ’80s Slave to the Rhythm/Jean-Paul Goude era.”

The make-up is a bit clownish, garish and unflattering but I’m just not feeling the racist blackface vibe. I can see how others can get that from this editorial, but I didn’t.

http://vhanna26.typepad.com Vera

Seriously gorgeous model. Cool clothes although she is wearing the same hat throughout. Makeup, not so much.

Anonymous

love it all. the unconventional dark-skinned button nosed model, the risky make-up and the clothes. she makes all the clothes look good. my favourite is the pink coat and dress combo.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1505642 Tangier Bates

even though the makeup sucked, her nail colors are awesome

frankystein123

Dafuq.

http://phreddd.livejournal.com/ Fred V

Fuck the eyes! The makeup artist did her NOSE no favors, either.

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Marie Claire South Africa’s “Like Sweets from Heaven”

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