Get UnReady with Me
By Nicholas Hayden
The concept of celebrity, and its relationship with our own understandings of intimacy, has always fascinated me. The last decade has seen an unprecedented rise in what is meant to be a close and unfiltered relationship between those with a celebrity platform and the people who follow them. Those who have amassed a following are now encouraged to reach out through every available platform in order to create a veneer of raw, easily accessible and honest discourse. Of authenticity. Inescapably, this has influenced the ways in which those with a following or platform have had to pitch to powerhouse media outlets, as well as the way that these magazines (and blogs, et al) have to portray each subject to remain in step with culture at large.
It’s no longer good enough to know that Marilyn Monroe wears Chanel No. 5, we have to see her put it on in “Marilyn shows us how to do the perfect Red Lip for a date [emoji redacted]”. And one can admit that initially that seems interesting; seeing a cultural pillar of the times in an intimate moment to bestow some of their wisdom on us as viewers who could only ever hope to become them. With this comes two major issues, however. The first being that as soon as you film these moments, the nighttime routines, the ‘get ready with me’s, they lose authenticity and depth. The second and slightly more complex issue is that, as media has evolved to bolster this false vignette of closeness with these people we’ve never met, the viewers have evolved also. We can’t suspend disbelief and trust that what we’re seeing is off the cuff and honest anymore.
Remember when Jennifer Lawrence tripped up the stairs in 2013 and she laughed it off because she’s “real” while wearing her couture gown worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in front of a room full of millionaires? Yeah, that was fun. The vast majority of onlookers saw this new fresh actress and applauded seeing someone so at one with their own flaws that they could fall down, throw their head back and laugh. Veterans aren’t this brave. Now, this isn’t meant to be a takedown of Ms Lawrence, but rather at this moment of her career and the domino effect that it seemed to speed along. It is no coincidence that she is close to the Kardashian/Jenner family, who have created their entire brand on the basis of being unaffectedly honest in the portrayal of their lives. It is also no coincidence that both the Kardashians and Jennifer Lawrence have, in recent years, been known to be notoriously private, only showing what they want you to see. Moments like these link directly to where we are now, in being comfortable with seeing celebrities with no refinement, however genuine that may be.
Harper’s Bazaar runs a series online called “Go to bed with me…” featuring a growing array of celebrities who cheerfully greet the camera in some undisclosed location where they will then proceed to show the audience how they get ready for bed. Sometimes interesting, sometimes not, the thing that always grabs me from these is the vacantness of the energy. The blatant lack of truth. We can accept that these people probably do use some of these products in their day-to-day lives, but in these videos they are always mixed with unashamed self-promotion that usurps one’s real interest in the ritual of skincare, let alone the products they are feigning interest in. When Rihanna was recently included in the series, the entire segment carried a miasma of: I need to sell my new skincare line to build my personal empire. That’s not to say that she shouldn’t be promoting her products, but when executed in this particular way it’s hard to sidestep the lack of engagement (cc: Kylie Jenner). Not to mention that almost no research will show that the men and women in this series have had gold-star level skincare and aestheticians on call since they have been in the public eye.
By contrast, Trinny Woodall of What Not To Wear fame is someone who actually brings the camera in in a very honest way, to the point that the viewer is caught off guard. I want to see her getting her own plasma injected into her hairline to promote growth, and she delivers. I want to see her pull all of her retinoids out and explain them all, including her successes and failures with their applications. That is the kind of content I want to consume. Her filming errands as she gets various beauty treatments and explaining her supplements taken and her own genuine skincare preferences - this is something that thus far has never appeared in a Condé Nast or Hearst publication. The illusion of reality is lost when you realise that the Vogue’s production team is using the same Manhattan hotel with the same taupe tiling to shoot all of the tutorials. This links back to my earlier point about the false closeness that we have become so au fait with since the reality era truly became mainstream in the 2010s (not including Keeping up with the Kardashians and The Simple Life prior to that as it was still fairly niche to watch them then). Another good example of a contrast to this staged intimacy is make up doyen Lisa Eldridge. She is one of the most accomplished make up artists of her time with movie contracts, Chanel, Lancôme and Shiseido under her belt; she also has a YouTube channel for her tutorials alongside her ventures. I mention her as someone who pointedly doesn’t do sponsored content and only shows products that she knows work for her in her various routines. Also, if any of you reading this are stressed, watch her tutorial on facial massage - very soothing.
There is such a clear contrast between the likes of Lisa and the tutorials I spoke about earlier in this piece. This gap is defined by authenticity.
In a recent interview, Tom Ford, among other pillars of the fashion industry, was discussing what needs to change in the industry going forward. One of the pressing issues was the pace of fashion. This translates into more than designers having to put out 2-4 collections a year not including capsule work and campaigns. It speaks to a much larger issue, which is that brands believe the public want faster output and turnover. As in, we have to see Rihanna take off her makeup because we’re bored of having seen Cindy Crawford take her’s off a few days before. Expecting outlets and brands to deliver continually as we are now isn’t sustainable or realistic, and moreover is just whittling away at the people we value as celebrities along with the rituals which help to elevate them. In years past, it would have been enough to know that a celebrity wears a certain perfume, or uses Ponds cold cream to see it fly off the shelves. Now we are slowing to a halt, everything feels oversaturated; and at this saturation peak hearing that Johnny Depp wears Dior cologne can only be met with a shrug of indifference. These tutorials, ironically, have only thrown into relief how much business is involved in branding and fashion. It’s not someone you admire having a conversation with you in a comfortable space. It’s someone you don’t know trying to sell you something in a hotel they’ve probably never been to.