Fashion’s longest love affair is with the color on our lips. A century on, the red lip remains an ageless symbol of passion and power that outlasts every fleeting fancy.
Once again, style pages trumpet the “return” of the red lip – as if something so fundamental to glamour could ever truly disappear. Far from a mere cosmetic flourish, the red lip serves as an aesthetic lens, revealing how each generation defines beauty and identity while its own allure remains timeless.
A century ago, red lipstick was already acting as more than just makeup, but as war paint for women fighting for their place in the world. In 1912, thousands of suffragists marched through New York City with crimson lips as bold as their demands, as cosmetics icon Elizabeth Arden handed out tubes of red lipstick in solidarity. At a time when a painted mouth was scandalous to polite society, that defiant slash of red became the perfect emblem of rebellion and autonomy.
By mid-century, the red lip had shed its stigma to become Hollywood’s most famous calling card. Marilyn Monroe’s ruby pout burned into the American imagination, solidifying the red lip as an emblem of seduction and confidence. Generations of starlets followed suit, swearing by their signature scarlets whenever they needed an instant dose of glamour and moxie. When the pendulum swung toward bare-faced bohemia or ’90s grunge minimalism, the crimson lip simply waited in the wings, poised for its next close-up.
Even in today’s world of filters, hashtags, and blink-and-you-miss-it fads, the classic red lip still reigns supreme. TikTok’s recent “Red Lip Theory” obsession essentially reaffirms what generations of women have known all along. The theory suggests that wearing bold red lipstick, and nothing else, subtly corrects discoloration, giving the illusion of a brighter, clearer complexion by neutralizing imperfections and amplifying natural undertones.
“A red lip balances the face and instantly brightens your complexion,” Alexis Androulakis explained to Allure in a November 2022 interview, neatly summarizing why this age-old makeup artist secret resonates so deeply in our current cultural moment. Modern stars like Rihanna have long championed a bold red lip as her signature flourish, confidently wearing it years before any TikTok epiphany. The runway, too, remains loyal to red lipstick as a mark of classic yet assertive femininity—recently exemplified in Thom Browne’s Fall 2024 collection, where models walked with meticulously painted crimson mouths. Fashion’s fixation with constant reinvention often overlooks that true style lies in consistency—and nothing embodies this idea quite like a precise, purposeful swipe of red.
