There is one chapter for each decade from 1900 to 2000. At the beginning of each chapter, there are 10 to 20 images of non-celebrities with different period hairstyles. These are family photos submitted to the author. Then the decade is introduced with a single page of text without any pictures. It summarizes the events of that period and explains how they influenced women's hair fashion. The rest of the chapter shows only celebrity pictures and has no text.
The organization of the book is simple in chronological order, but there is no table of contents which can help you quickly find a decade or celebrity. The pages aren't numbered except on the text page which introduces the chapter. At the back of the book there are four pages of thumbnails like on a website; they have the names of the stars below them, but without the year corresponding to the hairstyle.
Femme Fatale was produced by the collaboration of three experts: Serge Normant, a top French hairdresser; Michael Thompson, a famous fashion photographer; and Bridget Foley, a women's fashion magazine editor.
The makeovers for the book were done on top models and actresses. For example, you see the hairstyle transformations of the best 1990s supermodels: Cindy Crawford; Christy Turlington; Claudia Schiffer; Kate Moss; and Carmen Kass. The foreword was written by British actress Elizabeth Hurley and there are some pictures of her in the book. Because the focus is on top models and stars, there are few mature women. The exceptions are: Susan Sarandon; Ellen Barkin; and Heather Locklear. There are only a few black women: Alex Wek; Ananda Lewis; and Naomi Campbell.
The memorable styles are the ones on beautiful women which were major transformations from how we normally see them today, or those which are just absolutely gorgeous:
1) Cindy Crawford has her hair up in a big conservative 1910s updo.
2) Ellen Barkin is sophisticated like 1960s siren Bridget Bardot. There are two Bardot styles; for one her hair is up and for the other it is down.
3) Cate Blanchett appears completely different with a very short pixie hairstyle from the 1990s which is virtually a crew cut. Normant provides both the front and side views of it.
Unfortunately there are not enough images for popular decades. For example, there are only four different celebrity hairstyles for the 1930s and another four for the 1940s. For a long time 1940s hairstyles have been the most popular retro hairstyles.
Even so, the few we see are brilliant. There is Ellen Barkin as Jean Harlow with platinum blonde waves, and Julianne Moore with glamorous long red hair after a Rita Hayworth makeover. Olga Pantushenkova has a 1930s chignon that would be perfect for a modern wedding; the front is classy and the back is gorgeous.Femme Fatale is a book of inspiration but not instruction. It is very heavy with images but rather light on text. The three experts did well, but it would have been much more valuable if they had used a fourth expert who provided step-by-step instructions on how to recreate the vintage hairstyles. It was surprising that Normant himself did not provide the guide because he created the looks!
The subtitle "Famous Beauties Then and Now" could be misinterpreted to mean that the book contains photos of Hollywood stars taken years ago and recently. But there aren't any such old pictures; it only has modern stars made up to look like old movie stars and old photos of women who aren't famous.
It is a fun book for women who like to dress up their hair in high style or just dream a little. Unless you have the time and skill to recreate the hair designs by Serge Normant without instructions, i.e., guessing and testing, you will want to use this book to show your hairdresser what you want. To get a do-it-yourself guide on vintage hairstyles with step-by-step instructions, your best bet is: Vintage Hairstyling: Retro Styles with Step-by-Step Techniques by Lauren Rennells.
Post Title → Modern Stars With Vintage Hairstyles
