Loads of folks nonetheless consider Gloria Steinem because the tall, comely babe with honey-toned, center-parted hair who a long time in the past blazed a path for second-wave feminism sporting aviator glasses perched on the bridge of her nostril.
A few of these folks could also be heartened to be taught that, other than a number of steel-gray hairs and creases, Ms. Steinem, who turned 90 in March, appeared a lot the identical when she hosted a dialogue this month in help of a brand new advertising and marketing marketing campaign for Jones Highway, her pal Bobbi Brown’s four-year-old magnificence model.
“I used to be ‘the gorgeous one,’” Ms. Steinem mentioned of her early days as a journalist and activist. Again then, she recalled, there was a broadly held notion — or a “ridiculous notion,” as she put it — “that feminists have been girls who couldn’t get males.”
She was reminiscing in her front room on the Higher East Facet of Manhattan with Ms. Brown, 67, and a bunch of girls in a spread of professions, amongst them the actress Naomi Watts, who not too long ago began a line of menopause merchandise; Carla Hassan, the chief advertising and marketing officer at JPMorgan Chase; and Suleika Jaouad, the documentary movie producer and author who received an Emmy Award for her video sequence documenting her experiences with most cancers for The New York Instances.
The ladies spoke candidly about any variety of irksome points whereas discussing Ms. Brown’s new marketing campaign for Jones Highway, which she began after the expiration of a 25-year noncompete settlement she signed with Estée Lauder Firms when it acquired her namesake model, Bobbi Brown Cosmetics.
The largely digital marketing campaign, known as “I Am Me,” urges girls of various ages and backgrounds to give attention to what they like about themselves — the options that make them distinctive. It’s however the newest expression of Ms. Brown’s longtime insistence on bucking trade ideas of how make-up ought to look and be marketed.
Ms. Brown was introduced up within the Midwest, in a tradition that most popular leggy blondes, she mentioned in a telephone interview on Tuesday. Rising up, she had by no means thought of herself “the gorgeous one.”
It was solely in later years that she arrived at an epiphany. “I lastly realized, Dude, you’re a handsome, brief brunette — simply go together with it,” she mentioned.
Not that she is averse to some strategic tweaks. She has had laser remedies to take away darkish spots and, sure, she has dyed her hair. “I occur to love the best way I look with darkish hair,” she mentioned.
Ms. Steinem, who has hardly ever worn lipstick and depends totally on moisturizer and a little bit of eye make-up, mentioned in a telephone interview on Wednesday that Ms. Brown’s practical strategy to magnificence was commendable.
“Bobbi just isn’t in pursuit of glamour,” she mentioned. “She is encouraging girls to embrace who they’re — wrinkles, freckles and all.”
A Salon With Snippets of Southern France
At Maison Seventy Seven, a not too long ago opened salon on the western fringe of SoHo in Manhattan, there aren’t any junior stylists coated in tattoos, no raucous songs pulsing by means of audio system and no house owners’ names emblazoned on the door.
These acquainted trappings of many high-end hair salons “are usually not my manner,” mentioned Fabrice Gili, a former inventive director at Frédéric Fekkai in New York who began Maison Seventy Seven with the hairstylist David Cotteblanche.
Mr. Gili, 55, mentioned they conceived their salon because the antithesis of the high-polish and sometimes forbiddingly austere magnificence temples of uptown Manhattan. With a cheery show of straw and felt fedoras at its entrance, a palm tree wall mural and small again backyard the place clients can get haircuts, the area is supposed to conjure a soothing slice of Mr. Gili’s native South of France.
Casual as its ambiance could also be, Maison Seventy Seven salon nonetheless has some trappings of its extra genteel counterparts, together with a bar stocked liberally with coffees, liquors and Champagne. There’s additionally a choice of merchandise on the market like salves, aromatherapy tub salts, dried floral preparations and witty ceramics.
Since opening in March, the salon has drawn patrons ranging in age from 20-something to 70-something with its menu of haircuts (beginning at $175), single-process coloration remedies (beginning at $170) and highlights (beginning at $330), mentioned Mr. Gili, who realized his craft from a few of Europe’s main hairstylists, like Bruno Pittini and Jean-Louis David.
Mr. Gili’s profession was additionally closely influenced by that of his mom, who owned a salon in Bordeaux that he described as a gathering place for the ladies of his group.
It was there, he mentioned, that he realized “it is very important contact folks in methods they don’t anticipate, particularly to the touch them with laughter, which is turning into actually uncommon.”
“A humorousness is necessary,” he continued. “Earlier than we repair the hair, we’ve got to repair the mind.”
