we crave human connection.
When we see someone crying, we
naturally empathize with them.”
Set against other high-drama
beauty statements this season—the
clumped lashes at Yohji Yamamoto
and Brandon Maxwell had the
afterglow of a good cry—Gucci’s
cinematic melancholia sharpened
one’s eyes to other tears: wet tracks
down Cate Blanchett’s grinning
face in a Beauty Papers editorial, a
sniffling woman on the subway.
Since creative director Alessandro
Michele loves Old Hollywood
pomp, it was hard not to think of
maudlin performances of the
past. The fashion was all new, but
the stylized tears called to mind
Judy Garland caterwauling directly
into the lens of a camera.
Where public crying was once
seen as bathetically feminine, it
began to take on a more subversive
energy by the time Garland
sat for the photographer Douglas
Kirkland. It was 1961, and the
39-year-old actress was in rough
shape (due to a heavy mix of
barbiturates and alcohol, she would
be dead before the end of the
decade). In a now iconic shot,
Garland stares ahead in anguish as
an avalanche of elephant tears rolls
down her cheek. At first, it appears
to be a glimpse of a woman caught
in a guileless state of release.
But the longer you look—Garland
is wearing a flick of eyeliner, with
perfectly tweezed brows and a juicy
coral lip—the clearer it becomes
that this was planned schmaltz.
You can see the same purposeful
melodrama in this month’s Judy,
a biopic starring Renée Zellweger
about Garland’s last years. In
the film, Zellweger pulls mawkish
faces in glitter bodysuits, twisting
her visage into a tragic mask. This
is Sad Judy, trotted out as both a
cautionary tale and as a glamorous
icon, a warbling pietà who suffered
for her art. Campy blubbering,
it seems, is back in the spotlight.
For her ongoing photographic
series Women Crying, the artist
Anne Collier collects images of
people in lamentation res (including
Kirkland’s portrait of Garland and
comic-book damsels), reframing
their sob stories through her own
critical lens. The British-Italian
photographer Clara Giaminardi’s
recent portfolio, The Reasons I Cry,
features a teary model, her spidery
lashes akimbo. “I was watching
Godard’s Vivre Sa Vie,” Giaminardi
says of the project’s genesis. “There
is that scene where Anna Karina
is in a movie theater, and Joan of
Arc is on screen crying, and Karina
is crying.” Giaminardi found herself
musing on female emotion, above
all, grief. “My work is exploring
that, but then trying to push it to an
extreme—to the point where
it feels slightly uncomfortable.”
Sorrow-core is also moving onto
smaller screens. Flick through
Instagram and you will find: a
recent GIF of a woebegone model
with red-rimmed eyes and
rivulets running down her cheeks,
courtesy of the makeup artist Alex
Box, who cites surrealism and
religious paintings as influences;
selfies of people whimpering in
order to show their “real” selves;
and memes of cry-face reality stars,
the prima donnas of our modern
iconography. There is something
suspect in the conspicuous display
(nothing smacks of bankable
authenticity like a public
meltdown), but it’s a respite from
Facetuned perfectionism. By
sharing collective pain, is there a
chance of diffusing it?
Perhaps the new trend—
of letting the saline gush out in
a crumply mess, of letting
one’s lacrima fall where it may—
is a means of forcing empathy
in a disconnected time. We may
blithely lob *teary face* emoji
without actually feeling anything,
but it is still impossible to watch
another human cry without a lurch
in your own gut. It is a vulnerability
lever, the emotion most likely to
jolt us out of a digital stupor.
There is beauty in letting it all flow
out—think of Alexandria Ocasio-
Cortez’s unabashed ugly cry in the
Netflix documentary Knock Down
the House, a moment as relatable
and alluring as her red-lipstick
polish. Of course fashion is going
to take this private act and twist
it into an aesthetic movement; that
is what fashion does. We wail,
and consumer culture runs with it.
Haute crying is now a fixture. Read
it and weep. —rachel syme
Artist Petra
Collins at this
year’s Met
Gala, wearing
teardrops
inspired by
Gucci’s fall
2019 runway.
WATER
WORKS
COVERGIRL
Exhibitionist
Waterproof Mascara,
£7. (covergirl.com)
Eylure
Luxe Cashmere
Lashes in No. 6, £16.
(eylure.com)
TOM FORD
Emotionproof
Mascara,
£38. (selfridges.com)
Dior
Diorshow On Stage
Liner in Vinyl Black,
£28. (dior.com)
SEPTEMBER 2019 VANITY FAIR 47
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