Red Lipstick: Beauty as Defiance | Sophia Verai

In the realm of beauty, few objects have carried the symbolic weight of red lipstick. Seemingly frivolous, it has moved through history not merely as a cosmetic, but as an artefact of resistance asserting identity and agency. We find the indelible marks of this pigment on the lips of suffragettes, soldiers and silent rebels. It has not only served as an act of feminist resistance but even a symbol of defiance against fascism.

The colour red has long occupied a liminal space in cultural semiotics. It is the colour of blood, danger and power no less than it is of love, eros and life. It calls attention; it is not a colour that retreats. A red-lacquered mouth has been historically coded as either scandalous or sovereign.

The use of red lipstick as a political gesture begins on the streets of the 1912 New York Suffragette March. The story goes that beauty mogul Elizabeth Arden handed out lipsticks to women marching for the right to vote. At the time, make-up was in many contexts morally condemned and lipstick, especially in red, considered beyond daring. But in this moment for the suffragettes, red lipstick became a uniform. A slash of colour on the lips was a refusal to be silenced, a visual corollary to the fight for the right to be seen and heard. Apocryphal or not, Arden's gesture would redefine the wearing of red lipstick not as connoting seduction as per the male gaze, but as an self-sufficient expression of power.

As the world fought the rise of fascism red lipstick continued to embody resistance, this time for a new cause. In 1941, Elizabeth Arden was commissioned to create a shade specifically for the newly formed Marine Corps Women’s Reserve. The result was Montezuma Red, a rich, bold hue designed to match the red trim of the women’s military attire.

More than colour coordination, this was a form of psychological armour: war paint in a very literal sense. Further, it contradicted Nazi social codes where cosmetics, especially lipstick, were denounced. In a war of ideologies make-up, too, took a side. The concept saw popular support – in her book Red Lipstick: An Ode to a Beauty Icon, American journalist Rachel Felder notes that in Britain, women were so intent on the metaphor that they would stain their lips with beet juice if they could not find or afford the product itself.

In occupied France, wearing red lipstick was more quietly subversive. While overt resistance was brutally suppressed and guerrilla groups around the country were scattered and low on resources, small acts of defiance (la résistance quotidienne) became essential moral sustenance. The point was emphasised by Hitler's well-known personal dislike of red lipstick on women. Though not widespread or used as a rallying point by the Resistance, red lipstick signalled a refusal to be spiritually conquered, a reclamation of control when control had been taken away.

Even outside overt political contexts, the product has consistently served as an economic and emotional barometer. Estée Lauder's Leonard Lauder coined the term 'Lipstick Index' to describe the tendency for lipstick sales – particularly in bold shades – to increase during economic downturns. The explanation given is that in recessions people might cut back on luxury goods, but a tube of lipstick offers a relatively inexpensive dose of glamour and pleasure, a way to reclaim confidence and joy amid uncertainty. Red lipstick, then, becomes a kind of portable optimism.

In contemporary movements its political potency has not waned. It appears in feminist protests, in performances of gender identity, in countries where women’s public adornment is policed. It appears on stages, in boardrooms and on social media where beauty is constantly re-coded as either empowerment or excess. In these spaces, to define the mouth is to take the proverbial microphone.

Wearing red lipstick is not always a political act, but it is always a culturally legible one. It signals intention. It is not neutral. It is profoundly feminine, and it is part of a tradition of women who have used adornment to assert their identity and voice.