TRENDS
SCARLET FEVER Red Lipstick Isn’t Going Anywhere—Ever..
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ASHION’S MOST ENDURING romance is not with hemlines, handbags, or the season’s latest silhouette, but with the color
bravado of a painted lip. Elizabeth Arden famously distributed tubes of scarlet to the women on the front lines of that parade, cementing red lipstick not simply as makeup but as manifesto. Decades later, Hollywood carried the torch: Monroe, Hayworth, Garbo—each relied on the red lip as shorthand for allure, star power, and self-possession. Even in the eras when minimalism whispered its way into our palettes, that crimson tube merely rested, never retired. Today, in a landscape of filters, viral cycles, and micro-trends measured in hours, red persists as the singular beauty code that needs no algorithm to prove its worth. TikTok’s “Red Lip Theory” may have packaged the revelation neatly, but its premise—one swipe to brighten, balance, and transform the face—has been a makeup artist’s quiet truth for
decades. “A red lip balances the face and instantly brightens your complexion,” Alexis Androulakis told Allure in 2022, summarizing why the shade still cuts through digital distraction with ease. On runways, red remains couture’s punctuation mark, seen most recently at Thom Browne’s Fall 2024 show, where each model’s mouth was a study in deliberate, lacquered precision. And in pop culture, Rihanna wears it not as costume but conviction—proof that the power of red isn’t performative, but personal. In a world forever chasing what’s next, the red lip stands as fashion’s rarest treasure: something immune to time, untouched by trend fatigue, forever elegant in its certainty. It doesn’t return—it waits, it endures, and when called upon, it spectacularly reminds us who we are.
worn closest to our voice. A century on, the red lip remains an ageless symbol of charisma, rebellion, and unapologetic power. Editors love to declare its “comeback,” yet nothing so foundational to glamour ever truly leaves. The red lip isn’t a trend—it’s a cultural constant, shaping and reflecting how we see beauty, femininity, and identity, even as eras shift and aesthetics reset. Long before it was a signature of screen sirens, red lipstick was a political device, a gesture worn boldly in public and considered scandalous in private. In 1912, suffragists marched down New York City with crimson mouths to match their demands, strengthened by the silent
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EC Magazines | Busan Edition 2025
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