Betsey Johnson — her look is classic, in its own unclassical way. The hair is always impossibly platinum; the bangs bluntly cropped. She’s never without those bright red lips or thick kohl-rimmed eyes. They’re about as iconic as her end-of-the-show cartwheel. For 10 straight days in 1970, however, Johnson went without any makeup — and told the tale to WWD. “It is marvelous in some ways because I can rub my eyes without smudging,” she said. “After eight years of wearing makeup, I am trying to get used to the way I really look…to see myself the way I really am. I guess the makeup was sort of a mask.”
The designer, who was working at the sportswear firm Alley Cat while heading up the new boutique Betsey Bunky Nini, explained how her relationship with cosmetics began at an early age. “I started dancing when I was a kid and then I was a cheerleader in high school, and more dancing, then Mademoiselle,” Johnson noted. “It seems I have been on stage half my life.” She went on to describe, rather candidly, how “the makeup was used to cover up all of my deficiencies. You know, making more of my eyes, because there was nothing else.” WWD suggested Johnson might find “makeup happiness” in the middle ground between all or nothing. “Maybe,” she responded. “But what I absolutely hate is that safe little look that Glamour magazine made famous. You know, that one with the grosgrain bow and pearl earrings. So personality-less.” — Venessa Lau