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Cosplay the Classics: Greta Garbo

Greta Garbo was one of my very first favorite actresses. That perfectly magnetic face was a force even on a television screen. I set my VCR to tape every movie she was in as they appeared on TCM, then bought them all on DVD as they were released. In high school, a few of my friends even crafted Garbo-themed doodads for me because she wasn’t plastered on all manner of goods like Audrey Hepburn, James Dean or Marilyn Monroe were in the early 2000s. Though I didn’t put voice to it at the time, seeing a woman whose romance so clearly knew no gender was formative for me.

Garbo is by no means obscure, but even more people need to be watching her films. Don’t fret! Filmstruck to the rescue: Greta Garbo is their star of the week!

No time like the present to try my hand at a wearable Swedish Sphinx look. I aimed for late-silent Garbo, a la The Kiss (1929) and The Mysterious Lady (1928).

Taken and collaged by photographer Clarence Sinclair Bull in 1931, this photo spurred on the sticky nickname.

The Face of Garbo

The face of Garbo has inspired odes in spiritual, philosophical, and psychoanalytical terms over the past century and, yeah, it would be way above my pay grade to contribute to that canon. In lieu of that, let’s learn a little bit about how Garbo’s image was constructed.

When Greta Garbo made the trek from Sweden to Hollywood in 1925, she had all the raw ingredients to be a screen star. A face with no bad angles that still and film cameras can love alike is rare. All Garbo needed was a bit of polish to marry her outward appearance to the languid grace of her performance style.

Off screen, Garbo was often reported as wearing unassuming baggy trousers, loafers, and oversized sweaters. A thoroughly uncomplicated person. On screen, Adrian collaborated closely with her to style and design fashions that would follow her every move in seventeen of her feature films.

While I didn’t do a full-body look this time around, I tried to choose a top that would slouch with my posture.

Garbo’s makeup is beautifully consistent across her fifteen years in Hollywood. The application evolved as camera and projection technology advanced, but the shapes remained the same. Starting with Torrent (1926) and her first few silents, her makeup was drawn in higher contrast with heavier lines. In the late silents and her first few talkies, the lines were softened with more gradients in her eyeshadow and lipstick, and film cameras and lighting rigs began to capture more subtle gradations of light and dark. Throughout the rest of the 1930s all the way to Two-Faced Woman (1941), the lines were thinner and more delicate and paired with further shading, but still with a graphic effect.

from Torrent (1926), The Mysterious Lady (1928), and Conquest (1937)

The theme of her iconic look was a dreamy sensuousness, and I personally love that her makeup design is so simple. If applied properly it could be flattering on any face.

Read on after THE JUMP

Garbo wore a heavy line across her lashline, usually the darkest drawn element on her face. If you had the eyelashes of a mortal this line would be too heavy, but we’re talking about Garbo here. I put on a full strip of falsies. 

The line elongates the eye, much like a cat-eye flick, but it extends down and out to create a sultry-but-kind look. (Note: this liner style is currently en vogue in Japan right now & I think it’s overdue for a comeback on this side of the Pacific.) On the outer edge of the lower lashline a lighter line is drawn from the end of the upper line to the lower lashline, forming a small triangle. This finishes off the elongation of the eye. To make it more striking, you can fill in the triangle with a lighter nude liner.

On the lid, Garbo’s crease was emphasized sharply. Across the makeup eras described above, first it was a deep line that met the eyeliner in the corners, then a more natural gradient still with a cut crease, and then back to a distinct line, but applied with a much lighter hand.

from Flesh and the Devil (1926), Anna Christie (1930), and Two-Faced Woman (1941) 

Her eyebrows were plucked and drawn thinly, as was the style at the time. Regardless, Garbo usually followed her natural brow shape.

Garbo’s skin was described as remarkably flawless; Louise Brooks called it “petal-like.” So, a good powder is a must. Reportedly, she used a Max Factor foundation with a silver tint so the light would reflect strongly off her face. (This also probably explains why in a few of her films her face is so much brighter than her usually quite tan neck and shoulders.)

For blush, I used a simple dusty pink because her cheeks are much fuller than mine–so I didn’t want to add dimension. Dusty pink was also her favorite color. Like really.

Garbo’s New York apartment was decked out ceiling to carpet almost exclusively in rose pink!

Her lips were lined in a single tone following her natural shape. My lips are fuller but not as wide as hers so I drew them out a bit at the edges with a lip brush and filled in the shape in this method:

from The Kiss (1929)

Over the past year or so, I’ve experimented a lot with wet-set curling to improve my vintage chops. Many 1930s styles are difficult to achieve and Garbo’s is the least fussy hairstyle I’ve attempted from the period. So, even before the effortless long bob Garbo sported for much of her life, her styling was simple.

There are some accounts that she was a little erratic about working on her image but it must have been some relief that Garbo had close collaborators ironing out the glamor to accentuate her own art. Garbo took acting very seriously without much interest in being a movie star. Time has told that with Adrian as a costumer, Max Factor as a makeup designer, Clarence Sinclair Bull as a portrait photographer, and William H. Daniels as a cinematographer, an adequately sublime, timeless image was created to match her sublime, timeless performances.

Garbo’s Reach

Often when people talk about Marilyn Monroe’s predecessors, they can’t seem to get past her fluffy blonde hair. They draw endless parallels to Jean Harlow, with whom she shares little more than a hair color. Monroe herself idolized Garbo. And it shows if you’re looking for it.

All together, the lazy/sexy ideal is embodied by both women. Where Monroe usually infused this spirit into dizzy comedic roles, Garbo primarily put it to use playing women of mystery. Suffice it to say, both stars have reached an iconic status at least in part because their roles were intertwined so cleverly with their respective public images.

I look to Monroe’s eye makeup as the dead giveaway. Monroe and her makeup artist, Whitey Snyder, created much the same shapes but with gentler lines.

When Garbo first emerged with her long bob, it was admired by fans, but magazine writers were quick to point out that this was unflatteringly long and advised that only Garbo could pull it off. Likewise, Monroe was put down in the press for her too-long unstylish hair–some journalists even comparing her to a dog. (The ideal then being closer to Elizabeth Taylor’s neatly coiffed short curls.) Funny that both styles are considered almost universally flattering today.

According to Katharine Cornell, when Garbo was considering a return to the screen she wanted to star alongside Monroe. Garbo confided that she wanted to play Dorian Gray with Monroe as Sibyl Vane. If you’re queer-hearted like myself (and Garbo) it’s devastating that we never got that film.

I suppose I’ll sign off now with tears in my eyes for what could have been and for the mutual appreciation that Marilyn Monroe probably never knew about.