The whole point of gift-wrapping for Christmas is to make your presents look even more exciting, festive and beautiful than they actually are. Exactly the same principle applies to your face ; it should be packaged carefully for Christmas, in order that it may make a suitably scintillating impression at the festivities at which it is going to be found. And just as packaging for presents grows ever more ambitious year by year, so does it for faces ; no longer will a quick dollop of gold eyeshadow transform you into the belle of the ball. Your own personal Christmas packaging should be like the ones here, a dazzling combination of colour and shine…

Make-up was worked out by Richard Sharah, who’s a genius. “Get the foundation on smoothly,” he says, “and the rest’s easy.” Not totally true, but you know what he means. Hair was by Graham Breakwell from Schumi. He set what was basically a straight bob, with perm curlers, and made the model sleep in them. The result was a totally manageable mop of curls that lasted for days and could apparently be moulded into any shape at all. And the model was Marianne Desnaux, new to the game, and every bit of 15 years old. Her skin’s like a dream, and her recipe for keeping it so is alarmingly simple. “I go to bed early and wash it with soap and water.” But she also said she only wore make-up when she had to. There’s a moral there somewhere. Anyway, happy party going.

Photographed by Graham Hughes.

Scanned from Honey, December 1974.