Vogue Profiles Arianna Huffington, Calls Her Makeup ‘Thick’

by Verena von Pfetten | 10:43 am, September 21st, 2011

Arianna Huffington graces the October pages of Vogue magazine in a profile that covers both the personal and well-trod ground, and includes the usual amount of outfit descriptions as well as one decidedly underminey beauty observation.

Author Elizabeth Rubin sets the scene for her meeting with Huffington as such:

We were backstage at the appropriately named New World Stages in midtown Manhattan. Arianna was dressed in suede knee-high boots, a gray dress, a ruffly collar over a cardigan, the hair unflappable, the makeup thick. She gave herself a cursory glance in the mirror.

Thick though her makeup may be — as is the norm for stage or television appearances — the comment feels a little unnecessary, though perhaps it helped Vogue make the point that Huffington is a female with the same beauty insecurities (largely fostered by ladymags of its ilk) as the rest of us.

But the piece also includes a couple of infantalizing descriptions of Huffington which feel a little unnecessary.

She girlishly curls her hair behind her ear.

And later:

Looking almost like a schoolgirl in her signature short black jacket and starched white shirt, with a sheaf of papers on her lap, Arianna tells her Aspen audience that the American Dream is broken and Obama has done nothing to fix it.

As someone who worked for Huffington*, I can personally say I’ve never seen her as “looking almost like a schoolgirl.”

In any case, there is one tidbit that is engaging and almost delightfully personal, and it takes place at a bookshop cafe near the Yale campus where both her daughters attend school.

Christina is already on the journalism road. She broke a major story about sexual harassment on campus. “We got an insane amount of hits!” says Christina. “And now the administration for the first time is doing something.” “It’s amazing it had such pickup,” says Arianna. “The New York Times. Zezebel. . . . ” “She means Jezebel,” says Christina. “The accent!”

And that’s how you make someone like Huffington relatable.

Arianna Huffington: The Connector [Vogue]

*I was employed by The Huffington Post from March 2008 to June 2009.

Arianna Huffington arianna huffington vogue profile Vogue

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