The first wedding I ever took part in featured thunderous trombone music and a procession of dancing maidens. The groom was a dashing prince, the bride a beautiful princess. I was 12 and I sashayed across the stage, carrying a platter of inedible cake, in the opulent wedding scene in Firebird—a Russian fairy-tale ballet of moonlit forests and enchanted feathers. I wore an orange wig as well as several layers of Covergirl foundation, bright red lipstick, and—in a concession to harsh stage lights and my ballet teacher’s expectations—a heavy-handed smear of Maybelline blush.
Leaving ballet a few years later was bittersweet, but I was uncomplicatedly relieved to throw away that pink powder compact. Offstage, I have never been able to wear blush without looking like a Victorian consumptive, or a clown.
I successfully avoided blush for approximately the next two decades. But as I prepared for my wedding last year, I had to concede that pink cheeks were practically mandatory in bridal makeup—a remnant, maybe, of the long-standing associations with romance and feminine virtue. In Victorian novels, turning red suggested that a woman was aware of, but appropriately embarrassed by, sex. A blushing woman occupied “that period between innocence and erotic experience that marks the modest heroine’s entrance in the world,” literary critic Ruth Bernard Yeazell has written. “There was scarcely a tribute to the modest woman that did not mention blushing.”
In the run-up to my wedding, I dragged my friends to various boutiques scattered across London as I considered a series of similar ivory-colored slip dresses, and then—“just for fun”—I tried on an ornate gown, all pearl buttons and lacy bodice. As soon as I looked in the mirror, I knew it was my dress. Perhaps the pageantry of ballet had shaped my understanding of romantic beauty more deeply than I had realized.
Perhaps I’d also been influenced by the moment: Romantic beauty is enjoying a revival. Rom-coms, maligned for much of the 2010s, are making a triumphant return: Emily Henry’s People We Meet on Vacation was adapted for Netflix earlier this year; the escapist You, Me Tuscany is slated for April; and Lena Dunham’s next film, Good Sex, starring Natalie Portman as a couples therapist with a messy love life, arrives later this year. Romantasy—a genre that combines erotica and magic—has been credited with bolstering the ailing publishing industry’s spirits. Romance-themed bookstores with names like The Ripped Bodice, Meet Cute, and Blush are flourishing. Last fall, throngs of women packed into an exhibition dedicated to perennial icon of romantic beauty Marie Antoinette, at London’s V&A museum, where they admired diamond bows, lace collarettes, and diminutive slippers. As one 20-something woman paused to admire the doomed queen’s delicate scythe and hoe—gardening props she used in her private theater—I overheard her friend lean in to describe her new hobby: adult ballet. “The best part is sewing ribbons onto the slippers,” she said.
On the runways, designers are bidding goodbye to beige minimalism and pandemic-era athleisure. Ulla Johnson’s spring 2026 collection featured flowing fabrics and feather trimmings; Bibhu Mohapatra’s included ivory opera gloves and thick pearl chokers; and Rabanne dressed models in flouncy skirts and floral prints. At Sandy Liang, demure bows popped up on skirt pockets and hemlines. Hairstylist Evanie Frausto set models’ hair in Velcro rollers to create a single loopy ringlet in front of the face, and makeup artist Charlie Riddle used berry pink cream blush all over. “Everything’s diffused,” Riddle explained. At Proenza Schouler, where the new creative director, Rachel Scott, has imbued the label with a more feminine point of view, makeup artist Fara Homidi called the makeup “gentle, like the sound of fuzz.”
“There is a vibe for more softness,” says Peter Philips, creative and image director of Christian Dior Makeup, who incorporated greater fluidity and nuance in Jonathan Anderson’s first show for Dior. The look is about “more blending, not so many harsh lines. It’s like reading a poem.” Philips drew inspiration from the silhouette of the Eiffel Tower at sundown; racing across Paris in the early morning; Michelle Pfeiffer’s face in Dangerous Liaisons. He translated that feeling into flushed cheeks, alabaster skin, and a glossy mouth, “like after you just ate a peach.”
“Historically, when the world feels industrial, hard, or frightening, fashion often swings toward the soft, the historic, and the hypersentimental,” says fashion historian Serena Dyer. Romantic beauty offers a retreat from a diffuse sense of catastrophe and global turmoil—an opportunity to indulge in a fantasy of innocence and unspoiled nature. The Romanticism of the early 19th century, after all, “was partly based in this idea of glorifying nature,” says Colleen Hill, a curator at the Museum at FIT. “Being out in nature and having this healthy flushed look is certainly part of that.”
Surrounded by all this, I am tempted to experiment and schedule a visit from Jamie Coombes, a makeup artist for Dior. “ ‘Natural makeup’ is just as complicated as heavy makeup,” Coombes warns as he lugs a suitcase of approximately 500 products up the three flights of stairs to my apartment. He proceeds to spend a solid 30 minutes prepping my skin with micellar water, and then patting on moisturizer and serum with a series of brushes, which he says will prevent my skin from overheating and also makes me feel like ASMR is happening on my face, all before finally cracking open a bottle of foundation. A wash of soft gold eyeshadow and a sweep of mascara come next. When he reaches for a tube of blush, I panic slightly, but he assures me that it’s all about the placement: It should be above the cheekbones, close to the eye, rather than on the apple of the cheek (where I’m already rosy). In the end I look like myself, except…better, like I’m using the Paris filter on Instagram, or I’ve been painted by Renoir. Without meaning to, I sit up straighter. Coombes says I look like Cupid.
I am wary of veering into Kewpie doll cosplay territory, so I balance out the rest of my outfit with houndstooth trousers from Nanushka, black Maje boots, and a crop top from a Berlin shop where everything is unisex, and head out to meet friends from college. Arriving at the bar, I feel briefly self-conscious: I’ve barely changed my makeup routine since I met these people 15 years ago. When I point out my meticulously crafted visage, they have to squint. Looking “natural” is hard work.
My makeup survives a drizzly walk across east London to my friend Nicole’s house. I make everyone admire my blush, then—after one of Nicole’s lethal martinis—get lost in an impassioned discussion of Lily Allen and forget all about my face (a departure from every other time I’ve had makeup professionally applied and cannot wait to wash it all off).
I confess that after my tutorial, I did not start incorporating blush into my everyday routine. But a few products find a permanent place in my makeup bag. The Victoria Beckham eyeshadow stick in a shimmery pink shade called Ballet is one; scribbling across my eyelids reminds me of being a child with a crayon. Romantic beauty doesn’t just offer an escape from unease—but also a dose of nostalgia, a retreat from the ordinary stresses of adult life. Another is Guerlain’s Bee Glow Oil, which comes in a cannister with smooth, organic curves. There’s something comforting in it: a little messy, a little childish. I don’t think I’ve worn this kind of gloss since seventh grade. Just unscrewing the tube evokes buried memories of decorating my locker. It feels extravagant to swipe it on, alone in my booth at the library, as I work. It will last a few hours, and no one will see it. It feels like an act of self-love.