As a new exhibition on the Design Museum in London chronicles the creative means of legendary filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, we dip into the archives of a few of Kubrick’s most memorable beauty looks. From asserting dominance through eyelashes to the demise of a wedding told through a chignon, Kubrick understood the nuances of hair and make-up as a narrative tool, a option to flesh out characters and communicate plot.

Here a few of his defining beauty moments on film.

Alex DeLarge’s menacing lashes, A Clockwork Orange

Perhaps what makes antihero Alex probably the most terrifying of Kubrick’s sociopaths, is the streak of irony in his evil. Alex flourishes within the role of the comedic psychopath, every crime he commits having a flair of theatricality. He rapes a girl to the tune of Singing within the Rain. He drinks tall glasses of milk laced with drugs. He listens to Beethoven in preparation for his kill.

To say his dominance as leader of “the Droogs”, Alex takes their white boiler suit uniform a step further by rimming one menacing eye with fluttery eyelashes. The look is sort of clown-like, but abhorrently pretty, making his twisted animalistic faces when killing much more disturbing. The lashes are a play on femininity, mocking the softness he preys upon by directly reflecting the individuals who fear him. Alex is innately evil until he undergoes behaviour modification. Behaviour modification strips him of his individualism, reflected in his overly plain appearance thereafter.

Bowie, Led Zeppelin, and Guns N Roses were just a few of many bands capping the Alex aesthetic as their very own, milking Alex’s “before” look as a option to warn against power and what it could induce. A single eye rimmed with liner and lashes became a dangerous wink to the frenzied crime fame of the film, and a middle finger to the underlying theme of presidency interference.

Alice Hartford’s loose chignon, Eyes Wide Shut

Nicole Kidman at her finest starring alongside Tom Cruise in Kubrick’s avant-garde tackle a wedding falling to bits.

Eyes Wide Shut hairstylist and Kubrick beauty consultant Kerry Warn reveals the choice behind Nicole Kidman’s iconic out-of-bed-chignon. “Stanley said to me: I would like to see all those red curls, that’s what I like about her: those red curls and that fair skin.” But Warn had one other idea. “I said, Stanley, can I just show you something?” Warn took Kidman’s hair, twisted it up and said: “You’re losing all of the neck, that great neck, the skin, the jaw.” Stanley replied, “You’re absolutely right.”

Her delicate, part skilled, part post-coital hair aids to visualise the tone of the film: distrust in a wedding, desire, losing control. The updo, with pieces falling down, is a representation for Kidman’s sexual frustration throughout the film – as she is caught between trying to keep up her marriage (her hair up signifying stability, devotion, and modesty), and on the point of succumbing to adultery (hair down, erotic, wild, untamable).

Dolores Haze’s helmet hair, Lolita

Sue Lyon plays the role of disturbingly beautiful Lolita, a 14-year old girl falling prey to a (much) older man Humbert Humbert. The uncomfortable line between child and woman is enhanced and communicated by her coiffed, adult-ish hair, a stark opposite from her playful demeanour. Her hair doesn’t suit her and makes the audience aware of this little girl playing dress up. Lolita is pretending to be a girl, trying on different roles of femininity as every adolescent girl does, especially the summer before highschool when there may be nothing to do but try to transform yourself into someone prettier, older.

The last word femme enfant, her hair is without delay alluring and repelling given her youthful context. Kubrick essentially tricks the viewer into almost justifying Humbert’s predatory actions.

Jack’s combover, The Shining

Jack Nicholson’s murderous meltdown in the Shining solidified his facial expressions as a cultural point of reference because the film’s debut in 1980. Jack stars as “Jack”, a person who moves his family to a distant hotel through the off-season, snowy winter to develop into its caretaker. The hotel brings out the worst in everyone, especially Jack, who begins to duplicate the haunted tale of the previous caretaker who killed his family years ago.

Jack’s well-kept but shabby masculinity, to start with, convey a lifetime of normality, subject to the whims of family life but maintaining composure through hardship. The evolution of his combover is a direct slope for Jack losing his mind. Upon his arrival, he’s the image of mediocracy, with only the slightest glint of crazy in his eye and definitely regular use of shampoo. As Jack continues to inhabit the hotel, his gaze deadens, his hair grows and manifests right into a feather-light flop of oily hair. His body is a shell, an unkept tool to perform the deeds he has planned for his family, his thinning hair symbolic for his declining way of thinking and apathy towards himself and the wellbeing of his family. Within the film’s climax, Jack is up to now gone that he almost seems bald, symbolic of his total unravelling.

Varinia’s androgynous cut, Spartacus

Throughout the time of Spartacus’ 1960 release, actresses were either solid as screen sirens or aged old crows. There was little in between, so Kubrick’s decision to render Hollywood bombshell Jean Simmons in her role as Varinia with an androgynous looking cut was a daring, subversive move –  one which reinforced film’s homosexual undertones. When Spartacus and Varinia meet, her hair is cropped short, she is skinny and gaunt, made to look boyish. Homosexuality had not yet been accepted into mainstream cinema, especially not in a Roman war retelling similar to Spartacus. The film was in regards to the loyalty of men towards slave turned warrior Spartacus. Nonetheless, the bisexuality of ancient Rome was so necessary for Kubrick to convey, he even added a scene where Crassus and Antoninus discuss liking “oysters and snails”, a metaphor for each sexes… . Here Jean’s boyish cut becomes a logo for repressed homosexual desire.