Revlon III: Fire and Ice

This is the third in a series on Revlon’s marketing and advertising campaigns, 1930s-50s. For greater understanding, go back and read the first and second essays. I also explored Revlon’s House of Revlon salon.

To explore Revlon’s most famous color promotion and advertising campaign, I am leaning on Andrew Tobias’ biography of Charles Revson. Named after the makeup shade of this legendary campaign, Fire and Ice explores in detail its creation and roll-out. When Tobias was writing this biography in the early 1970s, most of the key players were still alive and working—and willing to provide (at times contradictory) interviews about its development. All quoted areas below are from Tobias’ text, which I have made every effort to back up independently.

The shade promotion to end all others was Revlon's Fire and Ice, in the fall of 1952. “You could hardly pick up a general-circulation or fashion magazine this week,” Business Week led off a major story, “without seeing the [Fire and Ice] advertisement… To much of the industry, this was one of the most effective ads in cosmetics history. In a sense, it marked a new height in an industry where advertising is all-important (cosmetics are second only to food in advertising volume). Perhaps more than any previous ad, this one successfully combines dignity, class, and glamour (a trade euphemism for sex.)”

The two-page advertising spread was split between the dazzling model Dorian Leigh, in “an icy silver-sequin dress with a fiery scarlet cape” and a more clinical list of questions topped with the headline, “ARE YOU MADE FOR 'FIRE AND ICE?’” If you answered yes to eight of the fifteen questions below you were.