Vampire Winter 2025: it's the victory of Victorian aesthetics
From the 1920s until today, here's how to feel like dangerous and fascinating vampires with make-up
G-Club
January 28th, 2025
January 28th, 2025
"Forget hot girl summer, it's time for Nosferatu winter," this is how social media welcomed the new era. It seems that Robert Eggers' latest film, Nosferatu, has set the new winter trend, one that is deeply vampiric, Victorian, and gothic in the most traditional sense of the word. With its eerie elegance and dark allure, this aesthetic is quickly gaining traction, blending mysterious elements with a chic atmosphere perfect for the colder months: it's vampire winter, baby!
The Origins of the Vampiric Look
We already knew that the vamp look would take center stage in 2025, marking a revival that seems to echo the 1990s but has its roots in the 1920s. Back then, it introduced a new concept of beauty: a captivating, mysterious, and slightly dangerous woman. This style was made famous in silent films like Pandora’s Box (1929) and A Fool There Was (1915), where figures such as Louise Brooks and Theda Bara embodied the femme fatale, seducing men—or victims—with their dark and alluring charm. Key features of this makeup style included dramatically made-up eyes with eyeliner and dark shadows for an intense gaze. The lips, typically in dark red, were the focal point of the look. Meanwhile, pale porcelain skin contrasted with jet-black hair. This style, expressing sensuality and power, profoundly influenced the makeup world, making the vamp look a timeless reference to replicate endlessly.
In the 1990s, vamp makeup experienced a true resurgence, becoming one of the most popular trends in the underground scene and, inevitably, on runways. Unlike the 1920s version, the 1990s vamp look was more bold and intense, featuring lipsticks not only in red but also in darker shades like burgundy, purple, and black. Eyes were made up dramatically with thick eyeliner and dark shadows, while pale skin—achieved with light foundation—completed the gothic look.
The Perfect Vamp(ire) Makeup
Today, the vamp look continues to be a symbol of seduction and mystery, maintaining a lighter and more modern appeal by balancing the various makeup elements. The vampire's glowing skin in the sunlight, as Edward taught us in Twilight, becomes the starting point. To achieve the glowy effect, opt for a luminous and lightweight foundation like Even Better Glow by Clinique. To sculpt the face, use a cool contour product, such as the one from Sephora Collection, to define cheekbones and slim the face. At this stage, the look can be completed in two ways. The first focuses on highlighting the lips with a blood-red lipstick like Diva by Mac and lining them with a black pencil for a more dramatic effect, while keeping the eyes soft with brown eyeshadow and a simple layer of mascara. The second option emphasizes the eyes, using dark shadows like black and gray, accentuating under-eye circles with a touch of purple shadow, perhaps from the Pied-de-poule palette by Dior, and leaving the lips nude, outlined with a pencil slightly darker than the natural lip color, such as Morning Espresso by Lancôme. Of course, there's nothing stopping you from creating an even more vampy look by combining both options.