Crying "Make the Most of Yourself!" last May, Street & Smith's young women's magazine Mademoiselle began a series of articles on beauty and charm. One of its most interested readers was a 21-year-old Boston nurse named Barbara E. Phillips, who wanted to go on the stage. Miss Phillips, who considered herself a very plain girl, was sufficiently impressed to sit down at her typewriter, compose a long, yearning letter to the magazine. To Mademoiselle's editors Barbara Phillips announced that, though she also read Vogue, Harper's Bazaar and the Atlantic Monthly, and could identify such widely assorted characters as Vincent van Gogh, Beatrice Lillie and Princes Natalie Paley, she still stood in need of advice on "how to do my hair, powder my nose, cultivate sex appeal and walk a straight line."
"I am as homely as a hedgehog," said this frank reader, "my only good feature being my blue eyes. . . . Don't you think it would be a feather in your cap if you could be the one who changed this very ugly duckling into even a pale pink swan? If you have any of Pygmalion in you, please be a sport and help me out."
Regarding this communication as by far the most interesting and intelligent of the 5,000-odd which the beauty series evoked from readers. Editor Desmond Hall at first suspected it might be a clever trap set by a rival magazine. Contributing Editor Helen Josephy, in charge of the beauty articles, invited Nurse Phillips to Mademoiselle's, Manhattan office. Convinced of the young lady's good faith, the editors decided to take a sporting chance and see what could be done about her personal appearance in one week's time. Thus was launched a heroic course of beauty treatments and a smart circulation and merchandising stunt.
This week, in The Story of Barbara, the magazine describes the measures taken to transform homely Barbara Phillips into glamorous Barbara Phillips (see cuts). First a professional make-up man, Paramount's Edward Sigmund Senz, was given general supervision. He sent Miss Phillips to a dentist to have two protruding teeth "capped," to Columbia University for a voice test, to a wigmaker for a flattering, readymade wig to cover her short, scraggly hair. A dress designer conceived a special frock to "soften the neckline." Make-up Man Senz "deepened" Miss Phillips' bulgy eyes with dark brown "shadow," made her nose look smaller, penciled in wide-curved eyebrows, applied long artificial eyelashes. Stepping back from his work with satisfaction, "Eddie" Senz tweaked the nurse's nose and chuckled: "Phillips, you're looking swell!" Most of the beautifying tricks were temporary, could be made permanent with more careful work.
Last week Miss Phillips was back in Boston, looking once more the way God made her. Meanwhile, her beautifying had not only made a story for the current Mademoiselle, but a trade circular sent out by the magazine to incipient advertisers of cosmetics. It was also announced that copies of Miss Phillips' gown would be merchandised all over the land as "The Cinderella Dress."