A week from today, the 2018 Tony Awards will descend upon Radio City Music Hall in characteristically theatrical fashion, and amongst the most buzzed-about nominees is Condola Rashad, who is up for Best Leading Actress in a Play for her role of Joan of Arc in Saint Joan.
The ninth actress and second woman of color (preceded by Diana Sands in 1968) to play the iconic role on Broadway, Rashad, with a bright, bare glow and an abbreviated thicket of tightly coiled spirals, offers up yet another individual iteration on the 15th century French heroine's powerfully androgynous beauty. But while no two takes on The Maid of Orléans are ever quite the same, from bygone illustrations and paintings to the screen to the runway, a bare, sculpted face, framed by a sheath of silver chainmail (see Alexander McQueen's iconic Fall '98 show deemed "Joan") or even more notoriously, a blunt crop, are constant in portrayals of the soldier who helped lead the French army to victory over the English in 1429, but was tragically burned at the stake on charges of heresy a year later, then, posthumously vindicated and canonized as a Roman Catholic saint 500 years later in 1920.
While a famed 1903 engraving and many other artworks like it present Joan of Arc with a dark, chin-grazing cut, many biographical films have recalibrated her signature close-crop, which famously inspired Parisian hairdresser Antoni Cierplikowski to pioneer and popularize the bob—or coupe à la Jeanne d’Arcin—for women in the early 20th century to liberating effect. In 1948, Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman slipped into Joan's armour with wispy, light brown Gallic fringe, while just over a decade later, American gamine star Jean Seberg lit up the screen by sporting a distinct buzz cut.
Milla Jovovich's choppy, bleach-streaked moptop in Luc Besson's 1999 epic The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc may have been a striking departure, but when Zendaya paid homage to the patron saint in custom-molded Versace with shocking, atomic red waves at the 2018 Met Gala, it was a feminist battle cry in the year of #MeToo that radically honored Joan's legacy. Here, a look back at the spectrum of Joan of Arc interpretations that prove she is a timeless beauty muse.
