A month ago Rivals, the Disney+ adaptation of Dame Jilly Cooper’s eighties ‘bonkbuster’, thrust its way into the public’s consciousness.
The streaming service’s eight-part series depicts the cutthroat world of independent television and stars actor David Tennant as ruthless media mogul Lord Tony Baddingham.
Alex Hassell, meanwhile, brings to life his nemesis Rupert Campbell-Black – a Tory politician, former showjumper and notorious ladies’ man.
Disney+’s foray into ‘the Cooperverse’ has a 94% fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes and is the streaming platform’s top UK launch of 2024.
According to influencer marketing firm Traackr, total mentions of Jilly Cooper were up 380% this year compared with 2023, while total video views of the author shot up a whopping 5,087% year on year.
Set in 1986 in the fictional English county of Rutshire, Rivals fully embraces the aesthetic of its source material’s era.
From shoulderpads to buck’s fizz via a Wham! and Robert Palmer-laced soundtrack, no 1980s stone is left unturned.
And this extends to beauty.
Big in the 80s
“For me, from the TV show, the one [character] that stood out was Emily Atack’s character [Sarah Stratton], where she had the hair [piled] on top,” says Fiona Glen, Director of Projects at beauty business consultancy The Red Tree.
Stratton, a trophy-wife-turned-TV-personality, epitomises mainstream mid-1980s with her blonde bouffant, patterned sweaters, and bold eye and lip combo.
Siren-red lips are also sported by ‘ballbusting’ female characters Cameron Cook (Nafessa Williams), a power-suited TV exec, and the ‘first not-quite-a-lady of Fleet Street’ Beattie Johnson (Annabel Scholey) – also rocking a mini-mullet.
There is a nod to the era’s counterculture via Catriona Chandler’s Caitlin O’Hara, the punky younger daughter of Michael Parkinson-esque journalist and TV star Declan (Aidan Turner).
The ethos of the eighties was, if you can sum it up in one phrase, ‘more was better’
While Declan himself and Danny Dyer’s character Freddie Jones – an affable tech millionaire – boast moustaches to make Magnum P.I. jealous.
Even Lizzie Vereker, a supposedly dowdy romance novelist (played by the very un-dowdy Katherine Parkinson), sports a bright blue eyelid at parties.
Daniel Whitby, Chief Scientist at Smink Laboratories, reminisces that big hair and strong cheekbones were core looks from the period.
As were gold, bronze, silver and pearlescent make-up; and bright eyeshadow and mascaras.
“It was definitely in your face,” he tells Cosmetics Business, bringing up the eighties ‘hair metal’ movement among men – spearheaded by bands like Bon Jovi, Poison and Mötley Crüe – as another example.
Commenting on products used to create the era’s gravity-defying hairstyles, he notes: “The polymers then were PVP [polyvinylpyrrolidone], so they were quite crunchy and stiff and hard” compared with today’s flexi-hold versions.
Emily Atack’s character Sarah Stratton (image credit: Jenny Carroll)
But despite the decade being synonymous with excess, Fiona Harkin, Foresight Editor at futures consultancy The Future Laboratory, observes that the show’s take is quite an authentic one.
“You see some of the reality of it,” she tells Cosmetics Business.
Commenting on Parkinson’s character, she adds: “There is a country mum in jeans and T-shirts.
“And yes, you do get some of the glam stuff, but it is not a pastiche.”
The power scent decade
Beyond the visual, fragrance plays a major role in Cooper’s works and its application is, unsurprisingly, linked to seduction.
As Glen tells Cosmetics Business: “On a personal note, I watched Rivals, and as I had, embarrassingly, never read a Jilly Cooper book, I have started on Riders [the first of Cooper’s Rutshire series, published in 1985 – Rivals, the second, came out in 1988].
“And, actually, there are a lot of cultural references about fragrance with one character wearing Miss Dior.”
In the scene in question, in Riders, Cooper describes Helen, Rupert’s would-be first wife, travelling to a date via taxi and how her “third application of Miss Dior in ten minutes fought with the diesel fumes”.
Nafessa Williams as Cameron Cook (image credit: Jenny Carroll)
Other well-known fragrances name-dropped in the earlier, 1980s-set Rutshire novels include Guerlain’s Jicky, Robert Piguet’s Fracas and Hermès’ Calèche.
While in Rivals, the novel, Cameron witnesses Sarah spray Anaïs Anaïs (Cacharel) between her breasts, behind her kneecaps and on “her blond bush”.
And just as the mid-decade’s hair and make-up hues were bold, so were consumers’ preferred perfumes.
“The ethos of the eighties was, if you can sum it up in one phrase, ‘more was better’,” confirms Whitby.
“It was all about, ‘more, more, more’, so a lot of the fragrances were in-your-face heavy, whereas we tend to be maybe a bit more subtle now.”
Generational appeal
Critics have praised the series for capturing the book’s sexy, sleazy sense of fun, while also acknowledging the period’s less-than-enlightened attitudes towards women and minorities.
Guardian reviewer Lucy Mangan wrote: “I don’t like to dwell on how much effort must have gone into judging how much of the eighties’ attitudes could be retained without offending modern sensitivities and disposed of without ruining the essence of the thing. But it has all paid off.”
As Harkin affirms: “With the sex and entertainment, it is very refreshing to see this kind of raunch updated and you can see the fun that is attached to it.
“It is pre-internet era fun, but you also see it deal with a very serious issue in the series.”
In episode five, a young, female employee of Tennant’s Lord Baddingham is sexually assaulted by an influential board member, and told to stay quiet or lose her job when she speaks out.
“It was very cleverly handled to say ‘this is of an era and that is what happened in the era and we’re not celebrating it, but you can see how far we’ve come, or how far we haven’t come in many instances’.”
Glen further observes that the showrunners “were obviously aware of making the story a bit more diverse than what it was originally, but I felt it was done in quite an authentic way”.
Declan O’Hara, played by Aidan Turner (image credit: Jenny Carroll)
Certainly, Rivals has pulled off the trick of appealing to all generations of viewers, from Cooper’s original boomer fans to Gen Zers, according to the experts.
“It actually came up in conversation with my aunt, who said she loved it [Rivals] because it was her era – it was the music, the hair, the make-up, everything.
“And then, for millennials, we were born in the eighties, so we touched on that.
“That might be, for example, that you have seen the family photos of your mum’s hairstyles – that kind of thing.
“Although it was not as much of a core moment, we still feel close enough.”
Finally, for younger viewers, she notes the exoticism Rivals brings to “people that never saw it [the 1980s] the first time round”.
A lot of the younger generations are yearning for this pre-digital time
Harkin likewise flags Gen Z anemoia, aka nostalgia for a time you’ve never known, as a driver behind the love for Rivals.
“I think a lot of the younger generations are yearning for this pre-digital time,” she muses.
Harkin also believes Gen X is a key target demographic for the series.
“Gen X women are perhaps one of the most underserved cohorts around,” she explains.
“But you see so much entertainment at the moment that is geared towards midlife women.”
Harkin flags the age-gap romance in upcoming Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy as also catering to this once-neglected group.
“It’s like the entertainment companies have just picked up on it,” she says.
Nostalgia wars
It should be noted that Rivals is not 2024’s only cultural moment for eighties fashion and beauty.
This summer, Netflix’s Griselda, featuring Sofía Vergara (Modern Family) as Colombian drug lord Griselda Blanco, tapped into the lamé-clad excesses of 1970s and 1980s Miami.
While former Game of Thrones star Sophie Turner rocked stark eighties blush alongside boxy shoulders in Joan, which tells the tale of the 1980s jewel thief known as ‘the Godmother’.
In music, this year has seen ‘Prince Charming’ singer and cult eighties figure Adam Ant go on tour.
As well as The Cure earn rave reviews for Songs of a Lost World, the band’s first album in 16 years.
I think it is an absolute miss that sexual wellness brands have not done more around it
But is this enough to unhorse nineties and Y2K trends in a year characterised by ‘brat’ and Oasis-led ‘blokecore’ revivals?
Probably not, says Glen.
“I think it’s more a level of nostalgia – a level of comfort and fun that people are seeing in it, and they’re enjoying it. But I don't necessarily see it translating through to full-on hair and make-up styles,” she says.
“The people that have resonated the most with the show are the people who knew it the first time round.
“And they're not going to be rocking really ‘out there’ hair and make-up trends.
“Although, I think it is an absolute miss that sexual wellness brands have not done more around it.”
Whitby, on the other hand, pointed to nostalgic eighties tutorials by the likes of Charlotte Tilbury in 2024, as well as Vogue’s prediction of an eighties hair comeback earlier this year.
The article cited singer Miley Cyrus’ XXL bouffant at the 2024 Grammys and Midsommar star Florence Pugh’s spikey mullet as examples.
Harkin, for one, views this year’s ‘mob wife’ make-up “not eyes, or lips, but everything!” as sharing DNA with Rivals’ eighties-core aesthetic.
As for Rivals’ favoured male facial hair, “you’ve only got to step foot in certain parts of East London and you'll get run over by someone in a hipster ‘tache on a bike”, she quips.
Meanwhile, this summer’s TikTok love for bold blush and the latest fashion weeks embracing pops of colour and metallics around the eyes, could be construed as more subtle nods to the facial warpaint of 40 years ago.
Experts’ observation that 1980s beauty is attracting interest, but not enough to fully dethrone Y2K in the nostalgia wars is backed up by Traackr data.
The firm observed a slight uptick in creators posting eighties make-up and hair content, with an 11% year-on-year increase in the number of eighties make-up themed posts and an 8% increase in the number of eighties hair themed posts.
It noted that the most engaging content of this kind came from Liza Soberano, Kelsey Revelo, Grace Mary Williams, Audrey Boos and Abby Baffoe.
So, while we are unlikely to see anyone striding around in full Melanie Griffiths Working Girl cosplay any time soon, subtle hints of the 1980s will be coming to festive parties near you in 2024.
And Rivals’ unabashed celebration of the era will have played a part in that.
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