Moderating glamour: selling the femme fatale in fashion and beauty media

‘Femme fatale’ is an enduring and evocative term connected with femininity, glamour, danger and sexuality. Although it is most often theorised in relation to cinema, literature and art, ‘femme fatale’ is also used in advertising and online shopping, as well as lifestyle media, reality competition shows and beauty tutorials. Here I examine a range of these examples and argue that such appearances not only produce meaning about the femme fatale as an idea about femininity, but also allow us to think about the movement of fictional figures and archetypes across different forms of media. The examples I discuss reveal anxieties around feminine respectability, and also mobilise the imagined whiteness and middle-classness of the past in producing a classy, nostalgic and commercially appealing version of femininity. ‘Femme fatale’ thus becomes a tool for securing nostalgic whiteness, as well as a risky point of reference that must be carefully rendered respectable. However, in other instances, the term can also be an optimistic figuration of the possibilities of glamour. This article explores the points of gravity and attraction around which the term hovers in consumer culture, and the precarious relationship that the figure has with respectable femininity.