DARK Matter

Nodding to gothic horror and cyber dystopia, moody makeup brings a glamorous edge to existential concerns

- LAURA REGENSDORF

WHEN THE VAMPIRES are played by Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie— chiseled features, haute froideur—it’s hard not to side with the bloodthirsty. The Hunger, Tony Scott’s 1983 directorial debut, opens in a New York nightclub, as Bauhaus frontman Peter Murphy sings the propulsive “Bela Lugosi’s Dead.” The lovers select their prey: a sunglasses-at-night guy and a redhead with slashes of eyeliner and crimson lips. She dances, unaware that she exits the film in six minutes flat.

A speed-walking cast of models made a similarly fleeting appearance at Marc Jacobs’s fall 2023 show. The designer’s ode to the ’80s manifested as bleached wigs, cropped black stockings, a striped suit fit for Beetlejuice. But it was the drained faces and brusque red mouths, together with show notes credited to OpenAI and ChatGPT, that brought The