POUT PORTFOLIO Clockwise from left: a MAC red shade, $22, Mac.com; a World War II U.S. Army Private; Grace Jones, painted-up and performing in 1981; Paloma Picasso in all her glossy glory c.1974; Actress Clara Bow and her iconic pout c.1927; editor Diana Vreeland in her go-to rouge lip in 1982. “LET PLEASURE be your guide,” says Jeanne Moreau in the 1990 film “La Femme Nikita.” Her character, Amande, an archetypal femme fatale, is tutoring a scruffy teenage assassin-in-training (Anne Parillaud) in the art of applying lipstick. “And don’t forget,” she tells her charge, “there are two things that have no limit: femininity and the means of taking advantage of it.”It’s a (literally) killer quote, as well as a primer on the power of lipstick. Harper’s Bazaar recognized this power in 1937, the year it declared that putting on lipstick was one of the 20th century’s signature gestures. When challenges arise, the magazine pronounced, gliding on a little lippie “reinforces the spirit.” In the midst of the Great Depression, lipstick was a balm for both the soul and the lips—a true luxury that, back then, could be had for about 20 cents.

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