A Modern Beauty

THE MOVIE: “Beauty and the Beast.”

THE SETUP: Beautiful, bookish Belle (pictured), the prettiest girl in her little French village, is pursued by the boorish Gaston. But she falls in love with a hideous Beast (pictured), whose hairy and horrible exterior hides an adorable prince within.

THE LOOK: Belle’s four costume changes are the picture-book stuff of Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. But forget the clothes, beauty is at issue in this tale. According to the film’s art director, Brian McEntee, the story may be set in the 18th Century, but Belle’s image was taken from the 1990s--”absolutely current.” The seven artists who created her were inspired by cover girls Isabella Rossellini and Cindy Crawford.

This au courant dark-haired Beauty is full-lipped, an obvious nod to last year’s trend of lip-pouffing collagen injections. Another sign of the ‘90s is Belle’s earth-toned makeup, replacing the cotton-candy colors of fairy tales past.

As she falls in love with Beast, the cut of her clothes becomes more and more bare, revealing voluptuous breasts and alluring shoulders. Even her fingernails are much longer than Snow White’s or Cinderella’s, another nod to the modern definition of beauty.

If Belle is pure, sophisticated and intelligent, the Bimbettes, a trio of waitresses who long for Gaston’s attention, are her bottle-blond opposites, endowed most obviously with the cartoon equivalent of breast implants.

Not to overlook the men in the movie, Gaston of the bulging muscles and oh-so-square jaw is a reflection of L.A. men, says artist Andreas Deja. “You see them all over. Good-looking guys who just adore themselves, always admiring themselves in the mirror, making sure their hair is in place.”

THE SOURCE: Artists created Belle’s beauty. For real-life adaptations there is Ultima II for natural-tone cosmetics, almost any plastic surgeon for collagen injections, the corner manicurist for acrylic nails, and the L’Oreal shelf at the drugstore for darkest-brown locks from a bottle. Beware, however, that done without an artist’s touch, the look could be more Bimbette than Belle.

THE PAYOFF: The story of “Beauty and the Beast” restates in the most whimsical and romantic way that beauty is only skin deep.