Being a mother doesn’t end with three kids. At her partner A$AP Rocky’s AWGE show last night, Rihanna—the matriarch of a billion-dollar beauty empire—mothered her beauty look as if it was her fourth child. Which, ironically, was also a theme on the runway and throughout the week.
As the show’s centerpiece, bottles of hairspray, used blowdryers, and Pat McGrath lipsticks were sprawled across back-to-back vanity tables. What would have normally been hidden—plain-clothed hair and makeup artists getting models ready—was put on full display. Meanwhile, the actual models circled the set: One pushing a baby carriage, while others sported bright red stiletto nails and effortless hair.
The show was off-guard, coming just days after Rihanna was spotted in LA casually shopping with their 2-year-old son, Riot. A moment mothers usually spend in private—playfully teasing her child with a puppet—turned into strange public scrutiny of her postpartum appearance (less than five months after announcing the birth of her daughter, Rocki).
Despite displaced and misogynistic comments perpetuated by incels, the Queen of cool has nothing to prove. At the AWGE show, which felt like an honor to her beauty and motherhood, Rih wore a sleek and sculpted bun coiffed by her longtime hairstylist Yusef Williams. She paired her hairdo with an equally snatched makeup look: cheek-lifting blush, a classic lip line, and layers of mascara accentuated by metallic eyeshadow.
As a mom of three under four, the mogul still has a fourth, undisputed child: She’s the mother of timeless beauty, which will be forever in her favor.
