MUGI – My Unique Gift Idea

Listen, if you’re going to take advice from a celebrity, I think that Mollie Ringwald should be a pretty trustworthy candidate. “Getting the Pretty Back: Friendship, Family, and Finding the Perfect Lipstick” is her new book. She was nice enough to answer some questions for us.

The book serves up a literary dish of intelligent bytes on beauty, sex, motherhood and personal style too. Today, Claire from “The Breakfast Club” and Andie from “Pretty in Pink,” is a 42-year-old mother of three.

MyUniqueGift Idea: When you say “get the pretty back,” what do you mean exactly?

RingWald: I’m not talking about anything physical, so much as a feeling you have when you’re younger — a sort of lightness and spontaneity. Life takes over and you lose that feeling, so I wanted to write a book about getting that back. Some of that has to do with style, but most of it has to do with an attitude and the importance of taking time for yourself.

MUGI: So, you’re talking a lot about turning 40-years-old. What is it about that particular age?

RingWald: Society imposes that upon us. When we think about 40, it seems like that’s the moment you can no longer call yourself a young woman. My forties thus far have been fantastic. It kicked me into high gear and it’s a very creative time for me.

MUGI: Is getting older in Hollywood especially hard?

RingWald: Hollywood is difficult for any age. You’re told you’re not what they want all the time. I encountered that as a teenager, and I encounter that as a 42-year-old. But there are women who have phenomenal careers after 40, and in their 50s and 60s. Look at Meryl Streep — she’s a beautiful woman and she only gets better.

MUGI: You say that you draw the line at plastic surgery. Your book reads:

“Be bold, as long as you are under the care of a board-certified cosmetic dermatologist (not a plastic surgeon, since we don’t want you to look plastic)”.

RingWald: I don’t judge. I understand the pull, but as an actress I depend on my expressions to get my emotions across. To do something to my face that would inhibit that ability would be a mistake. Otherwise, yeah, you start to look plastic.

MUGI: So no Botox?

RingWald: It’s not the route I want to go. But you could talk to me a year from now and if there’s a line that shows up on my face that really bums me out, I might change my mind.

MUGI: You’re most famous for John Hughes’s ’80s movies. How are the ’80s looking in the grand American fashion retrospective?

RingWald: Judging from the huge resurgence, I think they’ve fared really well. I’m surprised. But the ’80s have been reinterpreted in a really interesting way. You have to bring back the best parts of an era and leave the other parts back where they belong. I find myself revisiting a lot of elements of the ’80s.

MUGI: Such as?

RingWald: Layering, though definitely not with the same enthusiasm as when I was younger. I’m a bit more streamlined. I’m really into Wayfarers. And lately I’m into bright red and yellow, and primary colors. I still wear leggings, and I wear jeans that are tight and have little zippers on the bottom, and Vans and Converse.

MUGI: Are there any ’80s trends which you would like to see go extinct without a rebirth?

RingWald: Definitely the hair. The big, poufy, mulletlike hair. I never had a mullet, I’m proud to say, but that is definitely part of the ’80s I think should stay there. And also the intense shoulder pads.

MUGI: You are a trendsetter Mrs. Ringwald. Were you born with this talented fashion sense?

RingWald: I believe it was connected to acting, wanting to feel like a character. I was into books, particularly F. Scott Fitzgerald, so I got really into the ’20s. I was interpreting the ’20s in my own way. I would wear beaded gowns, which were easy to find in those days — all the vintage stores were completely untapped — with Converse. I never felt the pull to look obviously sexy, like it seems so many kids do today. It’s more interesting to not show everything. That’s something I definitely want to instill in my children.

MUGI: Do you struggle with your six-year-old Matilda about what she wears?

RingWald: We have struggled since she was pre-verbal! She decided she wanted to wear skirts or dresses — no pants. There were times I would buy the cutest patent leather boots, and I would give them to her and she would nix them. She’s told me very calmly, “Mommy, that’s your style, that’s not my style.”

MUGI: You said that you weren’t influenced by the looks you dug in magazines. How did you manage to escape that?

RingWald: I didn’t feel like I was “the ideal.” Growing up in California in the ’70s and ’80s, my sister was blonde-haired and blue-eyed — the stereotypical California-girl beauty — and I was pale, thin, freckly, and had a big mouth. So I thought, No matter how hard I try I can’t be that; the only thing I can be is myself.