Cleopatra was an Egyptian queen (of Macedonian descent) and the last ruler of the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt.

Cleopatra actively influenced Roman politics at a crucial period, and she came to represent, as did no other woman of antiquity, the prototype of the romantic femme fatale.

Cleopatra skillfully combined both Greek and Egyptian elements in her wardrobe. Today’s peplum is descended from the ancient Greek peplos style, a long tube-like garment belted at the waist and cleverly folded to give the illusion of a flared piece of fabric at the hips. But the Queen of the Nile mixed these more modest gowns with seductive Egyptian fashions, much in the same way that modern women mix designers and styles both high and low. As depicted in art, her hair was perfectly coiffed and attended to, often arranged in the “melon hairstyle” of her day which combined multiple braids into a bun at the nape of the neck, akin to a complicated updo today.

She was known to wear copious amounts of perfume and the black kohl eyeliner Cleopatra (and many other Egyptian women) wore in a cat-eye style has stood the test of time; the smoky, heavily-lined eye is still popular today. She often wore blue or green eyeshadow on her lids for a pop of color that contemporary makeup artists would recognize.

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