“Sweet Bombshell”

Marilyn Monroe is the ultimate iconic Sweet Bombshell—yet not everyone agrees that she has Dramatic.

I’ve written previously on why she does. The short version is that in photos, Marilyn typically tilts her chin up to make it look artificially shorter and rounder—obscuring her angular, intimidating Dramatic bone structure.

Romantic Dramatic Ingenues (RDIs) can be some of the hardest of all the essence blends to recognize. Discover the most flattering fashion, hair, and makeup of this breathtaking beauty type below.

Romantic Dramatic Ingenue Celebrities

More Romantic Dramatic Ingenue celebrities are on Pinterest and listed here:

Courteney Cox
Devon Aoki
Duckie Thot
Freida Pinto
India Eisley
Jennie Kim
Kari Schmidt
Kerry Washington
Leah Lewis
Leonor Varela
Lily Rose Depp
Madelyn Cline
Magdalena Frackowiak
Melinda Shankar
Marilyn Monroe
Twiggy

Romantic Dramatic Ingenue Fashion

Romantic Dramatic Ingenue style ranges from elaborate to extremely pretty to avant-garde. One thing it doesn’t tend to be is subtle.

Romantic poeticism + retro Ingenue + powerful Dramatic = wearable art.

Romantic Dramatic Ingenue pieces often have a palpable, stylish moodiness.

This aesthetic can also evoke nostalgia for former, more glamorous fashion eras.

Circle skirts are iconically Ingenue. What’s unique about this one: it flares out from the high hip instead of the waist. So while the skirt is still Ingenue, the elongated bodice and high neckline evoke imposing Dramatic.

Romantic comes from the ornate and luxurious fabric.

To bring RDI into the modern age, try:

A Dramatic severe, fitted, off-the-shoulder neckline; Ingenue fit-n-flare sleeves; and Romantic body-con knee-length silhouette.

Romantic Dramatic Ingenues are arresting in black (or your color season’s version of black), especially when it feels mysterious:

Taken together, the silky fabric, spaghetti straps, and wrap silhouette communicate sensual Romantic.
The dress’s dainty buttons add Ingenue, while the long, sleek coat adds Dramatic.

Continuing the monochromatic theme:

Romantic all-over lace dress with Ingenue delicate bow and flared skirt.

You could add Dramatic with shoes (severe pointed toe flats or heels), jewelry (large geometric earrings), or accessories (angular oversized clutch).

Romantic Dramatic Ingenues are highly flattered by sophisticated neutrals, but you can definitely wear a lot of color, too.

Saturated red is an iconic Romantic and Dramatic hue.

One potential issue with Romantic Dramatic Ingenue fashion: it’s not a highly realistic, down-to-earth aesthetic.
But even RDI ballgowns can give you wearable fashion inspiration.
With this red dress, you could find a version that retains the Dramatic high neckline top but has a much shorter, knee-length Ingenue circle skirt. You could also ditch the rose corsage, although because that’s the main thing bringing in Romantic here (the dress color in a different silhouette could definitely reflect Romantic, but in the context of this silhouette, it’s reading as Dramatic), you could also add Romantic with shoes or accessories.

Are Romantic Dramatic Ingenues doomed to look overdressed in modern contexts? No! All three essences have T-shirt and relatively casual jacket and sweater options.

Plus, Dramatics can even harmoniously wear long dark leggings, especially when paired with pointed toe flats or tall, sleek boots.

Because RDI is inherently dressed-up and high-maintenance, you do have to work harder than some other types to make your aesthetic feel casual. But it is possibl!

And maybe sometimes (or all the time!), you enjoy appearing highly coiffed as an RDI. That’s great, too. While it’s fun to fit in with trends, and while there’s myraid benefits of a perpetual athleisure uniform (comfort being my personal favorite), it can also be fun to have an individual, signature aesthetic, which can easily be achieved if you’re dressing in RDI style.

Romantic Dramatic Ingenue Makeup

Just like RDI fashion, RDI makeup doesn’t tend to be subtle.

Of all the essences, Romantics and Dramatics tend to be able to pull off the heaviest makeup. Dramatics look amazing in attention-grabbing, avant-garde applications, while Romantics are gorgeous in glam, sultry styles.

This isn’t most people’s definition of “natural makeup”, but because RDI Freida Pinto has so much Romantic, she balances these smokey tightlined eyes, glossy lips, generously rouged cheeks, and very precise, tapered brows. The colors are throwing things a bit—the eye and lip makeup appear cooler than she is—but overall this is stunning makeup if you’re highly Romantic.
If you’re highly Ingenue, your eyes will be breathtaking with a much gentler application (skipping tightlining and choosing a subtly shimmery eyeshadow close to your natural skin tone) framed with fluffy mascara. If you’re highly Dramatic, you can skip blush and gloss and add something intimidating and angular, like unique, negative space winged liner.

Romantic Dramatic Ingenue Hair

The ideal hairstyle for RDIs with a lot of Dramatic is similar to what Freida Pinto has above: long, sleek, and straight.

If you do go with straight hair, length matters—you need the intensity of long hair to match the intensity of your Dramatic beauty.

Leah Lewis is gorgeous, but this straight, relatively short hair is better suited for Classic or Gamine. Her face is more striking than this moderate cut.

Are all RDIs best in straight hair? Definitely not.

For Romantic Dramatic Ingenues with a ton of Ingenue, you might favor short, tight Ingenue curls (often called princess curls, corkscrew curls, or ringlets). Wearing them at shoulder-length or longer can help them feel more modern (as opposed to short, Marilyn Monroe style curls).

Long Ingenue ringlets.
Stereotypical Ingenue curls won’t be this long, but since Dramatic and Romantic prefer long hair, extra length can help tie in all your essences.

If you choose moderate-length Ingenue curls, you might want to balance them with highly Romantic Dramatic fashion.
One option of many: a body-con, curve-emphasizing (Romantic) faux leather (Dramatic) top. Large, angular, unusual shades enhance the Dramatic feel.

If you have a ton of Romantic, your best hairstyle will likely incorporate fuller curls or waves:

Rather than consisting of many individual, clearly-defined, separated curls (Ingenue), this hair appears features full, smooth, glam waves.

Romantic Dramatic Ingenue Faces

Romantic Dramatic Ingenues can be really, really, really hard to type.

Ultimately what you’re looking for is a “Sweet Bombshell” or “Sweet Femme Fatale” vibe—a face with the sensuality and power of the Romantic Dramatic type, but with the addition of a distinctly pretty, gentle quality.

If a face has a lot of Romantic and Dramatic, it can be tricky to recognize when it also has Ingenue sweetness. I always use virtual draping—actually testing which fashion flatters a person—to confirm a person’s essences.

Kerry Washington’s face fits (to some extent) with Romantic Dramatic faces—with her Romantic allure, she’s stunning in smokey eyes and glossy lips, and the extra-long sleek half bangs match her powerful Dramatic intensity.
But there’s also something else in her beauty—an Ingenue sweetness that’s flattered by corkscrew curls:

Like Marilyn Monroe, Kerry’s beauty isn’t just defined by the powerful seduction of Romantic Dramatic.

Her face also has evident Ingenue, allowing her to pull off these shoulder-length princess curls.

Other RDIs are more obviously Ingenue, but their Dramatic is harder to spot:

Romantic Dramatic Ingenue Jennie Kim has a very youthful face, but a high Gamine neckline (especially combined with Ethereal feathers and hair with a slight wave) isn’t ideally flattering to her beauty.

Ultra-long and ultra-straight Dramatic hair and a Romantic camisole are so much better for Jennie Kim. She does have sweet Ingenue, but despite her youthful face, she can carry Romantic Dramatic style.

Romantic Dramatic Ingenue Facial Features

In general, it’s very hard to assign specific facial features to a given essence blend, because people can have extremely different facial features while still sharing all the same style essences.

Many Romantic Dramatic Ingenues do seem to have large, curvy eyes that tapered at the corners (like curvy “almond eyes”), full lips, rather small, rounded noses, full cheeks, and striking, angular bone structure:

RDI Magdalena Frackowiak
This isn’t exactly the easiest hairstyle to pull off—boldly Dramatic and very curly—but it’s hard to think of a celebrity who could better than Romantic Dramatic Ingenue Magdalena Frackowiak.

If you cover the playful Gamine striped cape, you may find like I do that visual harmony increases. Magdalena does have youth essence—sweet Ingenue that pulls of fsmall curls—but she lacks the Gamine that permits quirky linear prints.

Importantly, even if your features don’t fit the ones that Romantic Dramatic Ingenue celebrities tend to have, you can absolutely still be an RDI.

Jennie Kim, for instance, doesn’t have obviously intense Dramatic bone sturcture. And ome Romantic Dramatic Ingenues have more angular noses (see Melinda Shankar below).

Ultimately, your overall vibe is much more important than your specific facial features for determining your style essences.

Romantic Dramatic Ingenues are Hard to Type

From my perspective, Romantic Dramatic Ingenues can be one of the hardest types to spot.

For whatever reason, their beauty is extremely good at camouflaging as other types—especially Ethereal and Gamine, and sometimes Natural and Classic, too.

And many RDIs, like Marilyn Monroe, don’t necessarily fit stereotypes associated with the Dramatic essence—especially when they’re photographed from certain angles.

One clue to RDI beauty: having extraordinarily large eyes. Though many other types, including Romantic Ethereal Gamines, can also have this feature.

Romantic Dramatic Ingenue Melinda Shankar

When Melinda is photographed from straight on, especially with an unsmiling expression, it’s probably easier to see her Dramatic intensity (which is very flattered by this long, straight, sleek hair). Here, at an angle, it’s easier to see the sweetness of her Ingenue.

Romantic Dramatic Ingenue India Eisley

India is known for her youthful looks. She doesn’t obviously have Dramatic, and likely has only a small amount, but she’s flattered by long straight hair and some intensity in her makeup.

I actually just de-draped India in Romantic Ingenue vs. Romantic Dramatic Ingenue fashion—I wanted to be 100% certain she has Dramatic, because to the naked eye, it’s not obvious she does.

Based on my draping, it is definitely there. There’s an intensity to her beauty that isn’t captured by Romantic Ingenue alone. Pure Romantic Ingenue feels too soft and “yin” for her. She can handle Dramatic styles like very long sleek hair—there’s theatricality to her.

But to me, it’s definitely not obvious. Another issue is that Dramatic and Ingenue are literal and conceptual opposites—Dramatic is long, straight, and intimidating, while Ingenue is short, curving, and friendly-looking.

So when someone has a high amount of Ingenue, and looks very approachable and kind, it can be hard to fathom how they can also have opposite qualities, simultaneously lookin sweet, friendly, edgy and intimidating.

Twiggy: Another Unlikely Romantic Dramatic Ingenue Icon

Model Twiggy is known for her signature, highly Gamine style, especially in the 60s: short straight hair, playful makeup, and quirky fashion.

And while she is captivating in this highly Gamine styling, it’s not her most harmonious look.

Nowadays, Twiggy’s hair and makeup are more like this:

Full, extra-long bangs are Dramatic. They’re also good for Ingenue here because of the wispiness and slight curve to their edges. Paired with glossy lips and subtly smokey eyes, we see that RDI styling is actually much more flattering to the inherent nature of Twiggy’s beauty than Gamine styling. (Gamine makeup is more quirky, matte, and angular, while Gamine bangs tend to be short, too, like baby bang and even micro bang styles—not Twiggy’s best look).

Twiggy in Gamine styling feels quirky, irrevrent, surprising—all qualities that the fashion industry tends to love. And while I do think her Gamine aesthetic is very cool, I don’t think it reflects her inherent beauty.

Importantly, the aesthetic of the fashion industry, and also of celebrities and beauty icons, doesn’t necessarily take a Style Analysis perspective. Visual harmony is often not the primary concern.

This is especially important to remember with celebrities, who are often (certainly not always, but often) more concerned with wearing what is trendy or suited to their lifestyle, rather than what most flatters them. They may also be gifted fashion that doesn’t necessarily reflect their color season or style essences, and they may often be styled by others for events—again, in outfits that don’t necessarily reflect their inherent beauty.

Nostalgic and Modern Beauty

In the modern age, Romantic Dramatic Ingenue doesn’t tend to a highly popular fashion aesthetic—not because it’s unattractive but rather because, in some ways, its powerful beauty is too extreme for modernity’s casual fashion obsession.

But RDI definitely can look modern—one way to do Dramatic fashion, for instance, is with avant-garde, even futuristic style.

And Romantic Dramatic fashion often exudes sensuality that feels risque and contemporary. So if you’re an RDI concerned about looking modern, you could focus primarily on curating a Romantic Dramatic aesthetic, and adding Ingenue elements as needed.

Other versions of RDI will feel rather retro. But the really cool thing is that even if some of these styles look “dated,” if you’re an RDI, they won’t look out of place on you.

As an RDI, you can be a fashion time-traveller, emphasizing futuristic Dramatic fashion when you want that and Ingenue’s retro side when you want that. You can also employ Romantic Dramatic bombshell fashion or other creative methods to make your gorgeous aesthetic assimilate in the modern age.

Romantic Dramatic Ingenue