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Lucia Pieroni
‘I can quite easily do no make-up as long as the end result is a great image. That's what I like. I don't ever think, "I want to put my stamp on it”’
And her reason for avoiding the me-me-media treadmill? Less a conscious decision to be some sort of Martin Margiela of mascara, and more the simple fact that she's just so busy all the time. Over the years, her work has featured on covers from The Face to Vogues British, American, Italian and French editions, as well as W. Interview. Pop and Love magazine, among others. Advertising campaigns include Miu Miu, Prada, Valentino, Givenchy. Versace, Amarni, Dior, Calvin Klien, McQueen, Yurman and Missoni and she has led her army of assistants backstage at Christopher Kane, Jonathan Saunders, Giles Deacon, Acne and Aquascutum, to name a few. Then there's the array of film and pop icons that have been similarly blessed by her firm foundations, and her work with the high-end cosmetics brand Clé de Peau, where she is creative make-up director. Despite all this, she doesn't seem the slightest bit knackered when we meet up in London, having just jetted back from a job in LA and before heading off to New York for Fashion Week. Sparkly-eyed, her hair a tumble of curls, and with great skin, Lucia. who is chatty and upbeat, looks ridiculously young for her age (which she jokingly asks me not to disclose).
As she tucks into a burger in a Ladbroke Grove brasserie, she talks about the journey she has made: from being a kid out in the sticks with a talent for art who was always encouraged by her late mother, to the work she now creates upon the faces of fashion's most beautiful models: a different sort of painting.
Where are you from, Lucia? Can you tell me a bit about your background and your family?
I was born in the north of England, just outside of Manchester. My father is Italian, my mother was Italian and Irish, so I have a very Italian name but I'm very British. When I was six we moved to Hertfordshire. I have three sisters and were all pretty artistic, which I think we get from my mum. When she was young she got a scholarship to art school, but she got taken out of there by her parents to work in Marks & Spencer because they needed the money. So she never fulfilled her dream. When she was bringing us up she used to draw and do visual displays. She was a young mum and very groovy - she used to pick me up from school in her Mini, wearing a micro-mini or mini Pucci dresses and no shoes, her hair in a blond fall with mascara and eyeliner: She had a great sense of style.
Was that what led to you becoming interested in fashion and make-up?
I think in a sense it was, yes. But at that stage in my life I wasn't thinking about make-up at all and certainly not thinking about ever becoming a make-up artist! That was something which happened much later, when I was around 20.
Presumably she always encouraged you and your sisters to indulge your creative side?
Yes, she very much encouraged all of us to follow our dreams and do whatever we wanted to do. My eldest sister is a photographer; another sister is a tailor and cutter in the theatre, making incredible costumes for places like the Royal Opera House. And my other sister is a handbag designer in Italy.
As a teenager, what kind of career did you think you might eventually pursue?
I wasn't sure in my early teens. I liked art, I was good at painting and drawing. I also wanted to be a dancer. I sort of tried that a bit, but, erm, I don't think I was very good at it (laughs). I moved to London, to Kensal Rise, when I was about 20 - to some grotty old flat shared with friends. I worked at the Pineapple Dance Studios, because you could attend classes for free in return for working. I did that for two or three years. Around that time, my eldest sister used to do a bit of modelling. She was very good friends with people like Stephen Jones and was in John Maybury's first films I went along to a shoot with her one day and did her make-up for her. Don't ask me why - I can't even remember, but I did it. It was in a studio in Hoxton, long before Hoxton was like it is now. There was a photographer called Donna Trope who lived upstairs. She popped down for some reason and said, 'Oh, I really like the make-up you've done. Will you come and do a test with me next week?' So I started working with her. Every weekend I'd go there and do test shoots.
What kind of work was Donna doing at that point?
This was in the late Eighties so she was right at the start of her career: she was testing still, but she was using professional models. I didn't even have a proper make-up kit, though. I had make-up paint and greasepaint but no eye shadows or anything like that. It was all about painting the faces, really, and I think that was because it was the only way I could imagine doing it at that stage, as I had no experience of doing make-up but I had been painting and drawing for years previously. So for about a year, that was how I did it. We had such fun. We created some really amazing pictures and Donna taught me a lot - about make-up and allowing yourself to be creative with colour. To earn some money I also worked with a photographer in Fulham who used to do portfolios for girls who wanted to be models... but were never going to be models in a million years! I used to get paid £50 for the day to do their make-up and he would do about four portfolios of these girls during a typical day.
Did you work with other photographers aside from Donna and the man in Fulham?
Yes, a photographer called Andy Bettles, who my sister used to know. Meeting him was the thing that probably really pushed me forward, because we started doing stuff for The Face and jobs for a Japanese magazine, which I can't remember the name of now, but was considered just as cool as The Face. Donna was great, but the work was very much about beauty. With Andy, it was more about the whole fashion thing. So this was the first work I had published, which was incredibly exciting. Andy used to do these really beautiful pictures. with amazing colours. All I remember about that first shoot we did for The Face was that the model had a crow on her head...
Like you do...
Yes, like you do! Andy started saying to me. "You have to get an agent now!' And he made me go and see Beverley Streeter, who was then at Lynne Franks. She took me on and I was there for a few months and then Beverley took me to Streeters with her when it first started. I've been with them ever since. I think my first job through Streeters was with British Vogue, with Andy.
Did you feel more validated professionally once you were signed with an agency?
You know, for a long time I used to think to myself, 'People are going to realise I don't really know what I'm doing! I think it's that thing where you’re working with established people and so you get really nervous. But that generation I kind of came up with is people like Glen Luchford and Mario Sorrenti, and I knew them as friends, so it was less intimidating to work with them.
And you and Glen did those Prada campaigns in the late Nineties, didn't you?
Working with Glen on that was amazing. I think that was another thing that kind of changed my level, it was a step up. For two years we did Prada, Miu Miu and Prada men. It was a huge deal. The work was very highly regarded at the time, and widely copied. They were amazing pictures, all about the mood, with gorgeous cinematic colours - I think that looked very different at the time.
Were you doing shows then as well?
No, you know I haven't really particularly been a show girl. I do a few, but not many. People like Pat [McGrath] and Eugene [Souleiman] and Guido do like 15 shows per city and I take my hat off to them! This season I'm doing five in London, three in New York, two in Milan and five in Paris. That still seems a lot to me! I find them super stressful. You have such a lot to do in such a short space of time and it's your name and you have to make sure that everybody who's assisting is doing it right.
Can you explain how it all works, being a make-up artist at the shows? Although I’ve been backstage at quite a few of them, I don't really understand the logistics of how the stylist, make-up artist and hair stylist all work together in such a tense situation without them having a total meltdown! Have you all met beforehand to discuss everything? Is it all pre-planned to the hilt?
You go in beforehand and do looks, basically - hair and make-up and the stylist and the designer have their input. There's a fitting and you collectively come up with the hair and make-up tests and what the look is going to be. You photograph it, and then on the day of the show, you show it to your assistants and then you do a demonstration for them, so they all know how it works. Then I go round making sure its all OK. Every model has to come to me to have their make-up checked. It can be difficult and stressful: sometimes you get a line of girls that you have got to redo very quickly. Or you might have eight girls turning up from another show and you’ve got to get all their make-up off, the new hair and make-up has got to be done and they've got to all be ready in 10 minutes!
I must say, in my experience: no! Generally. with the shows I do, I know the people I'm working with - like Guido, Luigi [Murenul or Eugene - who Ive known for years. We have an understanding: we help each other out. If all you think about is the make-up and you don't give a shit about the hair, then the models are still going to look weird and half-finished going down the catwalk. Sometimes it can be funny - you scream and yell. Other times, you all end up laughing hysterically, because it's completely mad! You do get hyped up and wired about it occasionally, though. I did a show for Missoni and the look was a really dark, blackberry lip. Trying to do that lip while the models were having their hair brushed and their heads were moving... You start shouting to the hair person, 'Look! Stop! Give me a few seconds and let me do this... OK, you can do the hair now!' Yeah, it can get a bit shouty sometimes.
Are you good at coping with that kind of stress?
Apparently, yeah. People say I'm really calm, although I don't know if I am - I think it's all hidden inside. Sometimes I do have a fit, which is not so great. I remember saying to an assistant once. Why did you think that making the colour of the model's skin the colour of a baked bean was a good idea?' And he was just standing there, looking at me. Apparently that was really mean of me, but I just couldn't fathom out why she was orange!
But if a designers vision was one of baked bean-coloured models, would you go along with that? Or would you tactfully suggest they change it?
That depends. Maybe a baked-bean face could work in some situations! Look at Viktor and Rolf last season, where Pat painted the faces red. It was really beautifully done. You'd think that if someone said to you, 'Can you make that face red?" that it would look awful. but it actually looked really good.
Have you ever turned work down because you haven't necessarily liked the aesthetic, or it was just really naff, and didn’t want your name associated with it?
I do turn stuff down. Usually because I can't fit it in, though. I generally work with people I know and like and respect. I've been doing this a long time and I don't like going out of my comfort zone too much and working with a whole team of people I've never worked with before.
You work with David Sims and Mert and Marcus a lot...
What I like is the creative process. With Mert and Marcus you get to experiment. to play, to do interesting things and they do great pictures. With David, it is also a really creative process and I love being a part of that. You know, I can quite easily do no make-up, as long as the end result is a great image. That's what I like. I don't ever think, I want to put my stamp on it! I want to do my make-up, regardless of anything!" I just like to do something that will suit the picture - for me, it's all about the picture. I think it has always been like that with me. I like painting. I like drawing. So I have never come from an obsessive make-up place. It comes more from a creative, art kind of background.
Did you go to art college?
I did, yeah, in Hertfordshire. I did a two-year course in, erm, creative visual something... I can't even remember. We did drawing. painting, 3D design, visual merchandising.. Not quite an art foundation course, but something similar.
And did you have any formal kind of make-up training? Like evening classes, or a part-time course?
Yeah - years ago I went to this make-up place called Complexions on Lambs Conduit Street (in London] to do a six-week course...
Complexions sounds fantastically naff?
Oh yeah! (Laughs) It was so completely naff! I remember for my first day there, my mum bought me this box of 22 eye shadows from a make-up company called Cosmetics à la Carte in Belgravia. The general public would come in off the street into Complexions every afternoon to have their make-up done by us. You'd get some real characters, for want of a better word, coming in there. You were meant to produce three make-up looks for the end of your six-week project. The only thing it really offered me was the chance to physically do make-up on people every day: 1 learned so much more from Donna Trope than I did from that course. I think the reason I did it was because I thought, I don't know what I am doing! And I should know! I wasn't bigging myself up enough to realise that I didn't really need to do the course.
Is formal training in something like make-up necessary then? Are all these college courses in makeup or styling nowadays actually worth doing?
It is good to know how to shade somebody's face. to look at someone's face and know their eye shape and how to make their eyes look bigger, or, if the eyes are wide apart, to know how to bring them in. That's the sort of thing that formal training can be good for. But I had already got that because I drew and painted so much. Everything other than that is just up to you.
So how do you do that? If a client said to you that they want the make-up look to be "ethereal' or 'like a Dutch painting from the 18th century, how do you respond to that? Do you research online? Do you have an archive of stuff to use as references?
I have tons of books at home. And I Google. yeah. Sometimes you can be in the middle of a shoot and someone will say. 'Oh let's make it look like such-and-such a thing: And you might want to look that up quickly online. I do get inspired by art a lot.
Which artists do you most like?
I like Francis Bacon, Lucien Freud, my friend Jenny Saville...
That makes sense to me, as they're all so painterly and figurative. / want to take you back to something you said earlier, about sometimes not putting any makeup on a model during a shoot. Isn't there always a pressure for you to be seen applying lots of make-up to a model, if you're a well-respected make-up artist? Don't people just think you're being a lazy bugger if you adopt such a less-is-more approach?
It depends on who you’re working with, but yeah you can literally do no make-up just moisturiser and that's it. But then you highlight, maybe with grease or something like that. There is still a process there.
It must require a certain confidence on your behalf, though, to work for a client who has hired you due to your reputation, and then tell them, ‘Oh, actually the model will look better without make-up…..’?
It depends on the situation. The picture needs to be good in order for there to be no make-up. I don't use much make-up anyway when working. I think I have perfected the art of putting foundation on without you really seeing it's there. Im a real stickler for that, especially for the shows. My attitude is. if the model needs it, put it on; if they don't need it, just do it very lightly. I don't want to see them with loads of foundation on, unless it's required for a very specific look. I like skin: I think you need to see it breathe. Someone with good skin can just look gorgeous and healthy without much make-up on. Drag queen style is not really very me! And even if I do strong make-up, theres still a sense of the person underneath. It is not like a mask.
What would you advise some teenager who devours glossy fashion magazines and dreams of one day becoming a make-up artist?
It's difficult if you don't have any experience at all. When I need an assistant, it kind of has to be someone who knows what they are doing, because generally there isn't time to actually teach somebody. The best way for someone starting out is to write to all the agencies and try and get in with somebody to work on a show, to help out, wash the brushes, carry the bags - just experience the whole thing. Try out make-up on your friends as much as possible. Sometimes I think going to college full-time to study make-up cannot be a good idea. If you become over taught in something, you can lose that creative innocence that helps you to develop your own style. You have to have something about you that sets you apart from all the other people doing it. And there are a lot of people doing make-up now. When I'm working on a show I'll usually have between 10 and 15 assistants and the ones I most like are those where the make-up they've done is not so perfect. There is a little bit of a nuance in there somewhere. You can see something of the person's personality in what they re doing. In whatever you are doing, as a make-up artist, it's about making that person look beautiful, enhancing their beauty, or making them look cool.
You work with Clé de Peau, don't you?
Yes, I have a contract with Clé de Peau - it's a very expensive, top-of-the-range make-up line which is owned by Shiscido. I am the creative make-up director and Ive been with them for six years now. It's sold in 44 countries throughout the world, though not this country - that might change sometime soon, hopefully. It's an amazing product with a cult following among make-up artists.
What does your role there involve?
I come up with new colours, develop new products, have input into the creative process of the shoots. Mert and Marcus used to shoot the campaign and now it's David Sims, who's done it for the past year. I get flown to Japan twice a year and go to the lab there. I have to come up with storylines and references - the Japanese love to know about everything you think in incredible detail, so you have to explain why you chose this particular thing, who the Clé de Peau woman is this season. who you think suits this theme, why you want this particular shade of burgundy...
You've worked with various Hollywood A-listers and big pop stars. How did you take to interacting with people like that at first? Or were you already past the point in your career where you found that intimidating? And is it very different from the other work you do?
Yes, it is different doing a celebrity than doing a 20-year-old model. The creative process of, \We will change the model into whatever...’ is very much a part of the model's job and she understands that. But with a celebrity, generally, they will have a pre-fixed idea of what they think they should look like. Some of them are very strict about that. Others aren't though and are very easygoing. Like Marion Cotillard - for French Vogue last year we bleached her eyebrows; she was up for that and it made a great cover! I did Cameron Diaz for V, we did her quite Madonna-ish and she was really cool about that. I have almost always had pretty good experiences with people. I used to work with Madonna for a bit, years ago, after doing a Pop cover of her with Mert and Marcus. I worked with her for about four years...
I'm sure most people would have dropped that into the conversation long before now!
(Laughs) She is really cool, an amazing woman. I like her a lot, she has a wicked sense of humour. And I got to go to her wedding and I even caught the bouquet! There are a couple of people who I definitely didn't like working with, but I don't think I want to mention their names here!
A lot of people resort to Botox and surgery when they no longer feel make-up is sufficient to disguise the ageing process. Have you ever dabbled, Lucia? And does getting older bother you?
I did try Botox once, to be honest. It took me a long, long time to pluck up the nerve to do it. In the end. I went and I said. I just want a tiny bit here... points to forehead. It took about seven days to have an effect and then I was like, 'This is amazing!" Then six months later, or whenever it was, I had it done again, but it made my left eyebrow look really pointy. I went back and they said they could fix it by putting more Botox across here (gestures to other side of forehead, and the result was that none of my forehead moved! I felt like my eyebrows were falling in my eyes for about three months afterwards! That was about two years ago and Ive never done it since. It freaked me out too much. And I see too many people with the same face nowadays. It scares me.
And her reason for avoiding the me-me-media treadmill? Less a conscious decision to be some sort of Martin Margiela of mascara, and more the simple fact that she's just so busy all the time. Over the years, her work has featured on covers from The Face to Vogues British, American, Italian and French editions, as well as W. Interview. Pop and Love magazine, among others. Advertising campaigns include Miu Miu, Prada, Valentino, Givenchy. Versace, Amarni, Dior, Calvin Klien, McQueen, Yurman and Missoni and she has led her army of assistants backstage at Christopher Kane, Jonathan Saunders, Giles Deacon, Acne and Aquascutum, to name a few. Then there's the array of film and pop icons that have been similarly blessed by her firm foundations, and her work with the high-end cosmetics brand Clé de Peau, where she is creative make-up director. Despite all this, she doesn't seem the slightest bit knackered when we meet up in London, having just jetted back from a job in LA and before heading off to New York for Fashion Week. Sparkly-eyed, her hair a tumble of curls, and with great skin, Lucia. who is chatty and upbeat, looks ridiculously young for her age (which she jokingly asks me not to disclose).
As she tucks into a burger in a Ladbroke Grove brasserie, she talks about the journey she has made: from being a kid out in the sticks with a talent for art who was always encouraged by her late mother, to the work she now creates upon the faces of fashion's most beautiful models: a different sort of painting.
Where are you from, Lucia? Can you tell me a bit about your background and your family?
I was born in the north of England, just outside of Manchester. My father is Italian, my mother was Italian and Irish, so I have a very Italian name but I'm very British. When I was six we moved to Hertfordshire. I have three sisters and were all pretty artistic, which I think we get from my mum. When she was young she got a scholarship to art school, but she got taken out of there by her parents to work in Marks & Spencer because they needed the money. So she never fulfilled her dream. When she was bringing us up she used to draw and do visual displays. She was a young mum and very groovy - she used to pick me up from school in her Mini, wearing a micro-mini or mini Pucci dresses and no shoes, her hair in a blond fall with mascara and eyeliner: She had a great sense of style.
Was that what led to you becoming interested in fashion and make-up?
I think in a sense it was, yes. But at that stage in my life I wasn't thinking about make-up at all and certainly not thinking about ever becoming a make-up artist! That was something which happened much later, when I was around 20.
Presumably she always encouraged you and your sisters to indulge your creative side?
Yes, she very much encouraged all of us to follow our dreams and do whatever we wanted to do. My eldest sister is a photographer; another sister is a tailor and cutter in the theatre, making incredible costumes for places like the Royal Opera House. And my other sister is a handbag designer in Italy.
As a teenager, what kind of career did you think you might eventually pursue?
I wasn't sure in my early teens. I liked art, I was good at painting and drawing. I also wanted to be a dancer. I sort of tried that a bit, but, erm, I don't think I was very good at it (laughs). I moved to London, to Kensal Rise, when I was about 20 - to some grotty old flat shared with friends. I worked at the Pineapple Dance Studios, because you could attend classes for free in return for working. I did that for two or three years. Around that time, my eldest sister used to do a bit of modelling. She was very good friends with people like Stephen Jones and was in John Maybury's first films I went along to a shoot with her one day and did her make-up for her. Don't ask me why - I can't even remember, but I did it. It was in a studio in Hoxton, long before Hoxton was like it is now. There was a photographer called Donna Trope who lived upstairs. She popped down for some reason and said, 'Oh, I really like the make-up you've done. Will you come and do a test with me next week?' So I started working with her. Every weekend I'd go there and do test shoots.
What kind of work was Donna doing at that point?
This was in the late Eighties so she was right at the start of her career: she was testing still, but she was using professional models. I didn't even have a proper make-up kit, though. I had make-up paint and greasepaint but no eye shadows or anything like that. It was all about painting the faces, really, and I think that was because it was the only way I could imagine doing it at that stage, as I had no experience of doing make-up but I had been painting and drawing for years previously. So for about a year, that was how I did it. We had such fun. We created some really amazing pictures and Donna taught me a lot - about make-up and allowing yourself to be creative with colour. To earn some money I also worked with a photographer in Fulham who used to do portfolios for girls who wanted to be models... but were never going to be models in a million years! I used to get paid £50 for the day to do their make-up and he would do about four portfolios of these girls during a typical day.
Did you work with other photographers aside from Donna and the man in Fulham?
Yes, a photographer called Andy Bettles, who my sister used to know. Meeting him was the thing that probably really pushed me forward, because we started doing stuff for The Face and jobs for a Japanese magazine, which I can't remember the name of now, but was considered just as cool as The Face. Donna was great, but the work was very much about beauty. With Andy, it was more about the whole fashion thing. So this was the first work I had published, which was incredibly exciting. Andy used to do these really beautiful pictures. with amazing colours. All I remember about that first shoot we did for The Face was that the model had a crow on her head...
Like you do...
Yes, like you do! Andy started saying to me. "You have to get an agent now!' And he made me go and see Beverley Streeter, who was then at Lynne Franks. She took me on and I was there for a few months and then Beverley took me to Streeters with her when it first started. I've been with them ever since. I think my first job through Streeters was with British Vogue, with Andy.
Did you feel more validated professionally once you were signed with an agency?
You know, for a long time I used to think to myself, 'People are going to realise I don't really know what I'm doing! I think it's that thing where you’re working with established people and so you get really nervous. But that generation I kind of came up with is people like Glen Luchford and Mario Sorrenti, and I knew them as friends, so it was less intimidating to work with them.
And you and Glen did those Prada campaigns in the late Nineties, didn't you?
Working with Glen on that was amazing. I think that was another thing that kind of changed my level, it was a step up. For two years we did Prada, Miu Miu and Prada men. It was a huge deal. The work was very highly regarded at the time, and widely copied. They were amazing pictures, all about the mood, with gorgeous cinematic colours - I think that looked very different at the time.
Were you doing shows then as well?
No, you know I haven't really particularly been a show girl. I do a few, but not many. People like Pat [McGrath] and Eugene [Souleiman] and Guido do like 15 shows per city and I take my hat off to them! This season I'm doing five in London, three in New York, two in Milan and five in Paris. That still seems a lot to me! I find them super stressful. You have such a lot to do in such a short space of time and it's your name and you have to make sure that everybody who's assisting is doing it right.
Can you explain how it all works, being a make-up artist at the shows? Although I’ve been backstage at quite a few of them, I don't really understand the logistics of how the stylist, make-up artist and hair stylist all work together in such a tense situation without them having a total meltdown! Have you all met beforehand to discuss everything? Is it all pre-planned to the hilt?
You go in beforehand and do looks, basically - hair and make-up and the stylist and the designer have their input. There's a fitting and you collectively come up with the hair and make-up tests and what the look is going to be. You photograph it, and then on the day of the show, you show it to your assistants and then you do a demonstration for them, so they all know how it works. Then I go round making sure its all OK. Every model has to come to me to have their make-up checked. It can be difficult and stressful: sometimes you get a line of girls that you have got to redo very quickly. Or you might have eight girls turning up from another show and you’ve got to get all their make-up off, the new hair and make-up has got to be done and they've got to all be ready in 10 minutes!
I must say, in my experience: no! Generally. with the shows I do, I know the people I'm working with - like Guido, Luigi [Murenul or Eugene - who Ive known for years. We have an understanding: we help each other out. If all you think about is the make-up and you don't give a shit about the hair, then the models are still going to look weird and half-finished going down the catwalk. Sometimes it can be funny - you scream and yell. Other times, you all end up laughing hysterically, because it's completely mad! You do get hyped up and wired about it occasionally, though. I did a show for Missoni and the look was a really dark, blackberry lip. Trying to do that lip while the models were having their hair brushed and their heads were moving... You start shouting to the hair person, 'Look! Stop! Give me a few seconds and let me do this... OK, you can do the hair now!' Yeah, it can get a bit shouty sometimes.
Are you good at coping with that kind of stress?
Apparently, yeah. People say I'm really calm, although I don't know if I am - I think it's all hidden inside. Sometimes I do have a fit, which is not so great. I remember saying to an assistant once. Why did you think that making the colour of the model's skin the colour of a baked bean was a good idea?' And he was just standing there, looking at me. Apparently that was really mean of me, but I just couldn't fathom out why she was orange!
But if a designers vision was one of baked bean-coloured models, would you go along with that? Or would you tactfully suggest they change it?
That depends. Maybe a baked-bean face could work in some situations! Look at Viktor and Rolf last season, where Pat painted the faces red. It was really beautifully done. You'd think that if someone said to you, 'Can you make that face red?" that it would look awful. but it actually looked really good.
Have you ever turned work down because you haven't necessarily liked the aesthetic, or it was just really naff, and didn’t want your name associated with it?
I do turn stuff down. Usually because I can't fit it in, though. I generally work with people I know and like and respect. I've been doing this a long time and I don't like going out of my comfort zone too much and working with a whole team of people I've never worked with before.
You work with David Sims and Mert and Marcus a lot...
What I like is the creative process. With Mert and Marcus you get to experiment. to play, to do interesting things and they do great pictures. With David, it is also a really creative process and I love being a part of that. You know, I can quite easily do no make-up, as long as the end result is a great image. That's what I like. I don't ever think, I want to put my stamp on it! I want to do my make-up, regardless of anything!" I just like to do something that will suit the picture - for me, it's all about the picture. I think it has always been like that with me. I like painting. I like drawing. So I have never come from an obsessive make-up place. It comes more from a creative, art kind of background.
Did you go to art college?
I did, yeah, in Hertfordshire. I did a two-year course in, erm, creative visual something... I can't even remember. We did drawing. painting, 3D design, visual merchandising.. Not quite an art foundation course, but something similar.
And did you have any formal kind of make-up training? Like evening classes, or a part-time course?
Yeah - years ago I went to this make-up place called Complexions on Lambs Conduit Street (in London] to do a six-week course...
Complexions sounds fantastically naff?
Oh yeah! (Laughs) It was so completely naff! I remember for my first day there, my mum bought me this box of 22 eye shadows from a make-up company called Cosmetics à la Carte in Belgravia. The general public would come in off the street into Complexions every afternoon to have their make-up done by us. You'd get some real characters, for want of a better word, coming in there. You were meant to produce three make-up looks for the end of your six-week project. The only thing it really offered me was the chance to physically do make-up on people every day: 1 learned so much more from Donna Trope than I did from that course. I think the reason I did it was because I thought, I don't know what I am doing! And I should know! I wasn't bigging myself up enough to realise that I didn't really need to do the course.
Is formal training in something like make-up necessary then? Are all these college courses in makeup or styling nowadays actually worth doing?
It is good to know how to shade somebody's face. to look at someone's face and know their eye shape and how to make their eyes look bigger, or, if the eyes are wide apart, to know how to bring them in. That's the sort of thing that formal training can be good for. But I had already got that because I drew and painted so much. Everything other than that is just up to you.
So how do you do that? If a client said to you that they want the make-up look to be "ethereal' or 'like a Dutch painting from the 18th century, how do you respond to that? Do you research online? Do you have an archive of stuff to use as references?
I have tons of books at home. And I Google. yeah. Sometimes you can be in the middle of a shoot and someone will say. 'Oh let's make it look like such-and-such a thing: And you might want to look that up quickly online. I do get inspired by art a lot.
Which artists do you most like?
I like Francis Bacon, Lucien Freud, my friend Jenny Saville...
That makes sense to me, as they're all so painterly and figurative. / want to take you back to something you said earlier, about sometimes not putting any makeup on a model during a shoot. Isn't there always a pressure for you to be seen applying lots of make-up to a model, if you're a well-respected make-up artist? Don't people just think you're being a lazy bugger if you adopt such a less-is-more approach?
It depends on who you’re working with, but yeah you can literally do no make-up just moisturiser and that's it. But then you highlight, maybe with grease or something like that. There is still a process there.
It must require a certain confidence on your behalf, though, to work for a client who has hired you due to your reputation, and then tell them, ‘Oh, actually the model will look better without make-up…..’?
It depends on the situation. The picture needs to be good in order for there to be no make-up. I don't use much make-up anyway when working. I think I have perfected the art of putting foundation on without you really seeing it's there. Im a real stickler for that, especially for the shows. My attitude is. if the model needs it, put it on; if they don't need it, just do it very lightly. I don't want to see them with loads of foundation on, unless it's required for a very specific look. I like skin: I think you need to see it breathe. Someone with good skin can just look gorgeous and healthy without much make-up on. Drag queen style is not really very me! And even if I do strong make-up, theres still a sense of the person underneath. It is not like a mask.
What would you advise some teenager who devours glossy fashion magazines and dreams of one day becoming a make-up artist?
It's difficult if you don't have any experience at all. When I need an assistant, it kind of has to be someone who knows what they are doing, because generally there isn't time to actually teach somebody. The best way for someone starting out is to write to all the agencies and try and get in with somebody to work on a show, to help out, wash the brushes, carry the bags - just experience the whole thing. Try out make-up on your friends as much as possible. Sometimes I think going to college full-time to study make-up cannot be a good idea. If you become over taught in something, you can lose that creative innocence that helps you to develop your own style. You have to have something about you that sets you apart from all the other people doing it. And there are a lot of people doing make-up now. When I'm working on a show I'll usually have between 10 and 15 assistants and the ones I most like are those where the make-up they've done is not so perfect. There is a little bit of a nuance in there somewhere. You can see something of the person's personality in what they re doing. In whatever you are doing, as a make-up artist, it's about making that person look beautiful, enhancing their beauty, or making them look cool.
You work with Clé de Peau, don't you?
Yes, I have a contract with Clé de Peau - it's a very expensive, top-of-the-range make-up line which is owned by Shiscido. I am the creative make-up director and Ive been with them for six years now. It's sold in 44 countries throughout the world, though not this country - that might change sometime soon, hopefully. It's an amazing product with a cult following among make-up artists.
What does your role there involve?
I come up with new colours, develop new products, have input into the creative process of the shoots. Mert and Marcus used to shoot the campaign and now it's David Sims, who's done it for the past year. I get flown to Japan twice a year and go to the lab there. I have to come up with storylines and references - the Japanese love to know about everything you think in incredible detail, so you have to explain why you chose this particular thing, who the Clé de Peau woman is this season. who you think suits this theme, why you want this particular shade of burgundy...
You've worked with various Hollywood A-listers and big pop stars. How did you take to interacting with people like that at first? Or were you already past the point in your career where you found that intimidating? And is it very different from the other work you do?
Yes, it is different doing a celebrity than doing a 20-year-old model. The creative process of, \We will change the model into whatever...’ is very much a part of the model's job and she understands that. But with a celebrity, generally, they will have a pre-fixed idea of what they think they should look like. Some of them are very strict about that. Others aren't though and are very easygoing. Like Marion Cotillard - for French Vogue last year we bleached her eyebrows; she was up for that and it made a great cover! I did Cameron Diaz for V, we did her quite Madonna-ish and she was really cool about that. I have almost always had pretty good experiences with people. I used to work with Madonna for a bit, years ago, after doing a Pop cover of her with Mert and Marcus. I worked with her for about four years...
I'm sure most people would have dropped that into the conversation long before now!
(Laughs) She is really cool, an amazing woman. I like her a lot, she has a wicked sense of humour. And I got to go to her wedding and I even caught the bouquet! There are a couple of people who I definitely didn't like working with, but I don't think I want to mention their names here!
A lot of people resort to Botox and surgery when they no longer feel make-up is sufficient to disguise the ageing process. Have you ever dabbled, Lucia? And does getting older bother you?
I did try Botox once, to be honest. It took me a long, long time to pluck up the nerve to do it. In the end. I went and I said. I just want a tiny bit here... points to forehead. It took about seven days to have an effect and then I was like, 'This is amazing!" Then six months later, or whenever it was, I had it done again, but it made my left eyebrow look really pointy. I went back and they said they could fix it by putting more Botox across here (gestures to other side of forehead, and the result was that none of my forehead moved! I felt like my eyebrows were falling in my eyes for about three months afterwards! That was about two years ago and Ive never done it since. It freaked me out too much. And I see too many people with the same face nowadays. It scares me.