life story Pat McGrath is the world’s most influential and in-demand make-up artist. JADE TAYLOR COOKE steps into her world of fashion, fantasy, and make-up reimagined as freedom he fashion world is filled with Big Names. Jehovah’s Witness – is often credited as the woman who Once you’ve worked with a Big Name, sparked in Pat the interest that would become her life’s work. you can officially say you’ve made it. For ‘She’d stand in front of the TV and [my sister and I] would photography, it’s Annie Leibovitz or Steven have to guess what she’d done differently with her eyes. I’d Meisel. For red-carpet styling (right now, think: “Get out of the way!” but she wouldn’t move until I’d at least) it’s Micaela Erlanger. And when it told her,’ Pat recounted to Sali Hughes of The Guardian. Under comes to make-up, it’s always Pat McGrath. her mother’s tutelage, Pat learned to identify eyeshadows by Pat’s name is legend in an industry that name, mix pigments and – a trick that would become her doesn’t necessarily always celebrate its behind-the-scenes crew. signature in years to come – use the warmth of her hands TAs Linda Wells summed it up in New York magazine, ‘Make-up to blend foundation into the skin, giving it a softer, more artists take the service entrance; fashion designers take a bow.’ incandescent look. ‘She always put on a full face of make-up Then again, Pat isn’t just any make-up artist – this is the woman then got in the bath to get that dewy finish. It was next level. who almost singlehandedly brought about the beauty revolution This is where I got my make-up tips from – at seven years old!’ of the late ’90s. She’s the idol of every beauty vlogger worth By the time she was a teenager, Pat was ready to level up their brushes and is widely acknowledged to be the most too. She identified with the New Romantics, an early ’80s subset prolific catwalk make-up artist of our time, booking around of British pop culture that took inspiration from the glam rock 80 shows per year with all the top design houses. stars of the ’70s, most notably David Bowie. The ‘Blitz Kids’ (as This puts her at the top of the industry’s earnings list too. they came to be known thanks to an affiliation with The Blitz According to TheCut.com, she nets around $40 000 (almost nightclub in London) worshipped Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, half a million rand) for each of the big European shows, not Billy Idol and Boy George. They cultivated an outré aesthetic to mention $10 000 a day for advertising campaigns (when that was a melting pot of eras and influences. So long as it was it comes to these, Steven Meisel rarely shoots without her). striking and unusual, anything went – even Pierrot the clown. The really big money comes from her position as Global It was while camped outside a radio station waiting for Beauty Creative Design Director for Procter & Gamble; the Spandau Ballet to make an appearance that Pat first discovered multinational pays her in the region of $7 million a year for make-up could be more than creative expression – it could be her expertise on brands including Covergirl, MaxFactor and a career. With bold lipstick adorning not only her lips but her Dolce&Gabbana. At the British Fashion Awards in 2017, Pat eyes and cheeks too, Pat was stopped by a TV presenter who took home the Isabella Blow Award for her contribution to asked her to recreate the look for her. ‘I didn’t even know that creativity in fashion. In 2013, the Queen (of England, that is) was a job. She said it was. I went home that night knowing presented Pat with an MBE for her services to the British what I was going to do with my life,’ Pat told The Guardian. fashion and beauty industry, while the queen of fashion, Anna That was the beginning. Soon after, Pat moved to London, Wintour, has called her ‘the most influential make-up artist in working as a receptionist in the music industry by day, clubbing the world’. Hers is an extensive resumé, to say the least. by night, and all the while naturally gravitating towards other But before all that, Pat was just a British child of the ’70s, Blitz Kids who would go on to become Big Names themselves. learning about cosmetics at her mother’s knee. Jean McGrath These included fashion-design students like John Galliano and A BRUSH WITH – a single mother of three, a Jamaican expat and a devout Alexander McQueen, the photographer Craig McDean, and BRILLIANCE MARCH 2018 MARIECLAIRE.CO.ZA 123 life story life story CLOCKWISE FROM BELOW Rihanna graces the cover of W magazine, dripping in Cartier and wearing one of Pat’s most elaborate 3D make-up creations to date; Pat accepts the Isabella Blow Award for her contribution to fashion; Edward Enninful, Pat McGrath and Diane Von Furstenberg at the DVF SS15 show at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, New York. hair stylists Guido Palau and Eugene Souleiman. It wasn’t long before people began to notice that Pat brought something new to the style party. Soon she was on her first flight, bound for Japan to do tour make-up for the chart-topping band Soul FROM TOP II Soul (she’d met lead Marc Jacobs in drag in singer Caron Wheeler 2016 for Bette Midler’s through the club scene). annual Hulaween Bash benefiting the New York Back home in London, Restoration Project; Pat Edward Enninful had and long-time friend and noticed Pat’s talent. The client Naomi Campbell; the i-D cover that launched her 18-year-old Edward had career; Pat preps Gisele just been appointed Bündchen backstage fashion director of i-D at Dolce&Gabbana’s AW07 show in Milan; Pat magazine, the youngest person ever to hold that title at an with US Vogue creative international publication. He hired Pat for a shoot, the first step director at large, Grace in what would be not only a fruitful, decades-long collaboration, Coddington, at the launch of Pat McGrath Labs Skin but a beautiful friendship too. When Edward made history again Fetish 003 in New York; Pat last year as the first man and first person of colour to head up McGrath Labs Lust Lipstick British Vogue, he appointed Pat his beauty editor-at-large. ‘Of frequently sells out. course he’ll do amazingly!’ she told The Guardian before the release of his first issue. ‘He’s lovely. I remember when I first met him, when he had just started working at i-D, and he was so shy. He’s so quiet when he speaks, but now he says, “I’ve become loud because I’m with you.” I’m so proud of him.’ Pat says the rise of social media has played a role in her models down the runway in skin like Pat’s. Somehow, Back in 1990, however, things were just kicking off. And successful transition from catwalk to high street. ‘I’d spoken to despite the swathes of colour and ornamentation, the natural in true Pat McGrath style, they kicked off with a bright-yellow make-up executives about my own line for the past 15 years luminescence of her models is still the main focus. ‘She never eyebrow. ‘This was a time of no make-up,’ Edward told New and they’d say, “Nobody knows you, nobody really wants the puts a lot of foundation on you,’ says Naomi Campbell, one of York magazine, recalling Pat’s insistence on diverging from the kind of stuff you do in shows in real life.” And then I joined Pat’s longest-running clients and a dear friend. ‘That’s the art almost lifelessly bare aesthetic of ’90s grunge. ‘But she knew social media and all I’d hear from thousands and thousands of it. She makes sure you always see the skin, and that’s not what she loved right from the beginning.’ of people was that they did,’ she continues in The Guardian. easy to do.’ And what Pat loves is pushing the envelope. To say she’s Since then, every fantasy product she’s added to her line has Another thing Pat makes sure you see is diversity in inventive is to undersell the unique vision of someone who can been a huge hit. Yet Pat herself, like so many true style arbiters, the industry. From her position on high she has the power go from sculpting runway looks out of vinyl, feathers or lace, to sticks to dressing in all black, with a signature wide headband to effect real change, and she’s doing it by marching a creating ethereal magic for the cover of a fashion glossy, and – no encrusted lips or feathered eyebrows in sight. ‘I wear very hand-picked selection of #McGrathMuses across our social then prep an A-lister for the red carpet. natural make-up, but it’s made up of five foundations to create feeds. ‘They’re infinite,’ she told Time magazine. ‘From When she launched her own beauty line, Pat McGrath Labs, that perfect skin, and my lipstick may be three different lipsticks Kim [Kardashian West] to Naomi [Campbell] to Paloma in 2015, fans fell all over themselves to buy the only product on mixed together.