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P A T M C G R A T H |
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Judging from her work at certain fashion shows, it can sometimes seem as though makeup artist Pat McGrath learned her trade at a carnival. She has applied enough paint and glitter to render models' faces unrecognizable, put false eyelashes on eyebrows and used fake petals on eyelashes.
In fact, the English-born McGrath, 35, absorbed the lessons of a makeup-loving mother, who regularly dragged her young daughter on cosmetics-buying sprees. "She was always mixing up colors because there wasn't anything out there for black skin," says McGrath. After graduating from art school, McGrath began her professional career in the mid-'90s, advancing a minimalist no-makeup look in avant-garde music and fashion publications like i-D and later in mainstream periodicals such as the U.S. and Italian Vogue.
McGrath's range is as varied as the colors she uses. Four years ago, Giorgio Armani, the master of understated elegance, tapped McGrath to help create his namesake cosmetics line. That's an assignment head snappingly different from her runway work, particularly with designer John Galliano. At his spring 2003 ready-to-wear collections, an homage in part to India's Bollywood film industry, Galliano created an outrageous, exuberant circus with models in sky-high headdresses and 6-in. platform heels. McGrath drew on the deep pigments associated with India, covering models' faces—and any body part not concealed by clothing—in opaque washes of cobalt blue, right, or marigold yellow. Red glitter formed exaggeratedly large lips.
At the couture show that Galliano designed for Christian Dior in January, inspired by a recent trip to China and Japan, McGrath took Kabuki to its outer reaches, left, painting faces white, blue and pink. "Every designer takes you on a different journey," she says. "It's great when they let you into their fantasy."
—By Michele Orecklin
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