I’ve worked as an assistant make-up artist at London Fashion Week for the last six fashion seasons and during that time I have worked with around 10 designers of varying fame. It’s London, so they do tend to be younger and newer designers.
I absolutely adore the woman I work with, which helps. For a make-up artist, it’s essential to becoming a good artist to work with a pro that you like. And even if you don’t like someone? You get on with it! You are there to make sure everything is done how the designer wants it to be done. There’s no room for egos backstage.
The days are long during London Fashion Week and my call time can be as early as 5am. I’ll prep my tool belt before a show – I’m doing the make-up at three shows this season – but you can’t really prepare anything else, because you never know what the designer is going to want until the fitting, the day before.
The make-up look will be a collaboration between the designer, the stylist, the head hair stylist and the head make-up artist. It’s a high-pressured environment, but it’s rarely a mean one. Designers are often so preoccupied that they don’t really have time to be personally mean to anyone. Everything and everyone is just a blur to them.
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That said, the funniest rows are between production – who are organising everything backstage so it’s as slick as possible – and the backstage beauty photographers; they’re the guys that take all the pictures you see in the glossies of close-up looks of the make-up at shows (beauty trends).
There’s very limited space backstage, but every photographer is out for themselves as they are freelance. They’ll be snapping the girls right up to the last second and dancing around while the model dressers are dressing them. ‘Get the fuck out the way! Get out! Get out! You need to leave!’ production will scream sometimes. I have actually seen physical altercations.
That said, there is one photographer who always comes up to me because we know each other. He’ll come and take photos of the face I’m working on because he knows I won’t try and kill him with a bottle of make-up remover for getting in my way or anything. But it’s normally really, really stressful seeing people that I know backstage because it’s such a high-pressured environment that I don’t have time for a chit chat or to be as polite as I would normally like.
The most elite model’s face that I have done personally is gorgeous British Burberry model and Vogue girl, Sam Rollinson. I’ve never done Cara’s face, but I always hear from other make-up artists that she is never* anything* other than sprightly, even after 35 shows!
I find that most models are just really, really tired. Most of the time they sleep while I do their make-up. I do feel sorry for them sometimes. I know they’re getting paid and have wonderful lives, but they are getting pulled and pushed from city to city and are literally living cargo. The bookers really look after the younger, new girls, though, and some of the young, foreign ones bring their mums! I think that’s so adorable. They keep out of the way and just quite enjoy the experience.
It can take anything from three minutes to 30 minutes to do one face. I’ve actually seen artists do make-up quicker than three minutes before. Hair is harder because they can turn up with loads of product in their hair. Make-up is easy to come off, but glitter is the enemy. You need surgical tape to take that shit off! There’s a real comraderie between hair and make-up to get it all done.
Some of the top supermodels will arrive just five minutes before they are meant to be on the catwalk. Once, when that happened, I saw three make-up artists working on a model’s face and eight on her hair. It was like an octopus! I’ve never worked on a show where a model just hasn’t turned up. If that happens, they just put another girl in her outfit.
I don’t have to deal with acne because – for better or for worse – girls with really bad skin won’t usually be cast. I always have a few different brands of high-quality skincare on me because even the classic French brands can make some girls allergic.
We do full body make-up, as well. It’s unusual to see a girl without flawless skin all over her entire body as it breaks the illusion. When Cara walked for Versace in Milan last season with scabs on her shins from psoriasis, I imagine it’s because it was really sore and nothing could go on it. Everyone is so diligent backstage, a model has to look pampered and perfect and no detail is ever missed – but at the end of the day, you have to respect a model’s skin.
You never send a model out onto the runway until they’ve been checked by the head make-up artist and then they may tweak it a little bit. A few times, I’ve had to do a face again. But you cannot let it affect you. It’s a ‘do what you’re told’ environment. You have to be very amenable or you’re in the wrong industry. Oh, and alert at all times, too!
It’s exhausting, but I love the atmosphere backstage. Sure, you’d always like to have a bit more time and space – but you have to work with what you have. I don’t know how it happens, but no matter how difficult and panicked it’s been, it all works out in the end. Things may run late (now you know why!) but it always looks perfect. The models float out as if they’ve had five hours to getting ready, while backstage is chaos!
And the actual show? It goes so quickly, it’s like it’s over in seconds.
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Illustration: Hisashi Okawa
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.