When I was in high school, I went through a long phase of wanting to be a make up artist.
And I mean a long phase.
I fought my way into doing GCSE Art, that would lead to the A Levels I needed before training. I did history as I was keen to do theatrical and historical make up. I had a plan.
One thing let me down. I’m not artistic – not enough anyway. With practice I can draw a bit. With practice I can paint a bit. But I’m not really very good. I don’t have the talent of my uncle or cousin, that level of creativity, of artistry just isn’t there.
I eventually saw the light, and chose a different path. I’m not saddened by it, I’m pretty darned happy with my lot and my creativity does seem to shine in other areas. But sometimes, every so often, I wonder what if.
As part of their Work It campaign, Selfridges included a Careers in Make Up talk with Alex Box and Spob O’Brien and I, well, I couldn’t resist. Two world renowned make up artists, and Creative Director and and Head of Professional Development at Illamasqua respectively. Make up career inspiration.
The Work It campaign has been varied, from career talks to reflexology sessions (these go on til 16 June, so go for it), to make up fixes over your lunch hour. The realisation that we all work differently – different careers, different working styles – so many people work from home, work flexitime and are rethinking their careers, it’s been the perfect opportunity to focus on the world of work.
For me, being able to meet Spob and Alex as part of the programme was icing on the cake. So I’m never going to fulfil that dream, but here are two ladies who have, and who haven’t done a mediocre job like I would have done, but have created some of the most famous looks in the world.
Before they gave the main talk, myself and friend Katharine were able to catch both Alex and Spob for a chat.
Both of you seem to look at faces as a blank canvas, or does the face come first, or is it a combination of the two
Alex: I don’t think. When I do make up, it’s the most meditative, zen moment for me, I just sort of disconnect – I’m totally connected to the person, sitter or model, but I’m totally disconnected from everything else and I’m flying. I’m just as surprised as when I come back – it’s so intuitive. I started out painting, I don’t think I was particularly good at it in the scheme of things, I just enjoyed making marks and sculpting, it’s everything. I couldn’t tell you what comes first, it’s everything at the same speed, it’s like downloading. It’s like a snowball [that grows] and then peters out. I can speak through movement more because I get very attached to what I’m doing. And that’s what’s really funny because I work on a lot of fashion shows and someone has to recreate that, or someone on my team does and my assistant does – and it’s not until you unpick it or reverse engineer it that you realise… but that’s just how I work!
Spob: And in my world..! This is what we laugh about a lot. I have to start with a narrative, so I’ve got a script, usually locked – you will get changes, many changes, but with a film it’s building on those characters, where it has to flow with the story and in the mix with that you have the actor who will have a view of that character and a view of themselves too, and there are many things that you may want to put in too. My favourite thing first of all, once that script lands, I love reading a script, start to finish and it all comes there. It’s like having a story read to you when you’re a kid, you see those characters, they dance out to you, but also, the engineering in the back of my head, is like your (Alex’s) assistant trying to write everything down, my head is going ‘so we’ve got to do that, and we’ll need to repeat that and how many times will that be and that’s got to me made and we’ve got six weeks and how will that be’. I’ve got a constant conversation at the back, as this character is being performed, so ours is all prep and the lead up to it. I would love to be able to do what Alex can do, in that sense of allowing it just to go away, but because I’ve been trained in a certain way and it comes through with the script and those characters, I’ve constantly got the thoughts in my head of continuity, three months’ shoot, prostethics, wigs, make up. It’s always there in the back of my head. That’s what I love about Alex, I’ve never been able to just drop those shackles and just do it. That’s why I book myself onto all sorts of courses, so I can go in depth into it, but even then, I just cannot stop that facilitator in the back of my head.
Have you ever found, after you’ve had the script, you’ve found out who the actors or actresses are and you’ve had to completely change what’s in your head to match?
Spob: That’s all the time, yes. That’s always a bit of a heartache, it’s the seven year old reading the book for the first time with torchlight under the covers, and that character coming forward. Half the time it comes down to studios and what they want to do. And you have to go OK, [sighs] big breath, it’s fine. Because some of the stuff we have to create is unreal, and then it’s on the big screen and that’s very exciting.
It must be very exciting to see that, and I know that that is your work?
Spob: Very satisfying, the majority of the time.
And how many time is it the other way around?
Spob: Oh I don’t know, do you know, once I’ve actually done a film, commercial whatever, it’s already gone, I’ve moved onto the next one, that’s in my head.
Alex, going back to the artistic side of things, you seem to have three distinct styles, the psychedelic, the washes which are slightly more emotional, and then you have the very natural, pared back, simple style. For those, does the emotion come first, or the colour, or is it a combination?
Alex: It’s interesting, because what I do do the opposite way around is create collections, it’s very different. Illamasqua has made me be very different, because I build a narrative and visual, I build a film around the product, I imagine that, get in my head what the hair should look like [etc] that’s very different, like being a film director. But when I’m doing my own make up, literally putting it on for a shoot, or what we’ve just talked about, I might just get something stuck in my head, like a texture. Or I might see something, like a particular… like in B&Q and I’ll see something, a pipe or something and I’ll just think that would be great all over the face. I get stuck into things that attract me, like a magpie, like petals and I just think I can imagine that, but not only that, it inspires me to do something with them, or place them or use them as a colour. I think it’s always emotion.
When I work with a designer, it’s exactly the same as Spob was saying, the designer will say ‘our girl this season that we’re thinking of is frightened, she’s in a cave’ and they weave a story and I see straight away what that person should look like and it’s always about being able to translate that, without it being an obvious mark. Even if it’s a graphic line, you still have to be able to see the girl. I never do things, I feel that are, even if they are really really full on, you still see the spirit of the person, it’s never at the detriment of a person. It works in harmony with their face shape. And what you [indicates Spob] were saying about people and getting an actor and changing it when you see them, that happens to me all the time. I’ll do a drawing or something and think ‘it’s going to be this shape and it’s going to be like that’, then the girl sits down and what emanates from that person is nothing like that and I end up doing something really soft. I want to connect with that person and my biggest complement, when a model is head to toe in something insane, they go home in a cab like that because they feel so good, they feel transported, and that for me is a really proud moment. Forget about the image, when they constantly can’t believe themselves, that’s beautiful. You’ve taken someone’s leap of faith for minute and that’s really lovely. So it’s always emotional.
We’re running out of time, so before we finish what are the favourite things that you done so far, favourite projects career wise.
Spob: I’d probably say for me that there are two films in particular that are top of my list, just for experience. One would be a small British film, Enigma, that was fantastic, because we got to sit down with the original code breakers and it was the first time the silence was broken, so the research time we had with that was immense. I love researching history so for me it was amazing to do that. And the second one after that was Inception, purely and utterly because it was such a secret. My life is signed under an NDA, but I’ve never been on anything like it. We had two and a half hours slot time to sit in a room to read it and we weren’t allowed to take anything in. So you had to take in the script and that was that. They were doing so many innovative stunts, it was so creative, watching the truck overturn in front of your eyes, watching Paris collapse. Such a wonderful experience, great fun. It was really strange, because we’re so used to taking our mobile phones on set now, but we didn’t on that one at all, no emails, it felt so very old school. We all communicated person to person. So that to me was such a great experience all round.
Alex: I hate this question. I’ve very superstitious, I very very rarely look back. I’m very forward focussed and I always think my achievements have not yet happened and are a work in progress. In fact work in progress is probably my slogan. I do think that the book that Rankin did of my make up was a big deal for me, because nobody knew it was being done, it was a secret thing for me and there was no time limit on it. So basically I had a studio set up for me all the time, I could just go in, it was adjoined to one of the Rankin studios and I could just play, all day. This was before having a child, before anything. It could take an hour, it could take nine hours, it didn’t matter. I had a set kit, I used different hairdressers, I would just call them up and ask them to come and have a play, and we would just create what was in my head that day. And it was like being in an artists studio again, it was incredibly cathartic and it was a way, as a younger make up artist to get everything out there I wanted to get out, it was just such a wonderful experience. It was over three years – two and a half years, then half a year doing the editing and everything, it was a beautiful experience. Everything we did was used and when we put it together, it was in a chronological way, and for me it’s very telling, it’s a diary. I can see exactly how I felt, the mood of it, it’s quite light, goes really dark in the middle, it’s all there and it makes me feel goosepimply thinking about it. It’s really clear, everything that I chose and did the way I did it, it was very clear to me what was happening. I was really proud of that, and I see a big chunk of life, a big chunk of feeling and it felt like a thorn was being pulled out, it was really lovely. Not restricted by money, or commerce, or deadlines, this was just play time, it was like being on a gap year.
With huge thanks to Alex, Spob and of course Selfridges and Illamsqua. I feel incredibly privileged to have met these ladies, having seen their work on the big screen, in magazines and of course, the make up counter.
Maybe one day I’ll revisit that dream.
