To create his first fragrance for Balenciaga this spring, designer Nicolas Ghesquière looked for cues not within the fashion house’s rich history of perfumes but to his longtime muse, singer and actress Charlotte Gainsbourg. Ghesquière described her as “one of the most inspiring girls in the world,” and sought somehow to bottle Gainsbourg’s ineffable Parisian cool. Being a muse appears to be a genetic trait for Gainsbourg, whose mother Jane Birkin was the inspiration for the coveted Hermes bag. Birkin’s other daughter, Lou Doillon, is equally muse-worthy, having influenced everyone from designer Vanessa Bruno to indie band Elefant. As a male makeup artist, I can relate to the muse doctrine. Men have always looked to women for inspiration, guidance and approval. While ancient scribes had the nine muses of Greek mythology, many artists throughout history have anointed their own real-life muses. In many cases, muses were wives or lovers, such as Salvador Dali’s wife Gala, who was immortalized in many of his paintings, and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s wife Zelda, who informed the tumultuous characters and relationships in his novels. Many muses went on to become accomplished artists in their own right, including Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, who started out as a muse to Diego Rivera. Some free-spirited women became muses to more than one maverick artist or thinker. Russian-born academic and author Lou Andreas-Salomé influenced many of the great minds of her time, including poet Rainer Maria Rilke, Friedrich Nietzsche and Sigmund Freud. The Marchesa Luisa Casati, one of the twentieth century’s great originals, captivated a slew of major artists, Jean Cocteau, Jack Kerouac and Cecil Beaton among them. Last year, in a nod to her impact, I launched sooty eye colors and matte black nail polish that called to mind Casati’s gothic glamour. One-time fashion editor Amanda Harlech started out working alongside John Galliano when he was still a student, and went on to advise him at Dior. Today, she is often described as a muse to Chanel’s Karl Lagerfeld. Napoleon and his muses For me, muses come in all forms but many are the women I hold dearest: my mother, my wife and my daughters. My mother Liana was my original muse: she sparked my interest in the magical world of makeup. At college, I met Soula-Marie, the woman who was to become not just my wife and business partner, but my leading muse. While my four daughters (Lianna, 10, and the triplets Angeline, Alexia and Athina, 
are still too young to wear makeup, they have nonetheless begun to inform my aesthetic. And then there are the iconic beauties who continue to influence and inspire me, and who I return to again and again. What follows is a guide to evoking their eternal beauty. Sophia Loren: Her famously feline peepers have galvanized generations of makeup artists and image-makers. This spring I’m debuting a new comb mascara and liquid liner expressly designed to evoke the sultry Italian screen goddess. To mimic her look I would apply several coats of mascara and flick out the liner at the outer corner of the lid. To up the drama, apply a chocolate or charcoal shadow and extend it out to meet the liner. Sculpt and define your cheeks with bronzer and finish up with a nude lipstick. Finally, add Two Women to your Netflix queue. Cher: Everyone has their favorite Cher look–mine is from 1987′s Moonstruck. I’ve watched the scene where she goes to the opera with Nicolas Cage on endless occasions. The awestruck Cage, his mouth agape, says it all: she looks astonishing. It helps, of course, that her dramatic makeup is framed by an enormous mane of black curls. The key elements are flawless matte skin (achieve it with stick foundation and set your handiwork with powder), contoured cheeks (use blush on the apples of your cheeks), earthy eye colors and a deep scarlet pout. Catherine Deneuve: The French beauty is the epitome of elegant seduction. One of her best-known guises is from 1967′s Belle de Jour, which showcases her golden tresses and perfectly-lined eyes. It’s a look that’s forever being referenced in magazines–including InStyle’s recent Heidi Klum shoot. For this look, use my Eye Liner in Equinox with an angle brush to softly line the eyes, and a powder blush such as Cheek to Chic Blush Duo in #5 to enhance your cheekbones. A creamy pink lipstick, such as our Devine Goddess Lipstick in Athena, completes the look. Kate Moss: Perhaps the most influential muse of our times, Moss has embodied entire fashion movements (grunge, boho et al) and influenced artists like Lucien Freud and Damien Hirst. For a classic Moss look, I would use a tinted moisturizer like my NP Set Memory Foundation. I would then line the eyes in a coppery eyeliner and use a metallic eye shadow. Opt for a flesh-colored lip but line the lips last with a matching pencil to create a precise look. What else would Moss do? Quaff “iced water with cucumber,” as she told the London Times recently.
See the original post:
Napoleon Perdis: The Eternally Amusing Muse: Women Who Inspire Me
Tags: a-deep-scarlet, a-genetic-trait, a-muse-appears, a-precise-look-, fashion, inspiration, italian, london, look, opera, spring, time, wife, women