Peter Philips didn’t take the customary route to makeup artist superstardom.
In fact, he didn’t even touch a makeup brush before the age of 27. Now 42, Philips has more than made up for lost time. In addition to being one of the most sought after editorial and runway artists working today, Philips is also the recently appointed creative director for color cosmetics at Chanel, one of the most coveted spots in beauty.
“I was entirely self-taught,” says the soft-spoken Philips, who often punctuates his thoughts with a small chuckle. “I never assisted anyone, which for me was good, as I developed my own style.
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Philips says of the look at left: “This looks almost conceptual. The first thing you think of when you think of a red lip is seduction, but here, because the rest of the face is nude and severe, it becomes more conceptual. There’s something intellectual about it.”
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A graduate of Antwerp’s prestigious Académie des Beaux Arts who also studied graphic design, Philips’ interest in makeup was first piqued while assisting former students backstage at their ready-to-wear shows in Paris. “From the first moment of the first shoot, I knew that was it,” he says.
Despite not being classically trained, Philips has proven himself up to the task of combining creativity and commerciality since taking over at Chanel in early 2008 from 30-year veterans Heidi Morawetz and Dominique Moncourtois. “Chanel didn’t hire me to fill Dominique and Heidi’s shoes,” says Philips. “They got a new pair of shoes. They hired me because I’m me.”
Already, he has a slew of blockbuster launches under his belt, including a sell-out limited edition collection of toothache-inducing nail lacquers, which included hues of lavender, yellow, coral and pink, for the opening of a store on Robertson Boulevard in Los Angeles. Women also snapped up the Lèvres Signées Chanel limited edition palette, comprising lipsticks in the shape of the brand’s famed interlocking-C logo, which was part of this spring’s collection and borne out of Philips’ graphic design background.
Philips earned his stripes creating high-concept makeup looks for high-fashion magazines and runway shows. His portfolio reads like a Who’s Who of fashion, including shoots with photographers Irving Penn, Steven Klein, David Sims and Mario Testino. His work has appeared in magazines such as French, Italian and American Vogue, W and Pop, and he’s primped models backstage at Alexander McQueen, Dries Van Noten, Raf Simons and, of course, Chanel, among others.
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“There’s something sporty about this look,” Philips says of the image at left, referring to the black gloss swiped across her eyes, which reminds him of the eye grease worn by football players. “It’s a bit tribal or like a character from a Janet Jackson video.”
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Still, for all his high-fashion work, Philips has a down-to-earth approach to his métier. When asked to define his vision of beauty, the artist cites confidence as a key attribute. “Beauty can be in the surprise or if it’s unintended,” he says. “If it works for you and you feel great, you can project that as beautiful. What is perfect? Sometimes if someone is too perfect it can be boring. Ilike when something is crooked—it can make you stand out and be an individual.”
Philips loves to create cosmetics women love to wear. “I never dictate,” he says, adding with Chanel’s seasonal makeup collections he aims to offer women tools to cover up what they don’t like about their features or accentuate what they do like. “I prefer that they enhance their strong points.
“The result should make you feel good,” he continues. “But it shouldn’t be a burden. If it’s too much it becomes a stress factor.”
Having risen to fame in the beauty world by creating avant-garde looks, Philips could have been considered a risky pick to head up Chanel. He says, however, that his earlier flamboyant work was born as much out of insecurity as creativity, since he didn’t have formal training in makeup artistry. “In the beginning I was extreme and avant-garde, but that was perhaps to cover up that I wasn’t as good at classic beauty, that I had some lack of knowledge of the technical side of makeup.”
During the WWD Beauty Biz shoot at a cavernous studio in London, Philips demonstrated he has long since mastered the basics—and then some—as he subtly transformed model Anne Vyalitsyna from a sexily tousled ingenue to a confident and polished Belle de jour by zoning in on particular features for each shot. “The idea was about playing with makeup,” Philips says, adding his goal was to use basic techniques to make Vyalitsyna seem believable as each character she portrayed. “It feels relaxed and spontaneous and you believe you could see her walking down the street like that.”
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Philips says of the look at left: “She’s like a sexy secretary. Here I was playing with eye shadow and a red nail.”
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That’s not to say Philips prefers to always keep it real—or to use a play-it-safe palette of beiges and nudes. Though as Chanel’s makeup maestro he designs with millions of women with a multitude of racial and cultural backgrounds in mind, he still likes to flex his creative muscle and dream up out-of-the-beauty-box products. For Noirs Obscurs, a limited edition collection of almost-black lipsticks and glosses launching in September, he was inspired by Coco Chanel’s infamous “little black dress.”
“The challenge was making something that gives the impression of being black but that is approachable,” he says, adding a shade of aubergine was used to create a lipstick color that’s wearable beyond the fashion microcosm.
“Mademoiselle invented the little black dress that is perfect for every occasion,” he says, referring to the house’s legendary designer by her nickname. “I wanted to play with black and give the impression of making a black collection without black.”
Philips insists his goal is always to create products for women to enjoy and wear. (He proudly recalls one woman who came to a London counter to say she’d found a way to click open the Lèvres Signées compact and use the lipstick from underneath so the product held its form on top.) He relies on co-workers, magazines and beauty blogs, as well as visits to counters, for feedback on how products are used outside of the brand’s boardrooms and development labs.
“When I did Rouge Allure Laque, in my head I thought of it as a liquid lipstick,” he says of the item, which launched in Europe in March and hits the U.S. in October. “I, as the designer, wanted a lacquered lip, but now I use it more as a lip stain, too,” he says. “I create products that are meant to be used by women. Who would I be if I didn’t listen to them? I would be 150 years back in time and creating corsets and not caring if women fainted while wearing them. Mademoiselle threw those corsets away.”
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“She looks like a pure beauty,” says Philips of the model at left. “She’s sensual, almost innocent but not too innocent. There’s just a little mascara. It’s basic natural makeup.”
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Philips references the designer often in his conversation. It’s little wonder Chanel is on his mind—he’s spent months imbibing the history of the house she founded and channeling that heritage into product. “Her life was like a movie or a novel,” says Philips, who occasionally taps facets of it for product inspiration. A birdcage in her apartment, for instance, inspired an upcoming collection, while an image of Chanel in Venice was the starting point for the fall/winter 2009 makeup collection.
Philips has also been clocking up hours working on Chanel shoots and runway shows with Karl Lagerfeld.
“Peter Philips is not only an excellent makeup artist, he also has the ability to create a more than perfect complexion,” says the designer. “I was fascinated by his art when I worked with him for the first time.”
Their collaborations sometimes evolve into products that end up on counters around the world. A jade nail polish, for instance, was concocted specifi cally for a rtw show, and will hit counters in August. Serendipity plays a part, too, in synchronizing the brand’s fashion and beauty offer. For instance, Philips created the Venice-themed makeup collection, while in May, Lagerfeld hosted the brand’s 2010 cruise fashion show in the Italian city.
Philips says he’s also enjoying becoming more familiar with Chanel’s laboratories and learning the ins and outs of cooking up cosmetics. “I’m not a chemist,” he says, adding he considers his relative lack of development knowledge a plus. “I’m a blank page and I’m always asking stupid questions. I have experience applying makeup and I ask a lot of questions. The things I don’t know open doors for me.”
Meanwhile, he does a lot of to-and-froing from the labs, offering feedback after using products on shoots and bringing inspirational offerings, such as swatches of fabric, stones or even a beetle, to accompany briefs. “Or I can mix something myself,” he says. “Then they explain to me that they can’t use it on eyes as it would make girls blind and they find a solution that’s not lethal and that works.”
And Philips isn’t ready to lose sight of what makeup is all about—even if it does come packaged in a chic compact that’s swaddled in a velvet pouch and presented in a slick logo-bedecked box. “At the end of the day it’s makeup,” he says. “If it doesn’t work you can wipe it off.”