The Artist

There’s more to PETER PHILIPS than liquorice lips and appliqué eyeliner. He talks to JERUSHA RATNAM CHANDE about balancing editorial with everyday make-up and customising the red lip for every woman

- Jerusha Ratnam Chande

Fashion week is unsurprisingly a busy time for Peter Philips, maverick wielder of make-up brushes. “I’m used to it,” he insouciantly laughs it off, when we finally manage to pin him down for a conversation. As the creative and image director of Christian Dior Makeup, a position he’s held for about two years now, he was responsible for the bare-bones beauty at designer Maria Grazia Chiuri’s debut Dior spring/summer 2017 show. Paredback make-up is not new in Philips’s repertoire—he created delicate, blushing visages at Dior’s spring/ summer 2016 show last year—but his most identifiable work has largely had an eclectic edge to it. From the enduring image of model Lisa Cant in US Vogue (December, 2005), coquettishly peering out of an embroidered lace screen unmistakably in the shape of Mickey Mouse’s ears, to solid, oval swathes of eyeshadow, stick-on eyeliner and obsidian pouts on Dior runways in seasons past.

BALANCING ACT

“Every woman wants to be beautiful. Not every woman wants to be fashionable,” is the seminal understanding that helped Philips walk the line between creating edgy, editorial looks for avant garde designers and work with commercial brands and magazines. “I realised you don’t only have to do spectacular make-up, you also have to make women feel beautiful,” he says, “So I try always to find the right balance. When you have to work on foundations, not just colour but also basic beauty products, you realise the importance of beauty is much bigger than the importance of being fashionable.”

TRAINING DAY