On the evening of the
Met Gala, at a
corner table at Mr. Chow on the Upper East Side, Fiona Stiles, the makeup
artist who did Gabrielle Union’s makeup for the gala, sat with Hung Vanngo, who
did the makeup for Julianne Moore and Laura Harrier, and Elle Gerstein, Blake
Lively’s nail artist. They were compiling credit lists of products they used on
their celebrity clients to be sent to the media, and posting detailed shots of
their red carpet work on Instagram.
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At another table, over chicken satay, green prawns
and vegetarian potstickers, glam teams new and old gossiped about the looks
they had created for the evening. There was
Emma Stone’s hair stylist and
makeup artist, Mara Roszak and Rachel Goodwin; Gemma Chan’s makeup artist,
Daniel Martin; and Jessica Chastain’s, Mary Greenwell. Benjamin Puckey, who
does Caroline Trentini’s makeup, was there, as was Sir John, who does Maye
Musk’s, and Sam Fine, who works with Cynthia Erivo and Lena Waithe.
This gathering of makeup artists is an annual
celebration by the beauty teams that do the looks for the Met Gala. It was
started by the makeup artist Troy Surratt after the gala in 2013.
“It was just very lonely to finish up all the work
and go back with your key card to an empty room,” Surratt said
The first gatherings took place in the private room
of Via Carota in the West Village and later moved around the city. The
celebration grew and grew, from a handful of makeup artists to 10, and
eventually to what it is today, encompassing makeup artists, hair stylists,
nail artists, brow experts and aestheticians. This year they met at Mr. Chow, a
choice inspired by “The Andy Warhol Diaries” on
Netflix, which Surratt had
recently watched.
From left, Sam Fine, Nai’vasha,
Tommy Bucket and Daniel Martin at the Met Gala beauty team celebration at Mr.
Chow in New York, May 2, 2022. Long a well-kept industry secret, the annual
gathering of the beauty teams that do the looks for the Met Gala is now the
ultimate beauty insider event.
Goodwin has attended every dinner since 2013.
“We count on each other,” she said.
“This moment of celebration is so wonderful for us,
too, to get together, to have the camaraderie. We’ve known each other, some of
us, for decades.”
Guests chatted away about the looks they’d created,
both maximal and minimal.
“She had this beautiful kind of antebellum Louis
Vuitton feathered creation of lace, so honestly, makeup needed to take a back
seat,” Fine said of
Cynthia Erivo. And Lena Waithe surprised him by saying she
wanted a dark mouth. “She’s usually very understated,” he said.
Some mused about which celebrities were most willing
to experiment. Greenwell said of Jessica Chastain: “I did a very strong eye
with loads of lashes, which always looks amazing on her, and kept the skin just
very beautiful and pure, but you know, she’s got wonderful skin. Then a very
neutral mouth.”
Martin said of Gemma Chan: “Gemma loves to push it.
We did like a smoky bronze eye, but we added these ball-bearing embellishments.
She wore Louis Vuitton, so we pulled up the embellishments from the dress and
put appliqués on her face.”
Many of the artists
had not had a chance to see their work on the red carpet before coming to the
dinner and were refreshing their phones for a big reveal. One anticipated
appearance was Cara Delevingne, who had gone topless, her chest and torso
painted in gold with subtly matching hair.
“I haven’t seen it yet on the red carpet, have you?”
Roszak asked a reporter. “I wanted her hair to be this golden cascading sort of
vixen glamour. I created a dramatic side-parted wave — half of it was fake.”
Romy Soleimani,
Delevingne’s makeup artist, said that the gilded look was inspired by an old
J’adore Dior ad.
“It’s a little punk,
a little Ziggy Stardust,” she said.
“You know, it’s
always mixing that beauty and femininity with something masculine.”
The makeup artist Troy Surratt, who started the
beauty world dinner in 2013, at the Met Gala beauty team celebration at Mr.
Chow in New York, May 2, 2022. Long a well-kept industry secret, the annual
gathering of the beauty teams that do the looks for the Met Gala is now the
ultimate beauty insider event.
Celebrities, it
seems, are likely to be more open to trying new things for the Met Gala than
for a traditional red carpet.
“The Met Ball is
such a high,” Roszak said.
“We really get to
showcase our creativity in a major way.”
Fine added: “I’m a
New Yorker. So this is an event that we own.”
The gathering this
year was the biggest yet, with a guest list of more than 70 and sponsorship by
the e-commerce conglomerate Farfetch and the beauty retailer Violet Grey, which
it just acquired. To support the artists, the sponsors paid for the dinner. And
the bathroom was stocked with products they had chosen.
Greenwell had
traveled from
London and was excited to meet new faces. “I have no secrets,”
she said of sharing tips with younger artists.
“We all do makeup.
We all do it differently.”
Sir John was
excited to see people who had mentored him.
“It’s so good to be
here and to see so many people that I used to assist,” he said.
“I’ll never forget
Orlando Pita giving me the best advice.”
For many guests,
the dinner is an opportunity for community building. “We don’t get to see each
other very often,” said Stiles, who has attended all of the dinners.
“Most of the time
we only see each other on social media.”
Gerstein, who
created ornate ombré nails for Lively, inspired by New York architecture of the
Gilded Age, spoke of the camaraderie.
“I feel like some
people think it’s a competition,” she said.
“I think it’s a
team, no matter what.”
Between courses,
Surratt offered a toast.
“As a bullied queer
kid, growing up in a town with one stop light and a grain elevator, I would
ride the bus to school daydreaming about how I would one day make my way to
New York City to be a part of the glamoros fashion world,” Surratt told the room.
“Somehow I knew there were kindred spirits out there and
that I just had to find them. Thank you for being my tribe.”
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