 A Journey with Colour
Lloyd Simmons, international makeup artist for YSL, is a master at creating the seasonal colour stories for YSL's striking cosmetic collections. He took Bella behind the scenes to find out how a colour range is really created.
Each season YSL creates a new colour story, which works hand-in-hand with the season's fashion and accessories. Lloyd Simmonds, International Makeup Artist for YSL, is responsible for the cosmetic colour palettes. The spring 2011 YSL colour range is the second for Lloyd after the huge success of his first range.
Lloyd's journey as a makeup artist began though his love of theatre, the arts, ballet and fashion - influences that remain reflected in his work. At age 17 he moved to Milan from his hometown in Canada, where he designed editorials and advertising material for internationally renowned publications. This merging of both the commercial and creative world has allowed him to design colour that is fashion forward but also commercially viable. Lloyd points out that this is a unique ability, as most makeup artists do not consider the commercial side to colour at all.
Lloyd starts working on each collection about 18 months prior to the in-store arrival of the finished product. ‘The colours that form the collection are an exploration of my feelings, instincts and moods within the context of the YSL story,' he says. ‘We at YSL work within a logic of fashion, but we never follow fashion dictates - we try to set trends, not follow them.'
Lloyd is also greatly influenced by the world around him.‘There is beauty everywhere if you open your eyes and look,' he says. ‘My inspiration may come in part from a walk in a beautiful garden, a stroll through the city, exotic destinations, even people I meet.'
He says that sometimes a collection comes from a great idea for a new lip colour or formula, and at other times it's the eyes that spark the creation of a look and then he will build around it.
Lloyd personally finds the hardest products to design colour for are lip glosses, as the colour can change on an individual's lips and vary with different skin tones.
He makes the colours himself out of his own range of pigments, which he will sometimes paint and draw with to begin with. These samples are then passed onto the labs to be worked into a prototype. Following this step, the wider team, including Lloyd and the chemists, check and validate the colours and textures.
Colour is a huge passion of Lloyds, and in combination with his vision and the lab's technology, YSL has produced some of the most highly pigmented and sought-after colours around.
‘It is a great feeling to see everything finally come together, to see my ideas made into such a wonderful YSL story,'says Lloyd.‘It is truly magical.'
Bella Beauty Magazine |
