All the Drag Star Makeup Tips from Opening Ceremony’s Cabaret Show
"All these queens doing their own makeup, you never see that at any other show," Humberto Leon said backstage at Opening Ceremony, marveling at the larger-than-life performers installed at the pop-up vanity tables inside Le Poisson Rouge. Fashion regulars have come to expect the unexpected from Leon and Carol Lim's label (a trip to Disneyland, a costumed ballet), and this season a collaboration with the Ru Paul's Drag Race winner Sasha Velour manifested as an all-star cabaret show. Surprise headliner Christina Aguilera might have brought the pipes, but the drag stars and club kids cranked up their own volume—with mile-long lashes and wigs teased to the max.
Of course, performance-ready makeup is all about serious staying power. For Peroxide, a member of the House of Fem-Anon who was sporting darkly fantastical eye makeup and a precise black mouth, it's all about Wolfe body makeup. "I use their black paint as eyeliner—it's so smooth, so quick, so easy," the performer reported, wearing a mouth painted in it, too, topped off with Jeffree Star matte lipstick. The pigment comes in a pot, designed to be mixed with water, "but if I need it to stay for a long time, I'll put it on with setting spray. It lasts forever." (And stains the tub—a small price for perfection.)
A magnetic Miz Jade, swanning through a cloud of her own setting spray, divulged the maker: Green Marble. "People use it for underwater photo shoots, and I sweat a lot, so I need it!" Meanwhile, the corset-cinched Scarlet Envy, hand outstretched for a manicure touchup, talked up Kryolan's fixing spray. "It's industrial, and it's probably not supposed to be for your face! But I spray it on, and it works for hours and hours and hours," she said, batting her false lashes coated with Mally waterproof mascara—"just in case the song is a little emotional. And you've got to love Aqua Net," she added, her blonde waves cascading from a perch seemingly inches above her head. "I don't know if the environment feels the same way, but volume can't be traded." For his part, the drag king Hyst´ée Lauder—decked out in aviators and a tidy mustache—ascribed facial-hair staying power to "lots of spirit gum."
That exercise in permanence carried over in the next room, where the backstage makeup artist Thomas de Kluyver—busy fine-tuning the rest of the cast's one-off looks—was painting model Jazzelle Zanaughtti's lips with Maybelline SuperStay Matte Ink liquid lipstick. If the mouth was all about precision, her Bowie-esque pink eye shadow was smeared on with the fingertips; meanwhile, the model in the next chair sported a rainbow of tropical hues around the eyes—a loose interpretation of the universal pride symbol. (The entire cast, along with the makeup team and the hairstylists, led by Holli Smith, came from the LGBTQ+ community.) "A lot of the looks we're doing were inspired by drag makeup," De Kluyver said, citing icons like Divine and Lady Bunny. (Indeed, the impetus for the show was drawn in part from Leon's high school days, when he would catch drag performances at an all-ages club in Santa Monica called Circus—a reward for getting straight As in school.) "But this is much looser," added De Kluyver of the painterly, improvisational effect. "I wanted to make it feel now."
With downtown cool kids alongside Instagram stars like Hungry, who moonlights as Björk's makeup artist, now was exactly the vibe tonight. As for later, when it's time to get all that makeup off? "I go with a classic Pond's Cold Cream," Scarlet Envy said with a smile, "because I probably wear a little more grease paint than you do."
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