The following is an excerpt from the Glow Journal Podcast. You can listen to the full interview with Shiseido Makeup Global Artistic Director James Boehmer now on iTunes and Spotify.
GLOW JOURNAL: You grew up in St Louis and studied fine art and costume design in Chicago, but I wanted to go all the way back to the very beginning. What is your very earliest memory of beauty?
JAMES BOEHMER: It’s funny- I get asked this question a lot, and I probably am never that consistent in my answer. I was a kid in the mid seventies and there was that explosion, that sort of moment in pop culture with Charlie’s Angels, Olivia Newton John, Farah Fawcett, the Six Million Dollar Man, the Bionic Woman, the Love Boat, and sort of the beginning of disco music and the glamour of pop culture at large. I remember my mom’s magazines would come in, whether they were the TV guide or Good Housekeeping- she didn’t really subscribe to a lot of high fashion magazines, but I was always hungry for any of those magazines and publications that gave a glimpse to the outside world and turned me onto a place that is outside of where I grew up.
The first time I really thought about beauty was probably with my own mom and her skincare routine. She wasn’t really a makeup wearer, but she really took care of her skin and she would sometimes wear lipstick if she was going out. I think that regimen, and then also mixed with the visuals and the images that were on record covers and on the radio. I remember Donna Summer was one of my first records that I ever had. So I always think about that- glossy skin, glossy lips, a little bit of color, but still sort of natural makeup. That moment in the mid to late seventies is probably one that always resonates with me.
God, that matte era that we had only a few years ago must have absolutely destroyed you then.
I’m somebody who’s a big fan of skin and the texture of skin and that’s been something that I think has been consistent in my own work as a makeup artist. Working with a brand like Shiseido that’s such a hallmark of skincare and the heritage of the brand and the innovations of the brand in skincare, it’s always so interesting to me. But I think whether or not you have matte skin, glossy skin, transparent skin, full coverage skin, as long as it looks like skin, I’m down for it.
So those are your earliest memories of beauty- what did you think that you might be when you grew up?
Initially, the first thing that I wanted to be when I grew up… I’m a frustrated dancer. There was a show on in the States in the late seventies called Solid Gold. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen or heard of it, but it hosted by different people- Dionne Warwick was a host at one time, Marilyn McCoo from The 5th Dimension was a host. So it would basically be like the top 10 songs on Billboard at the time, and they would have this troupe of dancers that would dance little clips to the popular song of the day.
This is my dream.
My first real thing that I wanted to be was a Solid Gold dancer. That was my dream.
And then I sort of pursued the fringes of dance, being involved in theatre as a kid, but I never trained properly, which I regret. I didn’t start training as a dancer until I was about 15. By then I was a stupid teenager who wasn’t disciplined and wanted to have fun, wanted to drink, and do all of that stupid stuff that teenagers do. I didn’t want to go to dance class.
But that was really my first love. It’s interesting, because any opportunity in my career that I’ve been able to be adjacent or close to dance, I have [taken]. Including our film that we made for when we launched [Shiseido’s] complexion products. The whole thing was inspired by dancing. We were able to work with the amazing choreographer Ryan Heffington. That was a dream, to put my love of skin and dance and complexion together. It was incredible.
I read that your very first introduction to makeup artistry, if you will, was when you were working on a feature film across wardrobe, hair, and makeup while you were still studying. I would love to hear more about that experience. Had you ever worked as a makeup artist before?
Not professionally. It was sort of a fluke thing. I was in school at Columbia College in Chicago and I had met a friend who, at the time, her boyfriend had just written a screenplay and he managed to raise a little bit of money to shoot a film with a very small budget. I’d always been adjacent to makeup. I would do makeup for my friends, I would wear makeup when we would go out and sort of club, it was very much that 90s grunge club kid sort of moment where like all of our eyebrows were shaved off and we were living in this sort of alien and androgynous freak out world. So I would mess around with makeup, but I didn’t really do it. I hadn’t ever been hired as a makeup. My friend Trish was just like “Hey, would you be interested in doing this?” So I just sort of got roped into it.
The producer that was working on it actually liked me. I guess I had good energy or I was an eager young thing, and he started booking me for commercial and television and film work from there. I entered in really quickly, almost before I ever thought about it. It was not really something that I had planned on.
I started working quite a bit, and I made the decision to quit college. I had to tell my dad why I was quitting college and what I was going to do. I just said “I’m going to be a makeup artist, and I don’t a hundred percent know what that’s going to look like or how I’m going to do it, but that’s what I’m gonna do.” So I just sort of went after it, and here we are!
To drop out of college to focus on makeup is a pretty big thing. A broad question, but what was it about makeup that you loved so much that made you feel comfortable taking that leap?
Part of what I’ve always loved about beauty and fashion and the art of transformation and performance, the performance of dance, the performance of theatre… it was hard for me to identify what it was I specifically liked, and I don’t think I was able to verbalise “makeup specifically” as the answer. But I think as I learned, stepping into that world and collaborating with people on set and being part of the team that creates the images or transforms the talent or creates a dialogue for the performers, to me, that seems really interesting. The collaboration and part of the construction of that sort of other world. When I discovered that I could do [makeup] and that I had a knack for it, I just tried to learn as much as I could. I started assisting other makeup artists at the time as well. I wasn’t just fabulous and incredible five minutes later. Assisting is so important.
I think when I was able to verbalise “Okay, makeup,” and was able to zero in on it, it was actually quite helpful because it gave me a lot more focus. Before that I was like “I’m going to be a fine artist or I’m going to be a dancer. I’m going to be an actor. I’m going to be a costume designer.” I was sort of floating around in all of these worlds that I hadn’t clearly identified. Makeup helps me focus. It gave me a goal and an objective, which was helpful.
And, of course, I felt like I had to be proactively pursuing something. If I was going to be not in school, I didn’t have the luxury to just screw off, you know what I mean? I had to work. I had to make a living. My dad was certainly not going to be supporting me if I wasn’t in school. So part of it was the reality of growing up really quickly and putting your foot to the gas a little bit.
What were some of the highlights from that early period of learning the ropes as a makeup artist? And were there any lessons from that time that you find you’re still applying to your work today?
I think the first thing that you learn when you enter that world is how to behave on set- the professionalism of being part of a team, being respectful of the people that you work with and making sure that you’re allowing everybody’s parts to be part of the equation and to be part of the whole. I think learning that respect for the people you work with, especially when it comes to the people that sit in your chair, if it’s an actor, if it’s a model, if it’s a dancer, it’s a performer. It’s really important that you’re gracious with your energy and your collaboration and your spirit because you, a makeup artist, are one of the most intimate people that a performer will work with, so your energy really rubs off. That’s one of my earliest lessons.
And then, just working with different makeup artists in different fields, like film, like fashion, working with photographers, learning about life. It really was an education. I felt like I was able to gain incredibly valuable experience in real life- practical on the job learning versus the philosophy of what you do when you’re in school. My early work, I think, was an education. I look back at some of the stuff from that era and I’m like “Oh my God, what was I thinking?” But it’s all a learning. It’s part of your path and part of your journey.
Naturally everyone’s story is going to be a little bit different, but what advice would you give to anyone who is hoping to become a makeup artist?
First and foremost, I think you have to be patient. I think that, especially nowadays with the influx of social media and our connectivity to everybody, people see these sort of “overnight successes.” You can definitely amass a following on social media, and if that’s something that you want to go after, which I think is it’s an incredibly valid part of the industry, but that’s very different to how I built my career. It was really about assisting, about learning, about making connections, about establishing relationships with people, building a point of view. Part of it is like putting in your time, in a weird way.
The best advice, I think, is that if it’s something you want to do, stick to it and put 150% into it, because that’s what it’s going to take to achieve any sort of success- whatever that success means to you. If that’s having a million followers on Instagram, if that’s working in product development, if it’s being a special effects makeup artist, if it’s grooming people for the red carpet, there’s so many incredible facets of the makeup business. The best advice is to try out as many of those facets as possible, figure out where you fit and what feels right, and then zero in and build from there. There’s just so many things in the world of makeup and beauty that I didn’t even think about or would have had no understanding of that part of the industry or the business. So there’s a lot to explore.
I think that is such good advice, because as you’ve just said, with social media I feel like people have this very clear idea of what a makeup artist is, but there’s so much that goes on behind that.
It’s subjective, right? I feel like I struggled for years with the word “makeup artist”, the title “artist”, because I felt like so much of what I had studied in regards to fine art was really a different thing. So much about working in makeup is work. It’s commerce, it’s entertainment, it is work. That doesn’t mean you don’t have an opportunity to be artistic.
I’m really lucky that I had incredible mentors along the way and incredible teachers that really helped me shape my path. That’s something that’s really important. Ask questions, be open, be professional number one, and then also be flexible, because you may end up loving something that you never thought you would ever fall into. I wouldn’t be here right now if I wasn’t just a little bit open to trying something that I hadn’t really planned on.
Prior to your current role as Shiseido Makeup Global Artistic Director, you served as Director of Global Artistry for NARS and held the role of key artist backstage for so many designers at fashion week- Vivienne Westwood, Carolina Herrera, the resume is unbelievable. I do have a couple of questions about that time, the first being on the process of physically developing a runway look. I imagine that it does have to be quite collaborative with the designer, but can you talk me through that process and how you go about creating the look that then gets sent down the runway?
I loved my time working at fashion week and with designers and creating looks for the runway. It’s such a moment. I was such a fan, personally, of that moment of the late eighties, early nineties with the supermodels and that explosion glamour. The models became larger than life.
It was such an incredible opportunity, first and foremost, to be able to work with Francois Nars who created so many of those iconic moments that I was so enamoured by. Working with him and working for the brand as I did for so long was such a… that’s like my masterclass, my master’s degree, my doctorate, whatever it was, that was to me where the real education started. I was so enamoured by Francois, his work, his point of view, his sense of humour, his taste level and just the incredible, generous person and generous artist that he is.
When I was able to start doing and creating makeup looks on my own, it was like a dream come true. As far as the process goes, it is true collaboration. It was really about a story. It was really about a moment. It was really about what the collection was inspired by, and the makeup look is sort of a continuation of the story. It was fun to inject the character so that the girls had inhabited this persona as they spent that seven to 10 minutes on the runway.
It’s very collaborative. It was really fun. It felt really creative. Personally, I always wanted to do something that I hadn’t seen before. And again, it was a good opportunity for me. That moment in my career was really helpful to shape my own personal aesthetic and my own point of view. That was sort of that moment where I felt much more confident in my own voice about what I like and what I don’t like and what I think when it comes to makeup. So that was such an incredible moment. From literally the first fashion show I did with Francois and the NARS team onto doing my own shows throughout my lifetime with the brand, it was just like a blast. The best.
Another question that I have on that period. The runway is where we beauty consumers, and I guess fashion consumers, are looking for the trends of the upcoming season, however, what works for runway is often not hugely applicable to the day to day. How would you recommend that beauty consumers adapt a runway look or an editorial trend to suit day to day?
Most of the shows that I did when I was working backstage were in New York. I had experience in other cities, and the one thing about New York if you compare it to London or Paris or Milan or even Tokyo Fashion Week, New York always had a tendency to be much more clean, much more about skin, not such obvious makeup looks. So the beauty was always in the detail- a more defined eyebrow or too much mascara. It was always one little thing.
I think that’s sort of good advice and that’s what shapes these trends- if something seems attractive or seems interesting or you have a gut instinctual reaction to something that you want to try, you should just try it because it’s makeup and it washes off and you’re not stuck with it. Worst case scenario is you do your eyebrows too dark, which by the way I do all the time because my eyebrows are grey, but take the opportunity to adapt what you see. So if it’s a really strong, colourful eye, try an eyeliner that’s colourful, drop your black or your brown that you use everyday and just alternate that one piece. Or if you typically don’t do a matte lipstick and you do more of a transparent gloss, try a matte lipstick. I think sometimes changing the texture and just breaking the habits of what you usually do is good advice. Say you see blue on the runway or you see blue on Instagram and you’re attracted to it, try it, but maybe do it in a smaller way. Then you can build your confidence and you get comfortable and then you’re not so victimised by the trend. You’ll feel a little bit more like yourself.
Now’s the time to do it. It’s not like you’re going into the office and Debbie from Accounts is going to be like “What have you done?”
That’s 100% true. That’s the thing. We were having these conversations a lot at the beginning of lockdown. It’s a time experimentation. And, also, you’re sort of performing when you’re on a Zoom call. If I don’t feel dressed or totally finished, I feel like I can’t perform. So throwing on the lipstick that you’ve never worn or wearing too much mascara or trying a glittery highlighter on your cheek, you’re not going to hurt anybody, especially if you’re just in front of your Zoom camera. You might fall in love with something that you never would have been willing to try.
I love that. You’re not going to hurt anybody. You worked for NARS for something to the tune of 14 years. You’ve touched on how working with Francois was your masterclass. How did his approach to beauty shape your own work?
I think it might have been even longer than that! I think it might be even closer to 18 or 20 in all capacities, which is insane to think about! It’s weird to think about doing something for more than 20 years in general. It’s insane.
The thing that I love about. Francois and what I learned from him more than anything is the detail of everything and the gesture behind everything and the permission that he always gave himself to be spontaneous and to not be scripted. You always have these preconceived notions when you go on set, whether you’re shooting an ad campaign or you’re shooting an image for a book or you’re doing a tutorial or you’re working with a celebrity for red carpet. You just have all of these preconceived notions that you bring with you.
One of the things that I felt he always did that was so magical was to be so present and in the moment and spontaneous. You would have a plan to do this very 1960s Sophia Loren cat eye, and then in the blink of an eye it would be a different reference. So I think that permission to be experimental and spontaneous is something that I really learned from him.
Also, the encyclopedia of references that he was- and I feel like I also am. That’s something that makeup artists should always brush up on- know your references, because if you’re working with the creative director or an artistic director or a stylist or a photographer who wants to channel a certain moment, and you don’t know what they mean, it’s going to be hard for you to do your job. That was one of my favourite things about working with Francois, speaking in the jargon of reference and speaking almost in this… the expression, kind of like the early gay slang in London in the fifties and sixties was called Polari, so there’s almost this little secret language that you can learn when talking to somebody about a reference to a classic film or to a piece of literature. That is something I noticed about his work before I started working with him, and then to see how he infused that point of view and that narrative ito everything that he did for the brand and for his work was so inspiring. I definitely took that concept and that ethos and put it into the work that I’ve done with Shiseido.
In 2016 you did take on the role of Global Artistic Director of Makeup for Shiseido. What was it specifically about Shiseido’s approach to beauty that you felt aligned with your own beauty ethos?
First, I don’t know that everyone knows this, but NARS is part of the Shiseido group, so I had had a lot of experience in my career during my time at NARS dealing with the team and the global headquarters in Tokyo. Personally, as a skincare aficionado as a teenager, Shiseido was one of my first prestige products that I ever used- and still use. I’ve been loyal to Shiseido Skincare since I was 16. Then I learned more about the organisation and the company’s history, and especially seeing what Shiseido is in Tokyo and in Japan, which is so different from how it has been perceived in other parts of the world before what we did with the relaunch of the makeup, it was just so beautiful and so special and such an interesting point of view about celebrating beauty sort of inside and out- the beauty of ritual and the beauty of form and the beauty of function.
They have this very artistic approach to science, and there’s always this synergy between art and science that they’ve celebrated over their 150 years. When the opportunity came up it was, number one, an honour. And number two, I was like “Oh my god, how? Who is going to wake me up to tell me that this is not really happening?” because it was really a dream come true.
I’ve spent a lot of time in my career in Japan. I developed relationships with people on the Shiseido team. I think that’s part of it. I’ve always really loved Japanese culture, I like Japanese aesthetics, I believe in a lot of the ideologies and thoughts that are so inherent to that culture. I also felt like I had an innate understanding to translate. Again, I think the goal really was to bring all of the beauty of Japan and of Japanese culture, this idea of art and science, and make some more noise about it.
I wanted to ask about the relaunch of Shiseido’s color offering, because I feel like that ties into what you’ve just said. That was in around 2018. Two questions- why a relaunch, and secondly, what is distinctly different about the current Shiseido makeup collection as compared to what existed prior to that 2018 relaunch?
The interesting thing about the objective and our goal in 2016, the team that came in and started thinking about what we wanted to do and what our goal was with Shiseido, number one it was really making the brand more global. Shiseido has been a global brand since the late seventies- they were a domestic brand, only available in Tokyo and in some parts of Asia prior to the late seventies, and all of their production and all of their referencing and point of view and always been from Japan, even though the brand has worked with, honestly, some of the most amazing artists in the business, starting Serge Lutens, Tom Pecheux, Kevin Aucoin and Dick Page. So the artistry and the point of view I think was always very special and very unique and very Japanese and very elevated and very inspiring.
What we knew we had an opportunity with was product, specifically to offer more extended shade ranges so that it would service more clients globally, and then also from a performance point of view. We really felt like when we came on board, we were seeing such high performance in skincare and in sun care and we didn’t feel like we had the same performance in the makeup. Those ideas weren’t adapted to the makeup. So that was really the objective- to increase the performance, translate this Japanese point of view and aesthetic in a more global way, and then also our challenge for ourselves was really to create products that we hadn’t felt before that were very unique, surprising, innovative and were also easy to use. Products that were not geared for makeup artists, that were not intimidating- although I think we managed to have some very expressive colours and some really cool products and innovative formulas, but not to be intimidating to the consumer. We weren’t trying to turn this into a makeup artist brand. It’s still a heritage brand. It’s very much consumer-facing and we want it to be relevant to consumers. We also wanted to speak to a younger consumer than who we were currently speaking to. So that was definitely something that was very conscious when we started working on the colours.
We felt that there’s many different makeup wearers, but the person who really likes makeup is really expressive with makeup and wants to have an expressive point of view. So we wanted more options in the range that would service that point of view and that person.
This something that you have sort of just touched on, but I think it’s worth delving into a little deeper. One of the many things that I find really interesting about Shiseido is that so many colour cosmetics brands will delve into skincare, whereas Shiseido, despite obviously doing both, has long been viewed as skincare brand that also offers colour cosmetics. You’ve just touched on the performance being a really big factor there. Do you have a take on that? How have you found the process of developing makeup for what did really begin as a skincare brand back in 1897?
What we really looked at, and what I spent a lot of time on prior to actually getting into the lab was doing my research and really meeting with our corporate culture department that’s responsible for our archive. The creative archive was one thing, but also the archive and history of innovations and innovation in formula throughout the brand’s history. And again, I think especially because so much innovation has happened especially in the last century, if you think about innovation in all industries, there were so many firsts that I was discovering that I felt like “Wow, this is crazy that I don’t know this about Shiseido. I bet no one else knows this about Shiseido.” So maybe my non-Japanese-ness, which is a little louder and a little more outrageous, wants to be more vocal about some of these things that the brand had done.
So those were things that we really wove into the product development and the stories. So innovations in powder textures, for instance. Shiseido was one of the first makeup brands in the sixties that offered wet dry foundation that would make wearing makeup, which at the time was very oily and very heavy and quite thick, more comfortable for summer months and make it actually more comfortable. The product is called Beauty Cake, and the campaign for the product was actually really innovative. The creative director was a woman, which was very unusual at the time for Japanese companies to have a woman working for them. The model was very tan, which actually at the time, Japanese culture in the sixties, was not the popular look. That’s really pretty badass and that’s really pushing the boundaries. So I think that I really took that idea of pioneer-ism, or being the first, and the spirit of doing something different, and put it into the brand.
I do think that the cost of entry with makeup is so different now than what it used to be. When you put something on, you want it to be on until you take it off. The eyeliner doesn’t really need to last 24 hours, but it needs to stay on, it needs to not smudge, it needs to do what it needs to do. So I think all of those things… we felt like we had a lot of opportunity to improve the performance.
The other thing is that the makeup wasn’t bad makeup that we had to like really throw away and like completely start over. A lot of it was building on what was already there and continuing the innovations that had started before us. We did sort of relaunch everything, but some things were the next generations of products that were there before, or maybe they were spun in a different way with different packaging or a different applicator or whatever. But we felt like we had an opportunity to up the game a little bit on product development.
A large part of your role does see you leading colour innovation and directing the shade development. Much like fashion, colour cosmetics are developed before the trend hits- so how do you do it? How do you forecast these trends and tap in to what we’ll all be wanting to wear so far in advance?
Part of it is that we’re aware of everything. Most of us in the industry have the same resources, right? So we’re all looking at the same trend forecasting decks. We have an amazing internal research and development department, we have one lab that we work very closely with, which is in New Jersey in the US and then obviously we have one in Tokyo. A lot of our innovation and formulation comes internally, which is not the chemists that come up with these textures and formulas- they aren’t really looking at what’s happening in the big scheme of the industry. That’s what our marketing teams are after. So marketing will then say “Okay, we think that we have this really cool nugget of an idea, or this ingredient or this formula or this application, and we think it would be cool in a face innovation.” And then I sort of come in and think about what’s the shade, what’s the story, and obviously work with our product development teams on the formula, the packaging, all of that.
For the shades themselves part of it is intuition. And part of it is my own personal point of view and not trying to be too focused on what’s going to be the big colour or the big hit. Especially because seasonal makeup launches like that just don’t seem modern anymore. Typically what happens is you will launch a range of something- so maybe it’s a new product in 10 shades, or it’s a lipstick with 24 shades. Obviously with complexion products, you want to have a larger shade range so that it services more people and it’s more inclusive for everyone. But when it comes to colour, part of it is your personal point of view. I look at all things too. I look at paintings. I look at art, I look at movies, I look at things around me and my house and my interior design. I look at fashion. All of that goes into it as well.
And then I guess the third piece, because I’m also always trying to tell a story with the products that we create and have some sort of emotional connection. So what I do with the shade names is really about revealing or celebrating a different part of Japanese culture or my own observations on Japanese culture or my own visit to Japan. To me that’s the special part of marrying the shade name and the product pay off and the colour to be more than just, you know, a lipstick. So hopefully the experience of using it becomes a little more memorable and maybe a little more connected.
Shiseido is obviously a Japanese brand, and something that the rest of the world is hearing more and more about is “J Beauty” as a trend and as a movement. Talk to me about J Beauty. Why do you think it has become a global movement, particularly in recent years?
We thought a lot about this as we were developing the brand. I think so much about Japanese innovation and this idea of the perfect marriage of form and function in all parts of Japanese culture, all of these very functional things are still really beautiful. There is this idea of the elevation of design in all things Japanese. I think that is prevalent in fashion. I think that’s prevalent in design. I think that’s definitely prevalent in cosmetics and personal care items.
So this idea of Japanese beauty, what I think it’s really about is about that marriage of form and function. It’s about the intuition of using something and sort of knowing how to use it. I also think that with anything that’s made in Japan or anything that’s from Japan, in my opinion, that is really a mark of quality. And I think that that is what you get when you think about Japanese beauty- Shiseido, especially, as a brand that has such a history and has such high standards of efficacy testing and safety testing and all of that. We don’t launch something if it doesn’t do what it says and it doesn’t work and it’s not safe- because we can’t. So I do think that there’s this element of quality.
And I also think that this was sort of like the moment in the mid nineties with the sort of Belgian influence and fashion and the Japanese influence on fashion. I think the prior era of fashion was quite maximalist and it was quite out there and it was sort of over the top, and that was the leftover of the eighties and power dressing. And then what happened with the supermodels. And then there was some sort of grunge moment where everything was deconstructed and then that sort of simplicity and minimalism in design became really popular. And that, to me, that’s my ethos right there.
I think if you put all of those things into a blender and like pulse it, that’s what Japanese beauty is.
Shiseido have recently named Hunter Schafer as their Global Makeup Ambassador, which is so exciting. I would love to hear more about how that partnership came to be. What do you feel that Hunter is going to bring to the brand? And what is it about her that you think resonates with so, so many people?
Hunter, to me, is so the modern embodiment of the concept of beauty. I think that she represents, in so many different capacities, this current zeitgeist of beauty and this younger generation, specifically, that has moved beyond labels, boundaries, restrictions and limits. They really express this part of themselves that is so authentic and so truly creative and artistic.
For us, with Shiseido and thinking about who made sense and who felt aligned with who we are, I felt more than anything that we needed to have somebody who was an artist in some capacity. I think that Hunter, whether it is through her artwork or whether it’s through modelling, whether it’s through acting now, that has become part of her expression and it’s so authentic. That was what was really important for us.
We didn’t want just to have a model that wasn’t going to be able to align with that part of us that’s really core to who we are. We’re half science and we’re half art, and where we really live is in that intersection of the two. She’s the perfect embodiment of that. It was also just wanting to work with somebody that has a point of view and wants to collaborate and wants to be part of the conversation- not just showing up for a shoot and having a lipstick put on. The collaboration with Hunter is really amazing and we’re really excited to see how we’ll continue this relationship with her.
It felt very instinctual from the beginning. I knew about Hunter’s work as a model before I saw her on Euphoria- and speaking of that zeitgeist and capturing that moment, I think everyone was just sort of was like hit over the head, right? It was like “Whoa, this [show] is mind blowing. This is incredible.” The cinematography is incredible. The performances are incredible. The styling, the makeup, obviously Donni Davey is an incredible artist. What she’s done for that show is incredible.
But that was what we felt too. It was like, Hunter just made sense. And Hunter felt right. It’s been so nice since we just announced her last week, it’s been so nice to hear my friends in the industry and people that I’ve worked with to say like “Wow, that is a perfect union. Wow. That makes sense.” It felt right before and it still feels really right. And like I said, we’re so excited to continue this journey with her a lot more to. A lot more to comment on and a lot more to share in the coming months.
Given that Hunter is such a vocal advocate for LGBTQ rights and is openly transgender herself, I think it is worth talking about inclusivity in beauty. Shiseido’s foundations are available in 30 shades, which is amazing, but unfortunately that is not the norm across the board yet. Do you think the beauty community, as a whole, is finally becoming more inclusive? And what can consumers do to help move the needle?
It’s such an important conversation. It’s such an important conversation, that’s been happening and that’s been building in all parts of our culture. It’s pervasive. We all are incredibly aware of the inequity that so many people experience- being an “other,” or being a minority at any capacity. It’s important to represent all facets of beauty and all facets of humanity and all facets of who we are collectively. Especially when it comes to the beauty industry and the role that I play and that we all play to be in this industry, we should be as representative and inclusive as we can be.
That comes into everything that we do in product development and in shades and making sure that a colour that might seem like it’s a typical… I’ll use a pale pink, for instance, that might work on a lighter skin tone, or we have an archetype of who wears that product, and we make sure that it works on every skin tone so that anybody can wear it and it can work. I think that beauty should be democratic. I think beauty should be for everybody. And I think, especially when it comes to gender expression, as a gay person and as somebody who grew up in the middle of nowhere, I would never put my experience in the same conversation as what other people feel, but I’ve been in that place of feeling “other than”, or feeling ostracised or feeling marginalised. That’s something that I would never want to perpetuate in anything that I’ve done. I think especially when it comes to beauty and when it comes to making thing available and making things inclusive, it’s not even a question to me.
As far as what the consumer can do, products or brands continue to offer very limited things, or not make things for everybody or make things for a very specific subsegment of the culture.
So if it doesn’t speak to you, move on and find what speaks to you, because I think the good news is that there are a lot of brands out there that are taking part in these conversations and are also making products for everybody. You have so many choices, so don’t support a product that doesn’t seem aligned with how you think too. I feel like that’s another part of the conversation. I feel that way as a consumer myself. Brands that don’t seem to align with my values and who I am as a person and fundamentally who I am, I am not interested in supporting. So I think that’s our role as a consumer. And that’s our power as a consumer.
You have been a part of the beauty industry for upwards of 25 years now. What are some of the biggest changes that you have seen, both in trends and in the way that people physically apply their makeup, over the span of your career?
The use of makeup and the commitment to using makeup has been something that I’ve really seen change. I’ve seen so many different eras and different moments, from that full face of the eighties that got stripped down in the nineties, that then became very colourful in the 2000s and then became very Instagram focused as we moved into social media
The most interesting thing about it is the ideals of beauty that are created by the media, by myself and anyone included in the beauty industry. I think one thing that you have to know is that they’re fleeting and that they will change and they will evolve. That, to me, is what’s the most interesting and keeps me in the industry and has for so many years, because it’s constantly changing and evolving.
I think from a formula and from a product point of view there’s always more refinement. There’s always more innovation. There’s always more safety, there’s always new ingredients. There’s always something new that continues to allow the product side to be better and to continue to evolve as well.
And then again, what I was speaking about specifically in regard to Hunter, I think that the concept of beauty continues to change and it’s important to be part of that change. It’s important to be part of the conversation of being more open to other standards of beauty. I think to me, that’s something that’s always been interesting in my career and in my personal life and travelling, which is probably the thing that I miss the most about this time right now, is just the experience of other culture and the experience of other people, the experience of other places. It feeds me in such a way that allows me to be creative and it allows me to be hopeful and it allows me to feel like I can dream again. And I think that’s something that we need now, more than ever.
I love this idea of hope in beauty. I love this idea of having something that feels more than just something that you put on and it can illuminate a part of you. It can shape part of your narrative or your expression. You can use it to be creative. You can use it as part of your story. And I think to me, that’s what I’ve always been attracted to about makeup. And that’s what I’ve always been attracted to about that transformative power of makeup- I can be something today that I’m not tomorrow. I can be something next week that I wasn’t two years ago. It’s being part of the language that we use to communicate who we are and who we want to be. I think makeup is powerful and it should continue to evolve.
And what about the future of beauty, while we’re on things continuing to evolve? What do you think we can expect to see from the cosmetics industry over the next, say, five or so years?
I think one thing that we’re constantly looking at, and I think we’ll continue to see and I feel like we’re getting closer and closer to this being a new moment, is the integration of technology more into makeup and beauty products. We’re seeing that already, especially when it comes to skincare and ways that your devices can monitor your hydration levels, the content of your skin structure. So this idea of using technology to integrate what your body and your skin specifically needs. I think we’re seeing that really already in food and beverage and wellness. And I think we’ll continue to see that in makeup. And to me, that’s really exciting.
I love the idea of not only integrating technology to make putting on makeup or using the product easier. I also think that there’s maybe a visual part of that as well.
We’re communicating right now on a Zoom meeting and I do secretly have a filter on my Zoom that makes my skin look like this, but wouldn’t it be great if I had a makeup product that works with that filter that is capturing my performance or my look. So I do think that even ingredients that can be activated by certain technologies or by different ways to read them- does it blur more when you’re on a zoom camera? Does it look more natural when you’re in real life? Does it increase its opacity when it’s dark? I think that that is the next moment in beauty. And to me, that is so exciting. It’s like thinking about that moment from the Fifth Element, when, when Mila Jovovic takes the Chanel goggles and clicks the button and it puts eye makeup on her.
I might be rendering myself obsolete. Like the machines will completely take over, but I’m sort of here for it!
Finally, James, what is next for Shiseido makeup?
We just announced Hunter as our ambassadors, so we have a lot more to share with Hunter.
I think one thing that you’ll see from us, specifically with makeup, our lens that we look through is to continue to find products and gestures that feel new and that offer that performance and offer that expression.
We are definitely doing something, beginning middle next year, that I think is a really unusual new sort of hybrid texture that I don’t think anyone has ever seen before. And I hope we’ll offer a lot of creativity and expression and play more than anything. I love the sense of play when it comes to colour and makeup. Some things that are coming soon really celebrate that idea of playfulness and expression and creativity- maybe more than anything we’ve done so far. So I’m really looking forward to that.
To listen to the full interview with Shiseido’s James Boehmer, subscribe to the Glow Journal podcast now on iTunes or Spotify
