TODAY IS THE BIG DAY. While I sit at my desk, celebrities are getting glammed up for another year of the Met Gala.
Religiously, on the first Monday of May, the Met Gala serves as the cherry on top of the drama that is the Taurus season. And this year’s theme, “Camp: Notes on Fashion,” grinds our fashion-loving gears — it is the perfect trifecta: irony, humor and theatrical exaggeration.
But a lot of work happens behind the curtain before our favorite celebs (Rihanna, Blake Lively, SJP and more) step out onto the red carpet.
Kirin Bhatty — who works with Awkwafina (who was just featured in Gold House’s A100 List of Influential Asians), Sasha Pieterse, Kate Upton, Freida Pinto and more — is just one of the celebrity makeup artists gearing up for the event. “The Met Gala is one of my favorite days of the year because all of the artists — that’s the day we get to really be artists. We get to have fun and all of that,” she says.
As she preps for the most famous night of the year, Bhatty dishes on falling into makeup artistry, familial expectations and her less-is-more approach to beauty.
Q: How fun is it to work with Awkwafina?
She’s the best ever! She’s everything that you want her to be and more. She’s lovely. She’s funny. She’s kind. And she’s also really supportive which is nice. And again, we’re two Asian women trying to make it happen. It’s really, really cool to be a part of that journey and to see it through her eyes but also to see it through mine. I’m really proud to be a part of her team. She’s incredible.
Q: What is a typical day like for you?
A typical day is being prepared for the unexpected. Which very often happens. You could have a whole storyboard of ideas you were going to do, and you’ve discussed them and then things change. People are late, a dress doesn’t show up, somebody is having an emotional day, or you’re having and emotional day, who knows! I think in order to be a successful makeup artist you have to be somebody who can roll with the punches because there’s just a lot of factors.
Q: What is your overall approach to beauty?
I’m a less-is-more type of girl. I’m very much somebody who believes in enhancing instead of recreating what you have. I see the beauty in women, and I like to pull that out of my clients. I like to take the features that I love and give them just a little extra love and care. But I don’t ever change a face too much. It’s not my thing. I don’t like that. That’s also just not my aesthetic. I kind of subscribe more to like the French style of beauty and you know it’s like nature’s gift. We are all given this amazing face. Why not embrace that? I think it can be problematic when we don’t embrace that.
Q: You went to UC Berkeley; how did you end up in makeup artistry?
I loved the school. I loved Berkeley. I was always into school, but I was not into working at a regular job. For me, what ended up happening was a lot of twists of fate that rolled in my favor. I really wanted to do something creative so I majored in English thinking that I would become a writer, but I told my parents that I was going to be a lawyer.
Q: What happened?
I got laid off [from my job] because of the recession. And it was scary, but one of the best things that ever happened to me because that’s when the journey began. I’m living in LA, I have no job, my parents are like, ‘You have to come home to Texas if you want us to help you, but we can’t help you if you’re in LA.’ It was really a fight or flight situation. I decided that I didn’t want to move home, and I wanted to do something special. I still didn’t really know what that was.
Q: How did makeup come into the picture?
A friend offered me a job as a makeup assistant, and I honestly did not know what that meant, but I just said yes. Which is why you should just say yes to stuff! So, I get to set with this woman, and I look crazy. I’m in heels and I don’t know if you’ve ever been on a makeup set before, but you have to wear comfortable shoes — it’s concrete, and it’s hard. I just didn’t know what I had signed up for. I go and I help this woman, who later became my mentor … I remember being like, ‘Damn when I was working at my other job being there for three hours made me want to leave forever and never come back, but I want to be here forever!’
Q: What was it like being a makeup artist at the beginning?
It’s a different landscape now. This is going to date me, but when I started there was no Instagram. People still had paper portfolios at that time. There was an online presence, but it was very different. So that was kind of the way you did it back then. You assisted on set and you learned how to be a makeup artist from other makeup artists. It’s a scary career for anybody because essentially, it’s a freelance career. There are ebbs and flows, and not everyone makes it, and it’s hard. It was great to have somebody blindly believe in my ability and believe in me and be like, ‘We’ve got this, you’ve got this, you’re going to make it.’ It was really encouraging.
Q: What is it like being a Pakistani makeup artist?
When I started, there was nobody like me, which was scary and hard because I think we all want a sense of belonging and a sense of, ‘OK, it is possible.’ And when you don’t have that, it’s just a little bit more intimidating. In my world of celebrity makeup artists, there’s still so few of us. I could probably count us on one hand, but I’ll generously give us two. That’s why succeeding at it is extra important for me. I don’t need to prove to a South Asian kid out there that you can be a doctor one day, or that you can be an engineer or lawyer or any of those things we kind of grew up around. And look those are amazing careers, I have all of those people in my family. But it makes it hard for the rest of us who don’t fit in that mold. I always knew that I would not be happy doing something like that.
Q: Does the beauty industry overlook women of color?
I need to be with people who understand that the world is not just one shade. Unfortunately, with celebrity makeup artistry … it’s a lot of the same thing and usually, the artists who are of color only do talent of color. And let me tell you, I didn’t want to do that, and I wanted to be an artist of color who could do all color. Because that’s how I was trained and that’s honestly how all makeup artists should be trained — to be able to be a master of all skin tones and textures. I find it really disrespectful when people are like, ‘Oh, I don’t do that skin tone.’ No! don’t do that! Don’t be dismissive. To me, that’s not acceptable. I don’t think that’s taking your job seriously if you’re just like, ‘I only focus on shades one to five and that’s it.’ It’s not cool with me as an artist and as a woman.
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