Pat McGrath

Presenter0:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts. I'm Lauren Laverne, and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast. Every week, I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book, and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. For rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:42

My castaway this week is Pat McGrath. Often described as the most influential makeup artist in the world, her creative vision sets the bar for beauty trends across the fashion spectrum, from high art to the high street. She is as famous for creating avant-garde looks as she is for her mastery of that devilishly difficult beauty canvas, perfectly radiant skin. A self-taught, self-made beauty multi-millionaire, her influence on the industry she works in has been evident throughout her 30-year career. She cut her teeth working for free for street style magazines and touring with music collective Soul to Soul before going on to collaborate with designers including John Galiano, Alexander McQueen, Dol Chain Gabbana, Givenchy and Prada and on hundreds of editorial shoots and magazine covers. She's widely acknowledged as the most prolific runway makeup artist of all time. Known by the affectionate nickname Mother, she is famous for her indefatigable creative curiosity and make-it-happen attitude, both of which must come in handy since her schedule includes up to 80 major fashion shows a year and helming her business, an eponymous makeup range recently valued at a billion dollars. She says, beauty has nothing to do with gender, race or age, and it has everything to do with confidence, individuality and character. Pat McGrath, welcome to Desert Island Discs. Hello.

Pat McGrath2:05

Oh, happy to be here.

Presenter2:06

Yeah. Now as I mentioned, one of the things that you're famous for is your ability to create stunningly artistic looks, everything from impossibly intricate jewelled face masks that we saw at Giovanchi to huge bird like feathered eyelashes and eyebrows at McQueen. Where do you start when you're creating a look for a fashion show?

Pat McGrath2:06

Yeah.

Pat McGrath2:21

Yeah.

Pat McGrath2:25

Or an editorial shoot. You meet with the designers, you look at the clothing, and you know, I am really a shoe bag clothing addict. So I'm really scratching to get into the door to see all the new creations. And you talk about who is that woman of the season or that man of the season. And you're also given abstract words for the beauty. Vinyl, love, adorned princess from out of space or something, or a lip that looks as if it's made out of the stars. I mean, it's insane the briefs that you're given. So you have such a challenge to come up with actual faces that match.

Speaker 12:41

All that ma

Presenter3:06

For listeners who don't know so much about the fashion industry, can you give us some idea of the logistical requirements of working on a major fashion show? I mean, from your point of view.

Pat McGrath3:17

What does it involve? I mean, we're talking 87 suitcases, sometimes 100 team members, five to six motorcycles, eight cars, four vans. The team collectively travels 30,000 miles per season. I think that's how much we travel. But I always look at this as an army and it's military precision. The show has to go on at 10am. Maybe we'll have started at 4 a.m. And, you know, I'm a little bit like a general marching around the tables, going eyebrows on, skin done, lips on. The adrenaline is.

Speaker 13:32

Is that my

Presenter3:53

My

Pat McGrath3:54

Uh

Presenter3:54

Yeah. Yeah. Uh

Pat McGrath3:54

Cool.

Presenter3:54

So, we're going to hear your first piece of music now. Tell me about this track and why you chose it.

Pat McGrath3:59

Diana Ross, the boss, right? For me, as a little girl, prancing around the living room, she's the icon. The eyes, the lashes, the gloss, the face, the voice, it was too much. The visual, everything about her. And also, you know, it reminds me of my early days of waiting for the Avon lady. If she said she was coming at 4.30, I was there at 4, looking out of the window, waiting for that beauty boss, the Avon lady. And she would come into the house and my mother would have to fight me off her because, you know, the samples and the minis, it was embarrassing, and I'd get thrown out sometimes for insubordination. And playing in the background would be my Diana Ross song. She's the boss, you know. And so now I'm a boss. So this song means a lot to me. Thank you.

Speaker 44:49

What's your plan to prove it?

Speaker 44:52

Hide in my pocket for foods, Polly and gun

Speaker 44:59

The pantry showed me one day I wanted

Speaker 45:09

I'm shut up.

Speaker 45:11

All alone, I want to go.

Speaker 45:19

John Me

Presenter5:26

Diana Ross and the boss taking you back to waiting for the Avon Lady Pat McGrath.

Presenter5:32

How important are relationships in your work? I mean, for example, when you've got a model in the chair or a client in the chair, there's something very intimate, isn't there, about touching someone's face and changing the way that they look?

Pat McGrath5:43

Yes, it is really intimate. You're very close with whoever you're making up and you have so much fun and they always open up to me.

Presenter5:50

Well, it leads to some very interesting conversation.

Pat McGrath5:53

I would imagine

Presenter5:53

That intimacy.

Pat McGrath5:54

Yes, it's great. I love it. You know, I love to give advice. Yeah.

Presenter5:59

So you're not a fence sitter, you'll come straight out and see

Pat McGrath6:02

Oh, Charlie.

Presenter6:03

Pack your bags.

Pat McGrath6:05

Order the car.

Presenter6:05

Hello.

Presenter6:07

Plenty more where that came from. And what about when you get the chance to make up one of your heroes? What's that moment like for you?

Pat McGrath6:13

Uh

Presenter6:13

I'm not sure.

Pat McGrath6:13

But

Presenter6:13

Boy.

Pat McGrath6:14

I was very nervous. But I always do a dry run where we get all the timing perfectly so that we know where within that forty-five minutes or an hour, whatever is needed. So I will have prepped that for days before and I'm kind of shaking inside and then I get my act together once somebody arrives. But I always get very nervous and and

Presenter6:34

Uh

Pat McGrath6:34

Big

Presenter6:34

Exactly.

Pat McGrath6:34

Item

Presenter6:34

By So you're not bringing your own nerves to the set, but you must have to deal with other people. How do you deal with that, with you know, ego and and insecurities?

Pat McGrath6:43

And things like that? Well, I mean, insecurities, I understand it because, like, for instance, me coming on here today, you know, I'm nervous wreck. I mean, I know I shouldn't be, but I am. I put myself in their position and I know it can be nerve-wracking. You've got to go on stage, you're out there, you're in front of the public. So it's about soothing nerves and also just letting everybody know everything is going to be all right. And in the end, just to turn it into a light, fun day. That's that's how I deal with that.

Pat McGrath7:13

Yeah.

Presenter7:13

And tell me about your own signature look, because, you know, like many people who work in fashion, you love black.

Pat McGrath7:19

My signature look is really about making my skin beautiful. And I always love mascara. I put that on, layers of that and little bit of eyeliner, shimmering highlights on the cheekbones. I like very simple beauty.

Pat McGrath7:33

My obsession is putting makeup on other people. They're my canvas and that's my joy. Pat McRuff, we are onto your second disc today. Tell me about this one. Why did you choose it? So David Bowie, Life on Mars, the androgyny, the bleached eyebrows, the colour, the clothes, the fearless use of gender. He's really, in a way, every makeup artist's dream.

Pat McGrath7:59

Fighting in the Go! Uh

Speaker 48:03

Oh man, look at those cavemen go!

Speaker 48:09

It's a creaky shallow

Pat McGrath8:11

Uh

Speaker 48:12

Uh

Pat McGrath8:13

Take a look at her Leaning on the wrong guy. Oh ma'am, wonder if

Speaker 48:20

You never know.

Speaker 48:24

Who's done the best of the show?

Speaker 48:28

Is there life on Mars?

Presenter8:35

David Bowie and Life on Mars. Pat McGrath, when you were picking up the Isabella Blow Award for Fashion Creator from the British Fashion Council, you said that your work was all about obsession, inspiration and fantasy. Where did that begin?

Pat McGrath8:49

Really, for my mother, she was obsessed with makeup and clothing. And basically, I always say I was hot housed into the industry because the process that she took me on is the process that I do every day. So, she'd take me into the store where you buy the patterns to make the clothes, and then she'd take me to the fabric store. I'd have to watch her choose fabrics, the remnants. Then, the journey was into the makeup store to choose the makeup, hours of choosing the makeup. And of course, back then, there wasn't the colours that were right for dark skin. So, there'd be one colour a week that was right. And she said, We found it. Now we can go food shopping. So, I'm really grateful to her for inspiring me and making me who I am. But back then, I used to beg her not to take me. I was crying, and I was the youngest, and I had to go. She'd be like, Get your coat. And isn't that amazing that it became my obsession?

Presenter9:49

And how would you do

Pat McGrath9:50

Describe Jean's look, your mother Jean's look. Well, she'd wear lots of different colours on her eyes and she'd wear, you know, tons of makeup. Then she'd bathe to give it that dewy finish from the seventies. And she'd stand in front of the T V and, you know, she wouldn't move until I told her what was different. Can you imagine? Then she'd do different hairdos all the time. It would be black one day, then red the next. So she was.

Speaker 110:14

The sc

Pat McGrath10:15

Just insane with about beauty and looks, and just very natural and down to earth. So it was just very normal to me.

Presenter10:23

And fashion too? I mean, how much of that was accessible to you growing up in she's single parent in Northampton? Yes.

Pat McGrath10:30

Basically, she'd make us also go to vintage stores and then she'd be in there getting all these amazing dresses from the 40s, bias cut dresses, tuxedos. And I remember my sister and I all of a sudden watching a documentary on Blitz Kids and realizing that we had all of this stuff in her bedroom. We had it all, everything. She'd been collecting it from we were young. Thank goodness. And where did she wear it? Nowhere. She just was a, I think, hoarding, I think they call it. She just had it all at home and she would try it on. But also she'd talk me through every outfit and the decades and what this pleating meant. And, oh, look at this dress. It's now in fashion. You've also described. of your childhood is

Presenter11:16

Yeah.

Pat McGrath11:17

very difficult and very

Presenter11:17

Yeah.

Pat McGrath11:19

Ways, was that the case? I mean, basically, when we had no money and I think it was very difficult and hard for her

Presenter11:21

Man

Pat McGrath11:26

But for me, she didn't let me know that it was difficult and hard. For me, it was a little bit of a wonderland because she was escaping off into, you know, makeup world. And she allowed me to go there with her on these, how can I say it, these imaginary journeys of glamour. It's time to go to the music. This is your third disc. Why have you chosen it?

Pat McGrath11:49

Missy Elliott, I can't stand the rain. The fact that she takes a track that was done by Ann Peebles, Tina Turner, spins it on its head, hires Hype William to do the music video, and she's in a huge, inflatable look. And also, the fact that she's different from everyone else and she celebrates her differences. Her full lips with extra gloss, her eyebrows jewelled. I just love the braveness of Missy Elliott and the beauty of her.

Speaker 412:20

When the brain

Pat McGrath12:24

Meet some me at Timberland We

Speaker 412:25

We at Tumberland will we s

Pat McGrath12:27

Tango tanker

Speaker 412:27

We so tight that you get our styles tangled Sway your docile like you loco And we get thinking tonight like cocoa So so

Pat McGrath12:31

Sweet.

Pat McGrath12:37

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 412:37

You wanna play with my yo-yo?

Pat McGrath12:38

You wanna play

Speaker 412:40

I smoke my on the day low. I felt better.

Speaker 412:47

It's my window, watching standard

Speaker 412:52

It's my window I touched and rained.

Presenter12:59

Missy Elliott and the Rain. Pat McGrath, your makeup addiction took root then when you were growing up in Northampton back in the seventies. What were the products that you had access to at the time, like?

Pat McGrath13:10

I had a lot of skincare, which was my mother's skincare. She didn't like me to touch, but I did use it. And then I'd have one lipstick or so out of her hundreds of lipsticks, and I would use that lipstick as an eye shadow. Very futuristic. And that was my look.

Speaker 113:15

Duh.

Presenter13:15

Uh

Speaker 113:15

Yeah.

Pat McGrath13:27

And this inverse

Presenter13:27

Inventive approach might have stemmed from your mum's attitude to makeup, because she had some very inventive ways of working around the scarcity of makeup that was available for black skin.

Pat McGrath13:37

Oh yeah, she even used cocoa powder. She came in from the kitchen with cocoa powder all over her face and she's like, This is the right tone of powder. And she had dusted it on her face and she looked amazing. So that's what I ended up doing as well: making products that I needed backstage. That stemmed from my mother. If you can't find it, you can't buy it, make it.

Presenter14:00

And do you remember the first thing that you made when you were a kid?

Pat McGrath14:03

Oh yeah, a moisturizer. I made my own moisturizer for my dolls and myself. And I mixed oil and water together, whipped it, put it in a fridge and it looked like a cream. So I celebrated for months with my own cream that I'd made and I packed that all over my face. I was shining like a Belisha Beacon.

Presenter14:22

What?

Pat McGrath14:23

For months.

Presenter14:23

And I mean, growing up in Northampton in the seventies, it's a different place, a different time to look back on now. I mean, what were there any negative experiences? You know, to what extent did you experience racism?

Pat McGrath14:34

I mean, you grow up in a community from when you're a child and then also going to church. You had a really solid base around you. I was very lucky having the mother that I had who was like, oh, look at that person, they're racist, poor things. Anyway, let's go shopping. And I think that really.

Presenter14:54

Helped.

Pat McGrath14:55

Uh

Presenter14:55

You were also close enough to go to London and go clubbing there by the time you became an art student. Where were you going?

Pat McGrath14:59

The time you became

Pat McGrath15:02

Soho, sneaking into nightclubs with my friends. I'd go to the Wag Club. Obviously my mother didn't approve of that. And so we lied and we'd tell her that we were going to art galleries. And then I'd come home, my clothes were filled with sweat and smoke. And she said they smoke so much in those galleries.

Speaker 115:12

Yeah.

Pat McGrath15:23

And I just said to her, Yes, it's terrible, mum And what was your look like when you were a clubber? In the early days maybe. It would have been MA One bomber jacket with the orange liner, leggings, travel fox trainers, high tops, big hoop gold earrings, and I looked so good as well then, you know.

Presenter15:28

When I was in the early days

Pat McGrath15:44

My little skinny leggings.

Presenter15:46

It was around this time that I think BBC DJ Janice Long spotted your skills.

Pat McGrath15:52

Uh

Presenter15:52

Where were you? What happened?

Pat McGrath15:53

I'd go to London to stalk celebrities'cause I was obsessed with Blitz kids. The the whole of the Blitz kids, and they were going to be at the radio one, it was here.

Pat McGrath16:01

And I was waiting outside with all the fans, and Janice Long came out and she went, Oh my god.

Pat McGrath16:08

Look at your makeup. It's amazing'cause I'd got my lipstick on my eyes and my cheeks were really burgundy and she said, I'd love it if you could do that on me and I went, Is that a job? And she said, Yes, it is a job So I found my calling right then and there.

Presenter16:24

Pat McGrath, it's time for your next disc. This is your fourth, and I think it's going to take us to the Blitz Club. Tell me about this.

Pat McGrath16:31

This next one. Well, I was obsessed with a magazine called New Sounds, New Styles, and I'd collect them all and I was completely shook by the looks, the hair, the makeup, the clothes, the total used without caution, you know, boys in major beats and girls giving strength with their looks and their makeup. And I would skip class to follow everyone from this magazine. It's such an important moment in beauty for me. And this is the soundtrack. It is. Fade to Grey by Visage.

Speaker 117:01

Idiot.

Speaker 117:14

Ice there in Cold Sail Shows where I child you guys

Presenter17:39

Fade to Grey by Visage. So Pat McGrath, that taking you back to a time when you were obsessed with the Blitz kids following the people who came out of that club scene in their daily endeavors. But how were you supporting yourself while you were doing that? How were you making a living back then?

Pat McGrath17:45

Fall away.

Speaker 117:49

Uh

Pat McGrath17:49

Yeah.

Pat McGrath17:53

My goodness. I mean, back then I was working on the Kings Road in a shoe store and then also I ended up working in the Department of Transport. Many normal jobs funding that

Presenter18:06

Nightlife. I think it was in London during that time that you met influential fashion director Kim Bowen of Blitz magazine. How did that happen?

Pat McGrath18:13

And I'll

Pat McGrath18:16

That again was at the Wag Club. I met Kimbo and she loved my hair. At the time, I had tied thousands of rags onto little braids, so it looked like I had this kind of fabric hat on. And of course, the bomber jacket, of course, the sneakers, and of course, the hoop earrings. And she came up and said, Wow, I love your look. And she was with Stephen Jones, the milliner. And they both loved my look. And she said, What do you want to be? And I was like, a makeup artist. And then she said, Okay, come with me. I'm shooting this weekend, and I'd love you to come and watch. And I would go and watch her shoot for ID, The Face, Blitz magazine. And she just let me come and watch and soak it all up. And kind of that was the best schooling ever.

Presenter19:02

Is it true that you and your friends would pretend to be fashion editors to get into fashion shows? Fake ID?

Pat McGrath19:06

So fake ID.

Pat McGrath19:07

Yeah.

Presenter19:08

Yeah.

Pat McGrath19:08

Oh, we'd have fake IDs, so we'd have fake Vogue cards. It'd be me and Edward, Edward N. and Ford from British Vogue, and we were like and we'd pretend to be the editor of Jamaican Vogue and we'd dress up and go to all the major fashion shows. And back then it was easier to get in. We'd sneak in or rip the side of a tent and go into fashion shows. Under a flap. And then in the end, all the PR firms knew us, they were like, this is ridiculous. You are in Italian Vogue seats and you need to get up. And we'd be like, no.

Presenter19:31

You go under the under a flap and you've made a flap.

Pat McGrath19:45

Defiant. We felt we deserved to be there.

Presenter19:50

We'll come to Edu Deninfla later.

Pat McGrath19:50

Do the

Pat McGrath19:51

Ta-da.

Presenter19:52

Tell me first, how did you end up on a plane to Japan with the band Soul to Soul?

Pat McGrath19:56

Oh, it was with Karen Wheeler. It was a moment in my life where I've been trying and trying to have my own work and my own clients and

Pat McGrath20:07

And I'd said to myself, It's time to give up, time to find a regular job And I am not lying, the phone rang.

Pat McGrath20:15

And it would have been Canwheeler's management asking me, could you do a tour to Japan?

Pat McGrath20:21

And that was it. And then I went to Japan and I was scared and I was shaking, but it was a miraculous moment in my life and an incredible trip. And that's how that began. It's time to go to the music. Tell me about your fifth disc. Why have you chosen this one for us today? Oh, Malcolm McLaren, Madame Butterfly. Malcolm McLaren has always been such a huge inspiration. In 2007, at John Galeano's Spring Summer Eau Couture show, this song played Madame Butterfly, and it was the most magical moment. And I remember Shalom Harlow's supermodel. She had a dress that was 50 feet long. We'd have makeup teams on little ladders to reach the models' faces. I remember at one point, you'd have your bowl of foundation, you'd be running to the front of the queue, and there'd be a black horse funeral carriage racing behind you to the stage. Huge butterflies raining from the skies during the shows. Everything was surreal. It was all about a mashup, worlds colliding. And that's how I love to work. So this song means a lot, the goosebumps that I get because it brings memories back for me and my team, and it's magical.

Speaker 121:36

I'm going back visit her.

Speaker 121:39

You got a problem.

Speaker 121:42

She got a little chunky old.

Speaker 121:45

Chocho Sam is her name.

Speaker 121:48

And Mr. Taylor Wolf.

Speaker 121:50

Take it away, Kyoko.

Speaker 422:01

Oh soonest

Presenter22:14

Malcolm McLaren and the twelve inch remix of Madam Butterfly. Pat McGrath, one of the people who had a profound impact on your career, is your longtime friend and collaborator Edward Enninful. Now he's the editor of British Vogue now, but what do you remember about him when you first met? Because he was only eighteen by

Pat McGrath22:32

Yeah, he was a baby.

Presenter22:32

Yeah.

Pat McGrath22:33

And I'd been working in the industry for quite some time. And I just remember, you know, in between all of my jobs, someone says, oh, there's a new young lad at ID magazine. His name's Edward. Let's pop in and see him. Because back in the day, you never needed appointments for anything. You just basically barged in.

Pat McGrath22:53

We were in Covent Garden, went to the ID offices, walked up, and there was this shy, quiet young boy who never spoke. And I walked in and I was like, with my loud self, he always blames me. He said, I'm the one that made him loud. Because now we're both booming voices, screaming at one another all day. And I was like, hello. And he was like,

Pat McGrath23:14

You

Presenter23:14

Uh

Pat McGrath23:14

Ask him it's true.

Presenter23:15

I think he says about you that you always had the confidence to create trends rather than follow them. And that he remembers you um demanding a yellow eyebrow in ID during the kind of very barefaced grunge

Pat McGrath23:24

In I D

Pat McGrath23:27

Yes. Oh yes, I'll remember that. I demanded the yellow eyebrow. Then I changed my mind and I called him up and I said, Edward, you gotta retouch that yellow eyebrow. I'm having second thoughts. And he went, too late. It's gone to press. I was like begging for mercy. I said, You've got to get rid of it, panicking.

Pat McGrath23:45

But yeah, it's about freedom of expression. Makeup, you can do anything you want. That's what I believe. And you wash it off in the end. It's not permanent. So it's always best to push yourself and have fun with it.

Presenter23:59

Tell me about working with Stephen Meisel. In 1994 you were booked to work on a jeans commercial with him, one of the most highly regarded fashion photographers in the world. Now I know that you've gone on to collaborate on hundreds of shoots since then. What was your first collaboration like? Didn't I read that you ordered cocktails for everyone on set?

Pat McGrath24:11

Yeah.

Pat McGrath24:18

You knew about that. Okay. So

Pat McGrath24:22

Coming from England, right, on the shoot, there'd always be beers and alcohol. And I didn't realize it working with Stephen Meisel. It was clinical, it was excellence to the heightened degree. The room is at the perfect temperature, the music is playing, the girls are dancing. I turn around to this editor and I said to her,

Pat McGrath24:43

Because back in England, it's beer time. You know, it's noon. I said, Do you think I should get cocktails and drinks? She said, I really do think you should. She set me up. So I went and bought tequila shots and I bought beers. I didn't even drink. And I was running around the studio, offering glasses to everybody, including Steve and myself. And he was like, no, thank you. And I thought, isn't how funny everyone's declined? And basically, I should have been fired now that I know the rules of being on set. I mean, how out of order was that?

Pat McGrath25:19

No harm done. And no one dragged. No harm done. Ended up with a lifelong career with Mr. Maisal, the genius.

Presenter25:25

Is that the

Presenter25:27

Yeah.

Pat McGrath25:27

Uh

Presenter25:27

Yeah.

Pat McGrath25:28

Time for your next track. Tell us about your sixth today. Vertigo by Bernard Herrmann. Basically, this is the song that I played when my lipstick was launched, Matt Trance, and I met an incredible digital artist on Instagram. And we collaborated on a movie, and it was all about molten metals. And this beautiful music from Hitchcock's Vertigo playing in the background.

Speaker 125:39

Uh

Presenter26:33

Bernard Hohmann's soundtrack to the Alfred Hitchcock film Vertigo. Pat McGrath, I think you once said fashion is an industry where the real insiders are all outsiders. Tell me more about that.

Pat McGrath26:43

I think everyone from within the industry are obsessive people. They're obsessed with the perfect pleat or the perfect hairdo, coming up with new ideas. And I always think that people on the inside of the industry are very geeky and it's not what you'd expect. The way that people actually look within the industry, it's like me running around like Darth Vader, all in black, you know, with probably not much makeup on. And I always think that the insiders are outsiders. They're the ones that.

Pat McGrath27:16

Probably were not the coolest at school, I th

Presenter27:18

Thank you. Your mother died in 1992, so she did see the beginning of your life as a make-up artist. What do you think she would have made of your career today?

Pat McGrath27:27

Oh, she would have been so proud. Um, I think she would have been with me at most of the shows, probably directing.

Pat McGrath27:37

I think she would have been there pointing out certain mistakes or how we could make things better. And I do believe that she's with me anyway every day. She would have been there a hundred percent. I would have loved her to have been there.

Pat McGrath27:49

Letty, your seventh disc today. What have you chosen? Bjork All is full of love. I remember being a young makeup artist and working on Bjork when she was in the Sugar Cubes. It's so hard to choose, you know what I mean, a track from Bjork, but this is the one when I think about the Chris Cunningham video and the robotic beauty and the whole skin fetish fantasy for me and, you know, I don't know, inhuman perfection married with human passion. And she's she's extraordinary. A makeup artist's dream as well. Oh, a real makeup artist's dream.

Speaker 428:28

A sternant thruster head around

Speaker 428:38

It's all around you. All is full of love all around you.

Speaker 428:57

Face food.

Speaker 429:01

You choose

Presenter29:03

Yook and All is full of love.

Presenter29:06

Pat McGrath, it could be said that there's still a bit of a skinny and white bias in the beauty and fashion industries. Do you think that's changing in 2019?

Pat McGrath29:15

I mean, really and truly, that was the standard of the fashion industry when I was growing up. But I I'm so happy to see the changes that I'm seeing now. You know, we have models from all different social backgrounds, different weights

Presenter29:19

We know

Pat McGrath29:29

Body types, different religious backgrounds, shows that are over fifty percent women of color, and it just wasn't there for such a long time. And now it's just so fantastic to see. Beautiful.

Presenter29:42

Oh shit.

Pat McGrath29:43

Uh

Presenter29:43

You've been mentored throughout your life, beginning of course with your mum. How important is it to you to pay that forward and to mentor others?

Pat McGrath29:51

Uh It's the most important thing. Because I know if it wasn't for certain people looking out for me, I would never have happened. So I always love working with young makeup artists. We'll meet on Instagram, they'll send me their work and I'll say, Are you in town? Get to the tents and we'll try you out. So it's great.

Presenter30:08

You're off to our desert island soon. I imagine that you have more experience of islands and tropical climes than many castaways because you'll have shot so many times in those kinds of environments.

Pat McGrath30:20

Yes, I have. We've sometimes had the the makeup cart on the edge of a cliff in a hundred degree as you watch your lipsticks melting. So you need your ice buckets, you need your iced flannels to cool you down. It's insane, all the electrical fans and everything.

Presenter30:35

Well, of course you'll have none of that. No phones. My four phones. I mean, you can't even have one of the four. How will you cope, do you think?

Pat McGrath30:43

I think I'll do very well indeed. I'm very resourceful.

Presenter30:47

It's time for your final disc today. Tell us about this one.

Pat McGrath30:50

Why you've chosen it? I'm a massive fan of Grace Jones, and she's a groundbreaking legend. You know, she's a woman of Jamaican heritage, just like me. When I think about the strength and beauty of Grace Jones, I think of my own ancestry with pride. The makeup of Grace Jones, the hair of Grace Jones, the colours that she uses. Recently at a Valentino show, Pier Paolo played La Vian Rose, and it was just such a moment of joy and it inspired one of my palettes. And yeah, Grace Jones La Vian Rose.

Speaker 431:24

Feel it on, put one more cup.

Speaker 431:48

Chilla best mom

Speaker 431:51

She stones the wild.

Speaker 431:53

On curly

Presenter32:01

Grace Jones and La Vie Henrose. Now, Pat McGrath, I'm about to cast you away to your very own desert island. I will send you there with the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare to read. You can also choose a book of your own to take. What will

Speaker 132:08

Bull Senge

Pat McGrath32:15

What will that be? Well, me being a very visual person, I would take Andy Warhol's polaroids because Andy was the first. Instant glamour, instant fame, instant gratification. Every makeup that I've ever done, I've taken polaroids of them. Thousands and thousands and thousands of polaroids. But when I think about that, it's like that Andy Warhol Polaroid book is kind of like the genesis of what we're living in now. You know, so that's my book. Grace Jones was in the book. Debbie Harry was in the book. So yeah, I've gone with visuals. You're very welcome to me. I can't scroll. It's all yours.

Speaker 432:48

Well, you

Presenter32:49

Mm-hmm.

Presenter32:54

You can also have a luxury item to soften the blow of your isolation a bit, what would make life on the island more bearable for you.

Pat McGrath33:01

Oh, it's very different. Difficult choice, that I said I'd bring makeup with me, all my eye palettes and lipsticks, because I don't get time, you know, to do my own makeup the way that I'd love to do my own makeup. And so I would use the time on the island to finally worry about me in all that heat. And finally.

Presenter33:21

Finally, if you

Pat McGrath33:21

You could

Presenter33:21

Could only keep one of these disks, which would it be?

Presenter33:25

Bye.

Pat McGrath33:25

My goodness.

Pat McGrath33:26

I think it would be Grace Jones Le Vey on Rose. I think I'd be on the island in full beat with lots of colors on my cheekbones, dancing to Le Vey on Rose over and over again. That's it.

Presenter33:39

Brath, thank you so much for sharing your desert island discs with us. Thank you.

Pat McGrath33:44

Thank you.

Presenter33:44

Do

Pat McGrath33:45

This is fun. I've enjoyed it.

Speaker 433:47

It's

Presenter33:58

I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Pat. She brought a number of her team with her for the recording. It felt not unlike a whirlwind on the shores of our little island. I could really understand why she's known throughout the industry as Mother.

Presenter34:10

Another luminary of the fashion industry is the designer Vivian Westwood. Together with Malcolm McLaren, she was at the forefront of the punk movement in the seventies. In nineteen ninety two, Vivian was cast away by Sue Lawley.

Speaker 434:23

The hallmarks of uh punk, Vivian Westwood, which you and Malcolm McLaren invented together in the early seventies, was was anarchy and destruction. How did you arrive at that invention? What was the thinking behind it?

Speaker 434:37

Punk rock was essentially an exercise about rock and roll.

Speaker 434:42

And Malcolm once said that rock and roll is the jungle beat that threatens white civilization. And it is essentially the idea that youth wishes to attack authority. Of course, youth will always wish to attack authority. But I think that punk rock was a really fantastic and heroic attempt.

Speaker 435:03

to um understand whether there was such a thing as an establishment that like a kind of door that you could almost sort of kick and and have some sort of effect on. So you began, if you like, to to to dress these ideas, to put clothes on these kinds of ideas and and you ended up

Speaker 135:17

Yeah.

Speaker 435:23

Um well, you describe it. I mean, if if someone had never seen punk, what would you say were the hallmarks of it in fashion terms?

Speaker 135:25

Patent.

Speaker 435:30

It was built up from all the motifs that we'd been sort of exploring in terms of what this rebellion, this youth rebellion, would be.

Speaker 435:39

And the first thing was the Teddy Boys, and then then we got bored with the Teddy Boys because they seemed to be more interested in having loads of records and collecting all the right ones and having all these sun label records and everything. And we got more interested in rockers with their slogans. And we renamed our shop Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die.

Speaker 436:03

which was a rocker slogan and we started to get all these T-shirts with chains on and all these black things and um and leather that was where the leather came from said the rockers yeah it was right that's right and uh then the next thing that we did because we weren't satisfied enough with that is that we got arrested for doing this t-shirt which was supposed to be pouring a graphic of two naked cowboys and somebody was wearing it in Piccadilly at the same time as the programme about Johnny Go Home and it was all about rent boys in Piccadilly and the police were in there and they saw a man wearing this t-shirt and they arrested him.

Speaker 436:48

And we we got done for that. Well, because the cowboys' penises were hanging out at the time.

Speaker 136:50

Yeah.

Speaker 436:55

Yeah, the the I tell you I can remember the verdict of the judge in saying why it was pornographic. It was that they were too close together in that in the respect that you've just mentioned, that their penises were too close together and that also they were over large, so he said, and also one of them was tying the other's neck tie.

Speaker 437:16

Uh anyway, that was the clincher. And then on from there came th th the whole fashion of bondage and straps. So we so we decided to just go all out for that then and we called the shop sex and started to sell more pornographic T shirts and also to to put all this rubberware in there.

Speaker 137:24

Drafts.

Speaker 437:36

Uh

Speaker 437:37

And then also the other influence on on the punk was the fact that we had the shop walls had been at one time in our first shop been covered with all these little pictures from fifties pin-up magazines with girls in all this torn clothing. And so we w started to rip clothes in that way as well. And and so more or less we had all the things that we needed and we and we made this um

Speaker 438:03

Cult of our own, this punk rock.

Presenter38:06

Vivian Westwood talking to Sue Lawley in 1992. You can hear many more editions of the Desert Island Disc's back catalogue on BBC Sounds. Next week, my guest will be the illusionist and mentalist Derren Brown. Join us then.

Speaker 438:40

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Speaker 138:43

There's a fair chance you will get bitten at some point.

Speaker 438:46

Planet Puffin

Presenter38:46

Is a new podcast coming to you from a tiny island off the east coast of Scotland. Across the summer, we're going to be following the breeding season. The map

Speaker 438:55

So what it takes. Now there's an encouraging piece of blue at the entrance. There's some nice white guano.

Presenter38:55

Now there's a

Presenter38:57

Uh

Presenter38:58

That's some nice

Presenter39:00

Becky

Speaker 439:00

Uh

Presenter39:00

I'm gonna let you take the first game of Coffin Roulette.

Speaker 439:04

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Speaker 439:10

So B V C sound. Uh