Backstage With Marc Jacobs’s Makeup Artist

Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photos: Annabel Iwegbue, Marc Jacobs

Marc Jacobs has never been a designer we expect to play it safe. Such was the case at his spring 2027 runway show at the New York Public Library Monday night, where bright structured miniskirts and sheer disco pieces walked the runway. Ahead of the show, The Cut caught up with makeup artist Thomas de Kluyver, who transformed the models into party girls backstage. What else would we expect for a collection that’s ready to hit the dance floor?

Photo: Keith Tiner/Clint Spaulding@Lightbox Inc./Courtesy of Marc Jacobs

The collection was ’80s inspired, so de Kluyver and Jacobs spent a lot of time looking at club kids for inspiration, some from the ’60s (Twiggy was a major muse), some from the ’80s. Models wore exaggerated eyeliner, bold lipstick, and bright-blue mascara for a look that was done but undone at the same time. “We landed on this girl,” de Kluyver said of the makeup inspiration. “She works uptown during the day, and she goes to party downtown at night.” Her eyeliner, he explained, may be slightly smudged, but there’s a chicness to the messiness of it all — “nothing is too perfect, and everything is a bit worn in; it’s beauty with imperfections.”

Photo: Annabel Iwegbue

Of course, de Kluyver used products from Marc Jacobs Beauty, which relaunched earlier this month, to create the polished but rebellious looks, making this the first show to use the new(ish) line. He grabbed vibrant blue mascara and shadows, not to mention those OG Marc Jacobs liners we loved back in 2013, to create densely pigmented and softly diffused, exaggerated shapes with liner hugging the top and bottom lash lines.

I may not be going downtown to party at night, but seeing undone makeup on the runway makes me feel better about the days I rush my glam. Smudged liner? That’s just runway inspiration.