I’m sitting in Patrick’s seat. That’s Patrick Demarchelier, the photographer. It’s a long, cushioned bench tucked away at the end of an open-plan living room, with views out to the sea. “He would hide here from Grace [Coddington],” recalls François Nars, make-up artist extraordinaire and founder of the eponymous make-up line. “He’d say, ‘Please don’t tell Grace I’m here. I’m just taking a nap.’ ” That was back in 2004, when they were all shooting for American Vogue on Motu Tané, Nars’s private island in the South Pacific, the one he bought after selling his company to Shiseido back in 2000 for an undisclosed sum. Though based in New York, he comes every year to decompress and work. He has a studio and has shot some of his own campaigns here (something he has always done himself), as well as for general colour inspiration. Not bad for a man who insists he never really cared much about money.
“I was so childish; I didn’t know what I was getting myself into,” he says of the launch of his brand 20 years ago. “But I didn’t care. That’s terrible to say, but because I care about making something beautiful, I wasn’t bothered about the numbers. I had a great partner, so I put all that on her: don’t bother me with the money. I didn’t want to hear about that or problems. So she took all of that away, just like Pierre Bergé and Yves Saint Laurent. I didn’t bother with the financial side.”
What he did, and still does, care passionately about, as creative director of the brand, is the products. It began with 12 lipsticks encased in packaging designed by Fabien Baron, inspired by white chalk on a blackboard: “I invested all my money, and my parents helped me — we could have lost everything. I couldn’t tell if it was going to be a success or a failure, but it worked!”
Along the way there have been some milestones, such as the game-changing Multiple, the original multipurpose stick for eyes, lips and cheeks; his cheeky colour Orgasm; and the iconic Jungle Red shade of lippy and nail varnish, inspired by the 1939 film The Women. Now he has come back to where he began, with the launch of Audacious, a lipstick in 40 shades, all with names that appear to be inspired by actresses and friends. Nars loves old movies and movie stars: “I don’t care what anyone says, the dream is not the same now. It was magic, pure magic.” But he insists they are also “just beautiful first names, so they can be adapted to anybody. So Marlene [a brownish-red] is not necessarily Dietrich.”
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Indisputably, though, they are richly pigmented, moisturising yet long-lasting; he’s especially proud of the custom-made metal packaging with magnetic closures and an embossed logo. So, why such a lipstick frenzy? Are lips the most important element when it comes to make-up? “No. Lips and eyes: it’s 50/50. You can do so much with eyes, but lips are important — for kissing and talking. But there’s more to understand about shape with eyes. With lips you follow the line, so it’s easier.”
Then there is Nars’s choice of the “face” to represent Audacious: the 68-year-old Charlotte Rampling, an announcement that seemed to signal a sea change when it coincided with Marc Jacobs signing the 65-year-old Jessica Lange for the launch of his beauty range. “We didn’t talk about it, and I never said to him I was signing Charlotte,” Nars says. “It’s a good thing. I’m not saying stop using young women, but sometimes use older ones.” Nor has he airbrushed Rampling to make her look young. “You can see every wrinkle. It was important to leave them, and she was happy about that, too.”
But then one of Nars’s charms is that his notion of beauty has always been all-encompassing: age is no different. “It’s not a question of age, the label of youth,” he says. “It’s not just the physical thing, it’s the soul that has grown, the personality, the intelligence and the culture — that all translates. Yes, Charlotte has aged, yes she has wrinkles, but what counts is what she projects — her style. Of course, when you’re 30 to 35 there’s an explosion of beauty, but there’s something so incredibly strong about Charlotte that to me she’s as beautiful as she ever was.”
And even though he’s got stacks of make-up he could sell you, he’s egalitarian about it. “I’m open to anything. If you want to wear turquoise eye shadow or red lipstick and it works on you, then fabulous. But I also like a face without make-up because it is really you.” But, he advises: “The key to good make-up in real life is to go as transparent as you can. It’s about easy-to-use formulas and looking modern, so even if you use a green on your eyes, it can be translucent and still be beautiful. Now that’s interesting.”
Nars Audacious lipsticks, £24 each, available now in store and at narscosmetics.co.uk