Phyllis Cohen, Makeup Artist to David Bowie and More, Doesn't Let the '80s Define Her
Amidst the maximalism and glamour of 1980s beauty, makeup artist Phyllis Cohen was pushing it even further. With an education in fashion illustration from ArtCenter College of Design in California and two fine art degrees from Goldsmiths College in London, the Canadian-native’s approach to beauty is full of illustrative and illusionary elements. “People found me a little weird because I had very strange ideas about makeup,” Cohen tells L’OFFICIEL about breaking into the editorial space. “But slowly, people started to trust me, and realized that I could have strange ideas, but still make them quite beautiful.”
It’s this boundary-pushing balance that earned Cohen a long list of subversive clients in their own right, including David Bowie, Boy George, Annie Lennox, Janet Jackson, Tina Turner, and more. Navigating between the avant-garde and the glam of the era, the London-transplant sank her teeth into the thriving subcultures of the time–punk, New Romantic, and especially the Blitz Kids. Along with her artistic background, these influences culminated in conceptual and modern makeup that creative visionaries like Bowie could appreciate, but that the high gloss fashion world didn’t always.
In recent years, Cohen has charted her journey as a makeup artist through a digital archive on Instagram and applied her artistic vision to a new beauty creation, Face Lace. With maximalist ‘80s-inspired makeup back on the runways and in pop culture thanks to Euphoria and stars like Dua Lipa, L’OFFICIEL asks Cohen to reflect on the memorable decade and the impact that makeup can have when looking back.
L’OFFICIEL: Your earlier work is largely from the pre-Internet era. At the time, did you anticipate wanting to create an archive to share in the future?
PHYLLIS COHEN: I did think that maybe sometime, somewhere somebody will be interested to understand what it was like to be a makeup artist in the '80s. That was really my intention, to chronicle my journey as someone who came from outside, someone who had kids and worked through having kids, because it will hopefully resonate with somebody. Plus, having to navigate from being pretty wild to having to do celebrities and the change of attitude you have to have. So I have tried to be very honest with everything.
L’O: Moving to London kickstarted your career in beauty. What was that like?
PC: I came to London in August 1982 and I was immediately lucky enough to slot into the Blitz Kids/New Romantic scene, and that was through a very fortuitous meeting with a wonderful fashion photographer who was doing a lot of work documenting what was happening in the clubs called Robyn Beeche, who sadly passed away about four years ago. There was another makeup artist that was working in the late '70s, early '80s in London called Richard Sharah, and he also came from a painting background. He had been working with [designer] Zandra Rhodes and [photographer] David Bailey and he was the makeup artist who did "Ashes to Ashes" for David Bowie. Just before I arrived, he had decided to move back to Australia, and Robyn, she had been working with him a lot doing all the season advertising posters for Zandra Rhodes. So, just blind, dumb luck, I ended up being at the right place at the right time. Of course, I could never fill Richard Sharah's huge, talented shoes, but I had my own little style which had some similarities. We both loved detail, we both had an illustrative style for makeup. Through Robyn I started working with Steve Strange from Visage, and he knew everyone in the Blitz scene. I found that doors were opening for me.
L’O: Do you have any favorite beauty trends from the ‘80s?
PC: I was on a shoot about seven years ago, and somebody said the theme is '80s, and I was totally perplexed, because for me the '80s is impossible to define as one look. Within that space of time, I personally did hundreds of looks. I had to think really carefully and say, what did I do a lot of in the '80s? The blush was really strong, that’s certainly an '80s thing. But it really flummoxes me, because what is '80s makeup? But if someone says '60s makeup to me, something immediately pops up in my head, or even '70s I get an idea, but '80s, because I was there, that was really difficult.
L’O: It’s easier to define something in retrospect.
PC: You will always have a different take on it. When I think about the '60s, my idea of [the decade] which is fairly specific, will be slightly different from somebody else's idea of the '60s which will also be quite specific. That's what makes it interesting–everyone has a different memory and filtration system of what they think it was, based on who their heroes were, whether in the '60s it was Twiggy, Joan Baez, Sophia Loren, Brigitte Bardot, or Penelope Tree. It's very much linked to what signifies what your ‘60s is, who's most relevant and most impressive for you in your own memory. It's always interesting to see how other people reinterpret, because who can say what is the ultimate '80s makeup or the ultimate '60s makeup? It's an impossible question.
L’O: Have there been any novel beauty ideas from the ‘80s that you have seen make a comeback?
PC: The first time I did drip makeup was [in the ‘80s], and it’s a little controversial because it was a very similar idea to the thing that James Charles copied from whoever. Someone claiming that they did it first...I can't really be bothered with that kind of thing but, in fact, that's one of the reasons I did an archive. Because all these things that people were fighting over who did it first, I look at it and go, "Well, actually I did that like 30 years ago." Not to say it's my idea, because I think when you have a creative idea it's an amalgamation of everything you've ever seen, some of which has probably been planted in your brain subconsciously even.
L’O: Was your personal approach to makeup similar to that of your work?
PC: I used to do a lot of experimenting on myself. Of course, there was no avenue for that and I think about how interesting it is that if somebody had gone around to a makeup agency in the '80s and they only had a portfolio of makeup on themselves they would've been laughed out of the office, whereas now it's so different isn't it?
L’O: Now that you’ve chronicled your work through three decades, what’s something you’ve learned looking back on it?
PC: The whole '80s was such an interesting time and I remember I was working on something for a cosmetic company called Miners, which isn’t around anymore. They asked me to do a 12-month campaign of makeups based on horoscope signs. I worked with an amazing hairstylist called Robert Lobetta, who's basically like a sculpturist with hair. I would spend three or four hours on makeup, he would spend four or five hours on the hair. We weren't even taking the first polaroids until 5:30 p.m. I remember about halfway through that year, which was probably '84, '85 maybe, people who had commissioned the campaign started coming back to us with feedback saying, "Well, our audience says that they like this, and they don't like that. Can you do this?" And that's the first I ever heard of it, the influence of market research. I think that had a really huge impact and I remember being really annoyed at this market research. Why should we listen to [it]? Because it can't predict what people will like in the future, it can only tell you what people say they liked in the past.
I used to think, if someone had done market research about Boy George, and took him around to a bunch of housewives and said, "Do you think this guy's going to be the next big thing?" Everyone would've said, "Are you kidding, no way!" You can never predict how the public mood will change and what will influence it, and I suppose that's one of the good things about Instagram. Of course it does sort of operate as a sort of giant market research, but it's very instant.
