Val Garland

Val Garland is a make-up artist who works alongside with MAC, and is the highly sought after make-up artist for shows such as Vivienne Westwood and Giambattista Valli. She was born in Bristol, and then immigrated to Sydney in Australia, and during her time there trained to be a hair colourist.

When asked by Megan McIntyre, the senior beauty editor of ‘Refinery 29’ how she changed paths from hairdressing and got into the industry of make-up, Garland said that she got into the industry by ‘pure chance’, as one day the makeup artist didn’t turn up so she had to do the make-up for the shoot used for a magazine in Australia, and from then on people started to book her for jobs. Garland said that at the beginning she made ‘a lot of mistakes’ as she was self-taught, and that she made everyone ‘look like me’ with ‘big black eyebrows and black, heavy, sooty eyes’. Garland is a firm believer in learning from your mistakes and refining and improving your skills through time. 

Garland first got involved with MAC when she was approached by Gordon Espinet who is MAC’s senior vice-president of make-up artistry whilst backstage at a Paul Smith show, and he told Val that MAC would like to sponsor her. 

Val has a varied and hectic work lifestyle, as she alters between shoots, shows and celebrity work, which she enjoys as it keeps her work fresh and exciting- Garland says she is not a fan of routine. When talking to ‘Vogue’ magazine, she said that she likes the pressure of a show and ‘working spontaneously’, but she also enjoys the luxury of a shoot, and being able to tell a story through the photographs. She has collaborated with photographers such as Tim Walker, Mario Testino and Patrick Demarchelier. 

Garland has worked on many covers for ‘Vogue’ and says that she normally decides what she will do for the hair and make-up there and then, as she works best through spontaneity. When asked whether she prefers to create more ‘out there’ looks or classically beautiful ones, Garland replied that she liked to go on shoots and do something ‘a little mad’. On one shoot Garland did with Kate Moss and Mario Testino, Kate was styled by Lucinda Chambers in big couture gowns, and Lucinda told Val that she shouldn’t do anything with Kate’s hair or make-up, so she simply cleaned her skin and that was it. Garland describes it as ‘a very inspiring moment’ as she learned that sometimes less is more and that you have to be brave and bold in your decisions when you are doing a job as a make-up artist.

Garland makes her own rules and trends in make-up, for example, at a Vivienne Westwood show, she covered the models faces with a clear lip-gloss and then pushed their faces in boxes full of glitter to create a bold yet simple look. She also drew all over a models face using only navy blue eyeliner for a fashion feature in ‘The Sunday Times’. Garland is also very daring in her decisions, as backstage at a Mary Katrantzou fashion show, she changed the whole make-up look for the models without telling Katrantzou, the designer, as she thought they we not working. Instead she went round and created a different eyeliner look for each individual model, and Mary only found out during the run through of the show, and luckily for Garland really liked what she had done.

Val is also a very resourceful make-up artist and lives by the ‘anything goes’ motto and encourages others to use whatever tools work for them. Before, Garland has used a potato and pieces of cotton wool as a method of applying blusher, and she also came up with the idea of the sculpted cheekbones for Lady Gaga in her ‘Born this way’ video, by folding up pieces of paper into paper planes and placing them on her face and then sending them off to a prosthetics studio.  

Garland’s courageous and daring attitude towards her work as a make-up artist is to be admired, and shows that taking risks and stepping out of the ordinary can be both inspiring and very rewarding. 

(www.thefashionography.com)