Pat McGrath: Glamour Women of the Year Profile
It’s late August, a few weeks before fashion month begins, and among the usual preparation and travel plans, Pat McGrath finds herself somewhere unexpected: on the other side of the camera.
For the legendary makeup artist’s Glamour Women of the Year cover shoot, we’ve transformed her New York City office—the home base of her ideation, product development, and personal archive—into the kind of set she typically frequents behind the scenes. It’s a rare position for the famously private artist to be in, but sometimes exceptions are made to celebrate an exceptional year.
When McGrath made her Fashion Week rounds in September 2025, her namesake brand, Pat McGrath Labs, was about to celebrate its 10th anniversary. Launched in 2015, it swiftly became a billion-dollar company. During the past decade, McGrath has brought her boundary-breaking makeup to the masses, employing color and democratizing a level of glamour only previously achieved by her legendary runway looks.
Since the 1990s McGrath’s work has been its own event. Known for using innovative materials and application methods (some iconic looks include feather lashes for Alexander McQueen and ruby crystal lips for Christian Dior) McGrath helped pioneer makeup as a visual artform, influencing decades of beauty trends and a generation of makeup artists. In 2020 her cultural significance was recognized by Queen Elizabeth II, who granted McGrath damehood, making her the first makeup artist to receive the title.
Like her makeup, McGrath’s career knows no limitations. This year she stepped into one of her most high-profile roles yet as creative director of La Beauté Louis Vuitton, the first makeup line from the luxury French fashion house. On the heels of her internet-breaking Maison Margiela porcelain-skin makeup, McGrath launched a limited edition Glass Skin Artistry Mask so fans could recreate the look at home. As with most new Pat McGrath Labs products, it sold out instantly.
Much of McGrath’s success is shared with her longtime team, whom she lovingly refers to as her kids. Pat is, of course, “mother.” During her cover shoot, she calls out to them: “How does mother look, kids?”
The “kids” will also accompany McGrath as she makes her way through yet another fashion month, traveling from New York to Milan and Paris in a dizzying amount of time. When all is said and done, her team will have executed looks for Coach, Anna Sui, Versace, Bottega Veneta, and Schiaparelli, to name a few.
In the eye of the hurricane is McGrath, moving with the calm assuredness of a woman who has seen it all and done it all, and yet continues to outdo herself. After all, competing with oneself is the highest mark of success. To have no one in the same lane is a privilege reserved for the greats.
To know greatness is to surround yourself with greatness, which McGrath finds through a sisterhood of like-minded powerful women. Among them is Tracee Ellis Ross, the award-winning actor and founder of her own successful beauty line, Pattern.
Ahead, McGrath chats with Ross about her upbringing in Northampton, England, her early inspirations drawn from the London nightclub scene, and her best advice for young makeup artists. Plus, the importance of finding joy in the work and the legacy she hopes to continue for generations to come. —Ariana Yaptangco, senior beauty editor
Tracee Ellis Ross: Pat, I’m putting ground rules down. We’ve got a limited amount of time. We are not allowed to kiki. That’s right. We are asking questions. We can kiki at dinner, but not now. Where are you right now?
Pat McGrath: I’m so happy to see you. I’m in my office.
I’m not in my office. I wish I were. Your office looks fantastic. We could be twinsies in our offices, but not together. I’m in a hotel room.
I don’t mind a hotel room, too, though. I mean, little face masks, slippers.
Pat McGrath is so etched in my soul, my heart, and my vision for what is considered beauty and glamour. It’s hard to pull myself out of that, into the human part of, When did I actually meet you? Your work has been a part of imprinting me in what I understand to be beauty and glamour, particularly editorial and capital-F fashion.
Exactly, and honey, I know one thing. You love the looks. You love fashion. I love the way that you play with fashion, the way that you always style yourself. Everything. The hair, Pattern. I’m obsessed. Every time you do your looks and you do a full model, it’s always the perfect location, the perfect lighting, the perfect everything.
Louis Vuitton Fine Jewelry rings; Cartier pinky ring and bracelet; clothing and headbands talent’s own
By the way, do you know what my trick is? I don’t have a photographer. I use a remote control, and I’m in complete control. I don’t like people around and I do it myself. It’s better for me.
Exactly, and no bad nerves and no tons of people.
Do you still remember the first time that you did your own makeup or someone else’s?
I did my own makeup. I always did my own makeup, from when I was about seven or six years old. My mom was a makeup collector. She had a dressing table with two sets of drawers, either side, and a crystal glass tray, and it was packed with color and moisturizers and everything. I’ve got to give you a gorgeous story. She saved all her money to get this moisturizer, and she saved for months and it was a little tub, a neck cream, and it had all the nutrients in it. I was running around the house, and I ran to the table. She’d gone shopping, and I covered my face and my body in it. I ran down to the front door, and she opened the door, and she went, “Oh my goodness. Look at your skin. It’s gorgeous.” I went, “It’s your cream.” Nothing left. She lost it. Lost it.
That’s a fantastic story, but I love that the beginning, it was her saying, “Your skin looks fantastic.” What did your mom do?
My mom basically just looked after me. She was a stay-at-home mom, and as I said, I was that child. I have a brother and a sister, and I ended up being the youngest who had to go to all the fashion shopping and the makeup shopping, and that was it. That was it. I was hot-housed, let’s just say, into the beauty and fashion industry.
I understand that. I mean, you know how it was with my mom. So when did the transition occur between you loving it, and it was what your mom loved, and what you played with, into it became your career?
I just remember my mother saying, “What’s your career going to be?” and the difficulty in choosing what to do. Then my mother said to me, one fabulous quote: “I think, for you dear, you need to go into the arts and be creative. No one can ever tell you you’re wrong, in a way, because it’s your expression. I think it’ll be good for you. Go for it.”
Do you remember your first job?
I think one of my first jobs was working in a shoe shop, because obviously I have a shoe obsession. On the King’s Road and in Covent Garden in London. I loved it.
Louis Vuitton Fine Jewelry rings; Cartier left pinky ring
What was your first source of inspiration?
I went to all these amazing nightclubs in London. The Wag Club, Taboo I would pop into. Incredible warehouse parties, where they would have cranes in this warehouse, and they would fix trains, and they’d have fire-eaters running through the crowds. To get to it, you had to jump over water pits and climb walls.
To go to a club, Pat?!
Yes, major. I loved it. You had to call the secret number to get the address. All of the stuff. Climb walls, jump over water pits, end up in this huge concrete dome. Can you imagine? And they’d have a car hanging from the crane, and you could pay for rides in this car, a huge Cadillac.
You know what? Here’s what I’m going to say: I’m glad you’re alive.
I know. And there’d be Soul II Soul playing, and they’d have one beat going all night. I mean, just the mechanics, the tech music, the dance.
And so all of that was informing your work. Because I think of John Galliano Dior, Alexander McQueen, and the feather eyelashes.
Oh, yeah. Those were good, weren’t they?
Where do you get these ideas?
Listen, you have to remember, as a fan of fashion and a fan of beauty, I walk into a room and there’s 1,000 handbags, the most exquisite gowns, and a 50-foot train beaded within an inch of its life. I’m very lucky. I’m very blessed. So the thing is, you walk in. You are working with the most creative teams, the best designers in the world. You’re given beautiful keywords, inspiration, and you’re told to dream. So you are fed these incredible moments.
Imagine walking into a room with all these beautiful seamstresses and creatives and the set, and you’re with the most incredible designers, you get this description. You don’t want to be the one, the makeup team, to let the day down, right? So you are inspired. Then we are given time to go off with my team and create an idea that works with the story of the person that we’re creating and bringing forth. Coming up with new products and new ideas. You can’t be boring.
Do you have a favorite look from over the years?
I mean, there are so many. Let’s just go from the simple. When you are asked, “I want the girls and the boys to look absolutely gorgeous, but I don’t want a stitch of makeup,” that forces you to make foundations. That’s why Sublime Perfection Foundation came to life, because it’s my challenge to make a foundation that is seamless, that perfects skin but that looks like skin care, has benefits, but looks seamless and nude. It forces you, especially with no-makeup makeup, to make products that I need for my brand that work well on the runway, that work in real life. You’re challenged to do the impossible at all times.
For the Maison Margiela porcelain-skin moment, did you just play with a whole bunch of things until you figured that out?
Yes. Luckily, I’ve got the best team in the world. And when John [Galliano] gave us a porcelain doll to look at, I was like, How do I not do 30s that I’ve always done? I’ve done that millions of times. How do we make it look new and into the future? We’d done about maybe 50 looks, and then one of my team was like, “Do you remember that face mask you did with no makeup and it was all futuristic? Let’s put the two together.” We did it, and I’ll never forget when we brought the model downstairs and the whole room went silent, and the goosebumps, hairs on the arms. She walked down, back and forth, our lovely young lady, Dasha, and the whole room erupted into massive applause, and that was it.
When I see you talk about your work, you have an immense and deep joy and delight for what you do. I would imagine that fuels your creativity.
Absolutely. As my mom said to me, “You better make sure whatever you choose to do, you love it.” Because there are hard times, dark times, good times. The one thing is, I love makeup and I love fashion. If I wasn’t doing that, I would still be in the department store hunting everything down. Wouldn’t you?
We often remember you for the lashes, that glass skin, and these very bold, creative, extraordinary moments, but the other thing you do is skin. No-makeup makeup or somebody [looking] totally wet. All these different things that are a subtler version of that creativity, but creativity nonetheless. You have this full breadth and spectrum of how you create a face.
Completely. I always go from zero to 100. Right now it’s all about the no-makeup makeup that I did in the ’90s. It’s so fun now, seeing all the children redoing it.
Yeah, and thinking they created it!
Aw. Bless, bless, bless. I love. And the cream blushes and the glow and all of that from the ’90s, all the way through to now. I remember I did a beautiful story with Amber Valletta, and we had done nude, glowing, wet skin, gorgeous, highlighted, sparse skin, and then we put punctuations of silver on the eyes. We did those in the ’90s, and we still do it every day now.
When did you decide to create your own brand, and what were some of the considerations you had?
It’s our 10-year anniversary this year. I remember when I first joined social media, everyone just kept saying, “You are the one that we want to see. Do a brand.” Every morning I’d wake up to DMs, messages, “Please, please. Teach us color. Teach us how you do the pigments.”
Then, that was when I was like, Okay. Let me just do this for fun, and that’s when I came up with [original pigment product] Gold 001, working with a factory to develop this incredible formula. It really happened in a different way. Because not only did I come with a pigment, I also came with the mixing media, the little spatula, so that a gold shadow or an eye shadow is not just a shadow. To me, it’s your lipstick, it’s your eyeliner. It goes onto your lashes.
Showing people the joy of pigments. I literally wanted to just do that one product, because also, years and years of buying golds, and they were always hideous. It never worked. It was never really gold. It’s like full-gilded glamour. I mean, real rich, like wearing Lurex on the eyes, honey.
Jennifer Behr front headband; clothing talent’s own
What’s one makeup item everyone should have in their collection?
Me.
Boom. Enough said. Drop the mic. What do you want your legacy to be?
The woman that brought joy and color to the world. And beauty, and fun, and love. My darling, hatred takes the beauty away. We’ve got to come with positivity.
And I also love the community that we built at Pat McGrath Labs. It lets everybody know that artistry is for everyone, and it’s not difficult. Put your foundation on like you’re putting on a moisturizer, slap on a little bit of concealer. It’s easy. Makeup can be easy. You can also make it a work of art, but I just want everyone to know it’s so easy to do and fun.
It doesn’t have to be. I remember seeing a video of somebody taking 30 minutes to do their lips. You’re saying that’s not necessary.
It’s not. That’s all the levels of fun that you can have with beauty. You can take it there and do three hours of makeup. You can do 20 minutes, 10 minutes. Put on your lip color using our Glow Color Balm, tap it on your cheeks, eyes, put on your mascara, and you’re on your way to go.
In this culture of social media, what would you tell an aspiring makeup artist that it takes to succeed?
Just never give up. That’s the first thing. And also take your time to develop your own point of view and approach. Like I said, be passionate, create to tell a story. Everyone always says, “Oh my God. The beauty industry is so oversaturated.” Well, they’re going to need more makeup artists. So there’s a lot of work out there for all of us. It’s never going to end.
There are always opportunities, and even more so now. Because back in the day, it was such a closed circle. In a way, yes, we have to be thankful with social media for the fact that it really has opened up the world to everybody just having a go, taking their own pictures, creating in their own way, having fun. Right now we’re going to be announcing a search for Pat McGrath Labs, because we always find a lot of our artists on Instagram and TikTok, and we’re going to do that again.
Louis Vuitton Fine Jewelry ring (pinky); Cartier bracelet; talent’s own clothing and headband
What do you think made you Pat McGrath? Is it equal parts hard work, artistry, creativity, courage, opportunity, and can you think of which of those words carries the most weight for you?
Every single one of them. That’s exactly what it takes. But also, dedication. People would say to me, “You’re going to get so sick of this. You’ll get sick of the shows.” It’s like a massive reunion. Every show season, you’re seeing your friends. Not only are you creating looks, creating new products, but you are seeing friends that you’ve known for 30 years. Everybody’s ripping on one another, taking the piss out, winding each other up. You’re fighting with the hairdresser for your thousandth year together to get that last person into the chair, to make sure you’re not late. It’s just so much fun. It is you and me, bumping into each other at a hotel. You have no idea how much fun this job can be. Being backstage and doing makeup, it’s a dream. It’s a joy.
It was my honor to have this conversation with you, because I admire you. I’m inspired by you, and I enjoy you so much, and so I think that Glamour is correct in making you a Woman of the Year.
Oh. Thank you, my lovely Tracee. I just feel so honored to be interviewed, and this was so joyful and the best one ever.
Tracee Ellis Ross is an award-winning actress, producer, and founder and CEO of Pattern Beauty. Tracee is a leader whose cultural fluency and skilled storytelling allow her to forge meaningful connections with audiences and customers alike.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Introduction: Ariana Yaptangco @arianayap
Stylist: Samantha Gasmer @samgasmer
Hair: Felicia Burrows @feliciaburrowshair
Makeup:Â Meghan Yarde @gorgeouslygritty
Nails: Elizabeth Castillo @nailsby_elizabethc
Production:Â May Lin Le Goff @ Aries Rising @maylinlegoff
