Most Important Ugly: A Retrospective

In October, it'll be a year since I started on Most Important Ugly with my partner-in-crime Tayler. So much has happened since then, the opening and the exhibition seem so far away now. I'm incredibly grateful to all of the people who ended up going to see the show -- our first ever -- who bought the zine, who shared it with their friends and family, and also the the press who covered it. I just wrapped up the last entry for the Autostraddle series dedicated to MIU, where I detailed the process behind all of the shots we released. I thought it would be useful to have a space to link to all those posts and offer some final details about the products I used.

1. Most Important Ugly: I Believe Makeup is Magic  (Mars & Melissa)
2. Most Important Ugly: Becca, Bekah, Angels and Masks 
3. Most Important Ugly: Brandon, Tyler, and Gendered Makeup
4. Most Important Ugly: Massiel, Coco, and Meta-Human Experiments 
5. Most Important Ugly: My Chemical Romance and Other Majestic Monsters
6. Most Important Ugly: The Final Monsters 

For details about the shoots, I suggest going to those individual posts. For specific product details and why I like them, hop through the read more. 

Mars & Melissa, ph. by Tayler Smith

Most Important Ugly

MOST IMPORTANT UGLY

April 25, 2014 ­ July 25, 2014 American Two Shot
135 Grand street, NYC Opening Reception: April 25th, 6:00­-9:00pm

Hello friends and friendly strangers –

If you know me at all, you know I live and breathe both makeup and memories – the stories that lipstick can tell you and the people who wear them help me wake up in the morning. Call it shallow or call it survival. I’d consider it more the latter and it’s the heart of Most Important Ugly.

What exactly should you expect? In essence, it’s a series of 13 portraits that negotiate the sitter’s stories of alienation and presentation, memories and disremembering. In order to sit for their photo to be taken, I asked each muse
a series of questions about shame, safety, power, family and beauty. This series of questions is called “Therapy Sessions in Sephora,” a reference to the place where I came up with the questions and the place where the ideas for this project began to unfold.

This project discusses anxiety and queer marginalization, revealing the monsters that are hidden inside of us when we are taught what we are is not enough, or is too much, or that it shouldn’t exist at all. It is a presentation of the resistance of marginalized people and how makeup can bring out the best in you: it’s just that the best is not always what is expected, or the most beautiful, or the most kind. Most Important Ugly tells the story of Monster Culture and the everyday heroes that it breeds. The heroes are my friends in the queer community, my readers, our friends. Non­binary beauties, trans friends, queer and questioning people we know and love all came together to sit for this project and it is their stories that we have the honor to share in these photographs. Gertrude Stein once wrote: “Give me new face new faces new faces I have seen the old ones.” This is our response to this idea of a beauty culture where we do not belong.

There are 13 portraits in the installation. There will also be a Limited Edition zine (Edition of 13 copies) detailing our process and monster culture, and it will include the original questions asked of each sitter. That way, you can learn what your Most Important Ugly is, too.

Much love,
Arabelle

cdg, chanel, pat mcgrath and biba

This weekend has been super packed with makeup and brilliant babes -- my skin is crying out for pampering but I think it was totally worth it. I've been trying to be more productive lately, and so there is a few things you can read from me on the internet. I'm really proud of my Chanel SS14 Makeup Tutorial on Rookie. I also did a quick nail post for Capitol Couture (the Hunger Games Online Magazine), too.

Click for tutorial.

Those over the top makeup looks are my favorite to do -- I ended up spending the rest of that day with that makeup on and I think it looked fabulous huhuhu. I've been consciously trying to do more intricate looks, I'm treating my fashion knowledge as my makeup handbook and going through all of my favorite shows to emulate the looks so I can get better at blending and just general makeup stuff. It's a conscious and methodical effort of learning the aesthetics back and front to the point where I can reference them unconsciously later on when I'm trying to make something uniquely my own. It's how I work when I used to spend a lot of time on my outfits, and now it's how I work teaching myself makeup.

Midnight recreations of Biba Fever and Pat McGrath for Galliano. Tayler did her own makeup using the MUFE Flash Palette pretty much exclusively (honestly, it is the best makeup investment in our combined arsenal). I did my makeup using Kryolan's Aquacolor to white my face out and then powdered with MUFE, and then a bevvy of eyeshadows of my own mixing (I did a tutorial on this) and MAC's Carbon. I'm wearing Illamasqua's Kontrol on my lips because on the monitor Sasha's lips read more cool blue, but I think a deeper, more wine color would be more accurate. My drawn on eyebrows are just liquid eyeliner, I used Clarins. I've listed alternatives you can use below for the same effect. 

Tried to go to the Yayoi exhibit but the line was super long so I went to Comme des Garcons and played around in my future wardrobe instead. Give me like 6 years and they'll be in my closet. Tayler snapped this photo on the way to CDG, she ordered me into the light. It's nice having someone around who is even more obsessed with lighting than I am! I usually have to art direct everything. Anyway, I'm wearing a vintage coat, Cole Haan shoes and a dress that has been on the blog before. Here are your options if you'd like something similar:

Me in the ideal fall coat by Junya Watanabe. It's sold out on farfetch in this colorway, but is available elsewhere should you happen to have that $$$$ lying around. It's disgusting how perfect it fit and how beautifully tailored it is. I think I'm aspirationally more of a Junya girl than a mainline CDG girl most days -- I want to be the punk girl Junya creates.

I'm definitely more of  a Rei baby though. Who could look half as good in these ridiculous coats as me? Too bad they cost more than my tuition. I'll have to wait for a sample sale. Still, walking away from playing with CDG doesn't bother me because I know I'm resourceful enough to find a way to get what I want eventually. It might take realistically like ten years or whatever but it's never a question that it won't be mine. *muffled maniacal laughter in the distance*

Ok I really have homework and deadlines to attend to, but I hope you had a rad weekend too cutie pie.