Tag Archives: makeup

In an article entitled “Transformations: The Wild New Makeup Show You’ve Got to See,” the gorgeous Stella Rose St Clair writes: “James brought wildly stylish looks into the public eye before some of us were out of diapers. He whipped together outrageous costumes and eye-popping makeup designs at home, using just his imagination, a few rhinestones, and some face paint. Today he’s a key player at World Of Wonder productions (the company that produces RuPaul’s Drag Race), working as a blogger and art curator.

“He’s also continued dressing up and making statements with his new web series Transformations. In each episode, James offers himself as a glamorous guinea pig, allowing a slew of makeup artists of all skill levels to paint him up however they like. The result: an educational and unexpected series where the outcome is anything but average. We’ve seen epic drag, scary paint jobs, and even a nod to chola style– with a healthy dose of James’ hilarious banter throughout.

“Transformations officially has us hooked. We chatted with James about the show and his own philosophies about makeup for makeup’s sake.

“Q: What inspired the concept of the show?
I found myself in a rut — a makeup rut, as well as a fashion and lifestyle rut. I was doing a smokey eye and a pale lip every time I went out, and I was beginning to get really bored of myself. I have a lot of friends who take the time to create these amazing looks for themselves and I wanted to deconstruct those, not just for my own inspiration, but for an audience, so they could see just how much effort goes into dressing up and getting ready. Sometimes pulling together a look can be two- or three-hour process. I figured, why not use my friends and their creativity to jump start my own creativity?!

“Q: Tell us about the talents on the show. How did you go about choosing artists?
We’ve got a good mixture of my own personal friends, as well as people I admire, well-known makeup artists, and some drag and performance artists. And then people who just have interesting looks. We started with Billy B, who is, of course, very famous in the industry. We just had RuPaul’s makeup artist Mathu Andersen. Those two episodes have so much information on the techniques behind the transformations. We had drag performer Squeaky Blonde recently, which was really interesting because I never thought about the amount of artistry behind his styling. He does such a spooky, crazy aesthetic, but watching the episode, you see that there’s a lot of detail involved. I wanted to get a good cross-section of artists on the show. The thing about makeup is, there are as many different looks as there are people who are gonna do them. Having said that, I don’t foresee a time we’ll ever run out of looks or people to feature!”

Continue reading here. (Photo: Mathu Andersen)