Charles Jeffrey LOVERBOY‘s Fall Winter 2026 collection, titled Thistle, demanded beauty that could sweat, smudge, and survive a night of defiance. At Dover Street Market Paris today, MAC Senior Artist Terry Barber delivered exactly that, leading a team of makeup artists to create looks that channeled the pagan-punk energy of Jeffrey’s immersive presentation and the decade-old club nights where Loverboy was born.
The Concept: Blue Faces, Bleary Eyes
Jeffrey’s collection notes explicitly reference the aesthetic DNA of the original Loverboy club nights at Vogue Fabrics in Dalston: “The blue faces, bleary eyes, sweat-soaked shirts on flailing limbs.” Barber translated this into makeup that felt lived-in rather than pristine, designed to evolve and dishevel as the presentation unfolded with live performances from Amsterdam post-punk trio Baby’s Berserk.
The approach rejected the industry’s obsession with perfection. Jeffrey’s philosophy, articulated in his collection notes, extends to beauty: “We know that everything can change in a heartbeat; that our outfits will peel and dishevel as a night gets long, that we’ll tear our gowns and live with it, roll up a sleeve, scuff up a shoe, and love it.”
MAC COSMETICS ON DSCENE BEAUTY
Barber’s makeup embodied this ethos. Faces emerged with deliberate imperfection, color applied with intuition rather than precision, edges left to blur and bleed. The result was beauty as resistance, as defiance, as survival.
The MAC Team
Barber assembled a team of three additional MAC artists to execute the vision across the cast of models and performers. Xavier Rodrigues, Sabina Gatej, and Jessie Lefler worked alongside Barber, with Nurila Bekmussayeva managing backstage operations. The team faced the unique challenge of creating looks that would read both in the intimate, immersive space of Dover Street Market and under the documentation of photographers Jasa Muller, Tyler Matthew Over, and Demian Pant.
The presentation’s format, a happening rather than a traditional runway, meant makeup needed to function in motion. Movement Director Jordan Robson choreographed the cast to move through the space wearing Loverboy “in its full state of madness and defiance,” interacting with metres of hand-painted fabric that Jeffrey created himself. Beauty had to hold up to this kinetic demand while remaining true to the collection’s celebration of entropy.
Hair: A Collaborative Vision
The hair team split duties between the live performers and the model cast. Charles Stanley and Emma Jones handled key hair for Baby’s Berserk, whose members Eva Wijnbergen, Mano Hollestelle, and Lieselot Elzinga performed throughout the presentation. Giuseppe Stelitano led key hair for the talent, with Tiziana Di Marcelli assisting.
For the lookbook, shot by Oli Kearon, Stanley worked solo with assistant Momoka Imura. The lookbook beauty, created by makeup artist Mari Kuno with assistants Soraya Phipps and Yukiko Kasumi, offered a more controlled iteration of the presentation’s raw aesthetic, capturing the collection’s layered maximalism in static form.
The Thistle Philosophy
Jeffrey grounds the collection in the Scottish legend of the thistle, the sharp, defensive plant that pierced Viking soldiers’ bare feet and saved a sleeping camp. The thistle became Scotland’s national flower: a symbol of resilience, vigilance, and unexpected strength. This mythology extends to the beauty direction, where makeup becomes armor, war paint, protection.
“We carved out space with our bare hands, and in this dark moment of unrest and instability, we’ll do it again,” Jeffrey writes. The beauty at Thistle reflected this combative spirit, faces painted not for approval but for survival, for community, for the queer Scottish resistance Jeffrey positions at the heart of Loverboy.
The designer’s formula for the brand, Laughter, Refusal, Care, Mess, manifested in every smudged eye and imperfect line. Barber and his MAC team understood the assignment: beauty that shows up, as Jeffrey puts it, “in defence, in defiance.”
A Decade of Club Kid Beauty
Jeffrey launched Loverboy in 2014 as a monthly club night at Vogue Fabrics, inspired by 1980s London clubs like Blitz and Taboo and legendary queer performers such as Leigh Bowery and Boy George. The makeup at those nights, DIY and defiantly uncommercial, established an aesthetic that has informed every Loverboy collection since.
Barber’s work for Thistle honors this lineage while bringing MAC’s technical expertise to the execution. The brand’s long history of supporting club culture, drag, and queer creativity made it a natural partner for Jeffrey’s vision. The result was beauty that felt both archival and urgent, rooted in history but speaking directly to the present moment.
“What will come from all of this?” Jeffrey asks in his notes. “You’ll have to find out, in the reminder that, while every day might be a battle, Loverboy has you covered, it will forever be for the weirdos by the weirdos.”
The beauty of Thistle promises the same.
See more in our gallery:
Presentation Beauty Credits
Key MUA: Terry Barber for MAC MUA: Xavier Rodrigues MUA: Sabina Gatej MUA: Jessie Lefler Backstage Manager: Nurila Bekmussayeva
Key Hair Baby’s Berserk: Charles Stanley, Emma Jones Key Hair Talent: Giuseppe Stelitano 1st Assistant: Tiziana Di Marcelli
Creative Director: Charles Jeffrey Art Director: Alice Lees Stylist: Anders Sølvsten Thomsen Photographer: Oli Kearon Hair: Charles Stanley Makeup: Mari Kuno Casting: Max Kallio Movement Director: Kate Coyne Film: Tom Eames Press: PURPLE
Lookbook Beauty Credits
Makeup: Mari Kuno Makeup Assistant: Soraya Phipps Makeup Assistant: Yukiko Kasumi Hair: Charles Stanley Hair Assistant: Momoka Imura
Discover more at DSCENE Magazine’s Paris Fashion Week coverage.
