Pat McGrath: From Makeup Artist to Creative Director

Dame Pat McGrath’s work—lacquered mouths, otherworldly skin, and unexpected collisions of color—could make a face as memorable as the clothes. Designers, photographers, and editors sought her out for that imagination. Over her career, she has expanded her range of expression from runway looks and magazine covers to her own cosmetics brand, Louis Vuitton’s beauty line, and now jewelry.

McGrath became one of fashion’s most influential makeup artists by pushing beauty beyond the expected. Her longstanding collaboration with photographer Steven Meisel helped shape Italian Vogue’s pages and covers for twenty years. On the runway, her work could sharpen a collection’s mood or introduce an entirely unexpected dimension. Makeup was integral to the image audiences remembered.

The industry has recognized that influence. McGrath received the CFDA’s Founder’s Award in 2017, appeared on Time’s list of the 100 Most Influential People in 2019, and became a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2021 for services to fashion, beauty, and diversity.

Launching Pat McGrath Labs in 2015 brought her artistry directly to consumers. The colors, textures, and finishes behind her runway and editorial work became tools anyone could experiment with. Her name now appeared on a lipstick case and in the credits of a fashion image.

That shift gave her creative world a new kind of reach. Makeup aficionados could step into it by choosing a pigment, layering a finish, or adapting a dramatic lip to their everyday lives. With its rich, saturated colors, Pat McGrath Labs invited people to play: recreate her iconic looks or discover the spirit of transformation that has long animated her work.

The House

In 2025, Louis Vuitton launched its first makeup collection, La Beauté Louis Vuitton, with McGrath as its Creative Director, Cosmetics. The collection became available globally that August.

The appointment extended her creative reach. Having established her own cosmetics brand, McGrath was now helping shape the makeup identity of a house with its own distinct history and visual language. The assignment brought her understanding of color, texture, and the face into dialogue with Vuitton’s luxury language.

The Charm

Her next move took that sensibility into a different material altogether: jewelry.

Released on October 8, 2026, the seventeen-piece Pandora collaboration turns the vocabulary of beauty into adornment. Lip-shaped rings and miniature cosmetics charms make the connection explicit, with pieces starting at $58. The collection is playful, drawing on familiar beauty objects while retaining McGrath’s taste for drama.

The lacquered mouth—a recurring signature of her beauty work—becomes a motif you can wear on a bracelet or necklace. Color and shine take on a different material form. The connection to her makeup is immediate, even as the object itself is something new.

That translation is what makes the collaboration compelling. Across cosmetics and jewelry, McGrath’s sensibility remains recognizable. Her career shows how an artist can develop a creative language rich enough to support her own brand, create a beauty collection for a luxury house, and lend character to objects in another category.

A runway makeup look can disappear with a cotton pad, surviving only in photographs and memory. Through her Pandora collaboration, that same imagination becomes adornment someone can wear again and again. For McGrath, beauty no longer washes away.