Made You Look: Makeup Artist Thomas de Kluyver Explores Beauty's Extremes

For Thomas de Kluyver, makeup has always been about more than mere adornment—it’s a medium for exploring identity and a way to create characters. Growing up in Perth, ­Australia, with a mother who was a theater director, “I was around a lot of performers, and people always spoke to me like I was an adult,” he says. “I think that’s shaped a lot of who I am today.”

For his latest story, shot by longtime collaborator Harley Weir, de Kluyver drew ­inspiration from multiple sources—performance art, theater, dance, and the work of two female painters known for their charged portraiture: Marlene Dumas and Miriam Cahn. “There’s this incredible honesty to their portraits, this emotion and feeling,” explains de Kluyver, who serves as Gucci Beauty’s global makeup artist and recently released a new book, Already Past and Already Again There, with the photographer Zoë Ghertner. “Plus, they both have such amazing color palettes.”

The resulting images capture an intriguing tension between understatement and drama. On French actor Lou Lampros, de Kluyver wanted a “really raw” look—bare skin paired with a precise pink lip that matches her jacket. “Something very subtle can create a character just as much as something extreme,” he notes. At the other end of the spectrum is the bold beauty statement he chose for celebrated modern dancer and choreographer Sharon Eyal, whose broad strokes of black eye pigment mimicked her signature painterly approach to her own makeup. “My work comes from the heart,” explains de Kluyver, who has experimented with everything from body painting to three-dimensional elements. “I try to make people look beautiful. Even when it’s conceptual, there’s a real beauty and sensitivity to it.”

The shoot took place in Weir’s London ­studio, where de Kluyver played with unconventional materials, including crystalline bugle beads sourced from a haberdashery market in Seoul. They created an unexpected effect in the shot where Eyal appears with her face partially submerged in water. “When some of the beads started to fall, it was this magical moment,” says de Kluyver. This embrace of serendipity is characteristic of his decade-long collaboration with Weir. “Nothing is ever wrong,” he says of their partnership. “It’s a space that’s very open and creative.”

Hair by Cyndia Harvey at Art Partner; makeup by Thomas de Kluyver for Gucci Beauty at Art Partner. Models: Lauren Theobald at the Society Management; Sharon Eyal; Corinne Murray at Next Management London; Zahra Van Nguyen at Anti Agency; Lou Lampros at IMG Models. Casting by Ashley Brokaw Casting.

Produced by Art Partner; Producer: Nicole Mai Untersander; Junior Producer: Matilda Webster; Photography assistants: Tomo Inenaga, Dasza Wasiak; Digital Technician: Thomas Carla; Retouching: The Hand of God; Fashion assistant: Federica Battistino; Production assistant: Valeria Lupieri; Hair assistant: Leanne Millar; Makeup assistant: Josh Bart.