Legendary beauty entrepreneur and influencer Pat McGrath was named a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II on New Year’s Day, becoming the first makeup artist ever to receive a damehood.
To quote vogue.com:
“I am truly delighted and humbled to be given this wonderful honor,” McGrath said of receiving the title. “My mother’s obsession with beauty and fashion ignited my passion for this amazing industry, and I feel blessed to have the privilege of working with some of the most extraordinary people throughout my career.”
Born in 1970 in London to a single mother and first-generation Jamaican immigrant, McGrath’s journey to becoming a beauty powerhouse began in the 1980s, when she found herself immersed in the city’s colorful nightlife scene, drawing inspiration from the Blitz Kids and New Romantics.
It was here that she met some of the figures who would be key collaborators throughout her life, including stylists Kim Bowen and Edward Enninful, the latter of whom kickstarted her career by naming her beauty director at i-D magazine.
In the decades since, McGrath has become famous for her boldly experimental and iconoclastic approach to beauty, with her avant-garde makeup looks for John Galliano’s Dior couture shows across the late 1990s and 2000s remaining among the most-referenced of all time.
In 2015, she launched her own beauty line, Pat McGrath Labs, which has swiftly become one of the biggest disruptors in the industry and was valued in 2018 as worth $1 billion. The label is known for its inclusive range of skin tones and kaleidoscopic color palettes, allowing her fans and followers to approach beauty in the same playful and inventive mode as McGrath herself.
To read more: https://www.vogue.com/article/pat-mcgrath-dame-new-year-honors