Business

Paddy McGurgan made up after securing contract for Paris-based Make Up Forever

Award-wining make-up maestro Paddy McGurgan and his team
Award-wining make-up maestro Paddy McGurgan and his team Award-wining make-up maestro Paddy McGurgan and his team

AWARD-winning make-up artist and businessman Paddy McGurgan is starting the new year with another reason to celebrate, having become the sole Northern Ireland stockist for top Parisian brand, Make Up Forever.

A specialised cosmetics product for consumers as well as professionals working in theatre, film and television, the brand is available in McGurgan's flagship store in Belfast and will be launching soon in his Derry and Newry branches.

"This is a huge coup for my company as the brand is usually only available in Make Up Forever stand-alone shops or in big department stores," McGurgan says. "It is rarely sold though smaller independents like myself.

"It is great news for the professional make-up artist and the timing is perfect too, with so many blockbuster movies and television dramas being filmed in Northern Ireland.

"The staff are really excited and many will soon be off training in Make Up Forever's specialised training school in Paris."

Now with a payroll of 32 employees, the Belfast make-up maestro – who holds a degree in music from Ulster University – is intent on adding to the 15 brands he already sells and bringing further top-of-the-range names into the north.

"For a long time, people living in Northern Ireland just couldn't access the latest, exclusive products, despite having such creative talent here, so it has been fantastic to be leading the change," he says.

"This latest contract comes after we secured the LA-based collection, Lime Crime, in July which has a mass cult following all over the world.

"I love bringing new products to the public here and hope to expand at some point into the Republic as well."

Securing a 'first' is nothing new to the former musician who spent his early career in a traditional music band playing piano, accordion, flute and whistle and later working as a cashier for a make-up brand at Debenhams before heading to London to train with the best in the business.

"It was a sort of epiphany," he recalls. "I always painted and drew sketches, but when I put the two together, to create a 3-D form with a real face, working out the effects of light and textures, it blew my mind. I thought I had discovered a whole new art form."

His first Belfast shop was opened on Royal Avenue four years ago - "just in time for the flag protests" and clients have included everyone from Shane Filan of Westlife and supermodel Yasmin Le Bon, to, well, to those who put a whole different complexion on the term 'natural good looks'.

He is referring, with some hilarity, to panto queen May McFettridge who McGurgan says was "brilliant fun" – even if application of lurid blue eye shadow and characteristic beauty spot fell well outside his usual pulchritude perfection.

Although the business side of things eats up more time these days than he would like, McGurgan remains resolutely 'hands-on' to keep the sharp creative edge that earned him big-ticket titles including European Creative Make-up Artist of the Year and Illamasqua (distinction in make-up artistry) champion – and also turned heads at a flamboyant Birds of Paradise body paint show at Stormont two years ago.

Part of Belfast Fashion Week – for which McGurgan was the official make-up partner – the show featured 10 models painstakingly transformed into psychedelic birds and represented, in true theatrical style, body make-up as a living, breathing art form.

"I love the creativity of this type of work, but of course, making women in the street look and feel beautiful in everyday situations is the real transforming power of make-up," he says.

With a background in amateur theatre, McGurgan does, however, relish the occasional moment of high drama when working with certain kind of celebrities and is ever ready to step into the role of impromptu psychologist should the need arise.

"You eventually learn to read a person's face," he muses. "You instinctively know if they just want you to listen or talk back. Boyfriend break-ups are the worst if someone tears up in the middle of a make-over."

A country boy from outside Armagh, the young Paddy McGurgan never quite took to life down on the farm, especially after he first unearthed a latent artistic streak during the branding of his father's sheep.

"I was about 13 and got a bit carried away," he confesses. "I experimented with a sort of graffiti-type artwork on the sheep and I think at that point my father realised I was never going to be a farmer.

"The sheep probably didn't appreciate their new look, but I thought they looked beautiful in a crazy, multi-coloured sort of way."