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Is Kanye West Doing Makeup Now?

Julia Fox’s eyeliner on Sunday morning, Monday morning, and Sunday night. Photo-Illustration: The Cut; Photos: Getty Images, Shutterstock

Julia Fox recently walked around Paris with leather toes, dewy hair, and a winged-liner look that progressively grew more and more powerful as the days passed. The winged eyeliner was so opaque and face-encompassing by Monday morning that it began to look like the masks superheroes like the Incredibles and Robin (of Batman and Robin) wear to conceal their identities.

The inky makeup was like a Rorschach test. Some saw an ode to Michèle Lamy, Cleopatra, or Grace Jones; others, a nod to the stunning performances in Black Swan or “The Nightman Cometh.” Or perhaps the relatable feeling of progressively messing up a cat eye and extending the wings farther out with every flub instead of just starting over. Nonetheless, the prevailing question remained: Who did this?

Turns out it was multiple people, and at least one of them was Pat McGrath.

Yesterday evening, an Instagram Reel of Fox doing hypnotizing celebrity face choreography revealed that Mother Makeup designed Monday’s liner look that reached peak opaqueness. Makeup artist Daniel Kolaric, who has worked with Sita Abellan and Liv Tyler, executed it for McGrath, using her namesake PermaGel Ultra Glide Eye Pencil in Xtreme Black, PermaPrecision Liquid Eyeliner, FetishEyes Mascara, and a secret product (or products) teased out as “… #StayTuned!by the brand in a release.

As for the other two liner looks, we know Ye was involved in at least one. Yesterday afternoon, Fox posted a picture of a blurry Ye hovering around her heavily lined face on her Instagram Stories with the caption, “Wanna know who my fave makeup artist is?” (It’s Ye.) It’s unclear what he’s doing, exactly, but later shots of Fox in the same red Rick Owens number reveal liner that’s blended all the way up to connect to her brows.

Though parts of this confounding liner mystery have been solved, several questions still remain: Will the liner mask return under Ye’s creative direction? Did Pat McGrath give him any helpful liner tips? Is Ye slowly pivoting to makeup in the lead-up to that makeup brand he filed a trademark for in 2020? What is the mysterious Pat McGrath product, and is it paint? And lastly: Are Julia’s eyelids and eyeballs okay? Our thoughts and prayers are with them as they recover from what must’ve been the world’s most annoying makeup-removal process.

Is Kanye West Doing Makeup Now?