Sept. 12, 2025

Anti-Glam: Lynsey Alexander’s Punk Polish

Photography Phil Engelhardt
words sarah brown

EE72 Beauty Director-At-Large Sarah Brown asked today’s most exciting makeup artists to create the look of now. Lynsey Alexander radically rethinks eye shadow.

Makeup artist LYNSEY ALEXANDER

I knew I wanted to use brown because it’s the ‘ugly’ color at Prada. I didn’t want to use it conventionally; I wanted it to be on the mouth. It’s this gorgeous mahogany—B03—the most flattering shade of brown. It suits everyone.

— Lynsey Alexander

“I did this look in lipsticks,” says Scottish makeup artist Lynsey Alexander. Indeed, she did. That’s two swipes of lip color on the lids — a flame-orange applied, war-paint style, above a slash of hot pink (with a last-minute dash of gold vermeil eye shadow dusted on with fingertips at the corners “to give it a lift”) — and a painstakingly drawn mahogany mouth. Diving deep into the clashing, contrasting “ugly colors,” as she calls them, is par for the course for Alexander who, as global creative makeup artist for Prada Beauty, was charged with developing a signature makeup palette that would be true to the DNA of the Milanese house.

The look she created here “took on an artisanal feeling. I wanted it to be abstract and free, not bound by the concept of beauty as we know it. Punky elements,” she continues, pumped-up with a confident use of color. “Orange and pink — they’re not sweet, they’re powerful. This pink’s got guts.” And yet, for all of the look’s professed “anti-glamour,” Thea “still looks gorgeous and sultry,” says Alexander. “Makeup is about pushing and pulling. You always have to ask: Is it beautiful? It can be radical, quirky, off-key, but it should always make someone feel beautiful.”

THE PRODUCTS:
Prada Beauty Monochrome Soft Matte Lipstick in 0177 Flamingo
Prada Beauty Monochrome Hyper Matte Lipstick in P55 Fuxia
Prada Beauty Monochrome Hyper Matte Lipstick in B03 Mahogany
Prada Beauty Dimensions Eyeshadow Compact in 05 Pure
Prada Beauty Pradascope Lash Extending Volume Mascara

Photography PHIL ENGELHARDT. Makeup LYNSEY ALEXANDER at Jolly Collective using Prada Beauty. Hair DANIEL MARTIN. Model THEA ALMQVIST at Perspective. Stylist ENIOLA DARE. Casting PIERGIORGIO DEL MORO for DM Casting. Production Bellhouse / PATRICK ARMSTRONG. Photo assistants KLAUDIJA AVOTINA and MARIA GORODETSKAYA.