Dr. Alex Box - Multimedia Artist and Visionary, PT. 1

Episode 95 - One of the most inspiring creatives in the industry, Dr Alex Box, joins us on the podcast to discuss working in beauty and fashion and how AI and social media are impacting the industry. This is part one of two. *This episode was recorded in April 2025

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We Speak Beauty
Lottie
Lindsey

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Hello and welcome back to We Speak Beauty. I'm Lottie and I'm Lindsay. So welcome the amazing Dr. Alex Box, who is an incredible makeup artist and on the cutting edge of the digital beauty space. Thank you for coming to the podcast, Alex.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Thank you for inviting me.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

We'd love to kind of just get started and jump and ask you a million questions. We we there's so much to ask you. I feel a little bit overwhelmed, honestly, because you know, you're one of those artists that makeup artists have always kind of looked to for creative inspo and just to see, you know, your different techniques are always a little bit on the cutting edge, I feel like. And when we decided to sit down and do this, it was a little bit, you know, hard to decide what to ask you and what direction to go because now you have all these different avenues that your career's gone into. So very excited to get down to the nitty-gritty of it. Um but basic, basic question. I want to know what is the first makeup item that you ever used?

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Oh wow. Um well, that's interesting, isn't it? Because you see, yeah, I've already my mind's already gone to is it the first thing that I put my fingers in, like the first pot that I stole off my mum, or is it the first thing that I bought and owned myself? Okay, so I remember the Avon lady coming around to our house, who I became obsessed with, because not only was it thrilling to have a stranger in our house that had a box full of like magical potions and lotions and miniatures of everything, which I became really obsessed with the miniature lipsticks because she had those little tiny white ones, tiny white ones, yeah, with just enough for you know, I don't know, 20, 30 applications. And she used to give me the testers, she used to give me, I mean, God knows how grim they were and how many lips they've been on, but she used to give them to me because I was so obsessed with them, tiny things. Um, and that became, I would say, my first sort of almost, you know, semi-obsessional uh sort of relationship with the idea of colour and mass being in lip formations and formulations. But my mum also bought things from Avon and she had this um wet to dry uh foundation that was really way too dark, but it had it had a little tray, an airing tray, and it was white, and I just really remember the sponge being quite manky, but what I loved was the airing tray, and this probably says a lot about where I've gone in beauty, is that I was almost more obsessed with the way the packaging looked like it was from the future and had this like airing tray, and I used to use it. Do you remember the in uh uh Star Trek that used to do the thing and it it it was there? I used to use it as beaming up Scotty, and and I but equally it it it it it doubled up as a compact, and I thought, well, this is this is a good direction, you know, the perfect going to space in makeup. Um maybe I'm I'm projecting there, but I it was all this kind of white and colour and and semi sort of you know medical, a little bit futuristic, a little bit, you know, uh forbidden fruit. And I loved that it was really special to my mum, and she'd say, Oh, you know, don't use my things, you just use this, or these kind of and I and I thought, well, why is it so special? You know, why is it so precious? Why is it such a a you moment in your boudoir? And I think I found that tantalizing and forbidden and exciting, and and uh I became really obsessed with makeup very early and I and it because I wanted to paint all my teddies and um and I and they've still I've got teddy, it's still got a residual of red lipstick on it, but my mum's and dad saw very quickly that that I was using the makeup and bought me a girl's world. Um, but I used the miniatures of Avon on the Girls World because the Girls World makeup was about three things and it wasn't enough. So that was the first memory of that.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

Is Girls World, is it the doll head that you paint your makeup on? Yes, okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

Yes, yes, which is absolutely uh inspired me to in my whole life to make something like that. But yeah, the the girls' world has had a I'll go on to talk about that, but it's had a huge influence on me. But I do that's my earliest memory of of makeup stealing, illicit makeup, and then the biggest memory of buying makeup for me was uh the Salvador Dali black lips with red lipstick inside, which I saved up my paper money for, which was I used to um after I got off the school bus, I would take the papers to people's houses, posted papers through the door, the newspapers. Uh, and I used to get about £1.50, and I saved up the money to buy this Salvador Dali red lipstick that I saw in Boots the Chemist, and it was there was a Pabloma Picasso Perfume and a Salvador Dali red lipstick, and I just you know I thought I died and gone to heaven when I got that because again it was something that was art, it was an artifact, it was red lipstick, and it was black. So it was all my boxes ticked, really.

SPEAKER_01 5:34

And at that point, were you already interested in the art world? Did you know who Salvador Dali and Picasso were?

SPEAKER_00 5:40

Oh yeah. Absolutely, yeah. I had a really sort of hunger for art very early on, um, which was really fanned. The flames were found by my dad, who is not an artist, but was very drawn to the creative world. He was a s a cyclist um and a very good one, athletic kind of level. But cycling in the 60s, I now found out because I was thinking, why is he so alternative? And he said, Well, that cycling was an alternative, almost kind of unusual pastime. And he was drawn to um so many people that were in a sort of quite subcultural, you know, like vegans and life models, and uh I would say sort of quite extreme. Um, you know, he had he was in C and D and he was in Greenpeace, and he used to be very like an activist. And um he saw in me that you know, I had that same kind of inquiry of why all the time, and and I think he seeing him question everything from politics to religion to to society, I and and being surrounded by all these creative people, he saw that in me and definitely he took me to the art shows, he drove me to London, we went to um the Royal Academy, he took me to see George Merley, Frank Zappa, you know, uh Rocky Horror Picture Show, you know, when I was little, and and now I mean that and and listened to Zero Bowie and you know, all these amazing kind of creative things uh were very much supported by my mum and as well, but very much my dad, you know. So I think knowing who Salvador Dali was was was a you know very much um very much part of my my world and and actually had a poster on my wall of um of I can't even remember what it is now, but it it it it was yeah, it was very important for me to be able to make those links.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

That's so amazing that your dad introduced you to art at such a young age because I don't I don't feel like that's that common, especially nowadays, at least not of anyone that I know. I mean, I was definitely exposed to music very early on, and I think it definitely shaped who I am as an artist, but I didn't I didn't know about traditional artists or art until I was in school and learned about it there and then became interested in in research stuff on my own.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

And was that very cool, was that very uh educational approach to art as well? It's like, here's Monet, here's this, here's this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which I think is everybody's entry point, isn't it? Really? And then you deviate and explore if you want to, and it a lot of people don't. But yeah, I think you're right, you need those external influences to support the inquiry, you know. If you want to go off piece away from Monet and um branch into maybe who inspired Monet and and um, you know, what is the current Monet, uh that comes from being supported that that inquiry is worth the value of the exploration, you know.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

Yeah, and I also think that there's that thing when you are forced to learn something in school, you almost don't want to be interested in it because you feel like, well, this is boring because I'm I'm being forced to learn it. So once I became interested in the art world, it was it was the artists that I had never heard of before that were more interesting to me because it's like, well, everybody knows about those people, you know, no one knows about these people. So I think there's also that when you're in school, it's like when you feel like you're pressured to ingest something, it's not as interesting when you're young.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

But you know, it's oh definitely. I I mean I think that's I think that's very, you know, uh it's the same for most education that whatever you're being spoon-fed, you know, also the people who are delivering it, if they're delivering it like it's like, ugh, dogma, and they've gone through it for years and years and years, and they're tired. Uh, you you pick up on that, you know, you pick up on the way it's being delivered to you, you know, if you're if you're absolutely kind of if they're tired, you're tired, you know. And also there is that thing of like you should burn down things that you're told, or lift the stones, or inquire why, why, why, why, why. Because uh, you know, that that that's the sort of the curiosity of even why they're they're delivering these particular artists, and there is is there an agenda to that? Um, it is definitely uh the right to inquire is the sort of the playfulness or the curiosity of a of a young mind. And I think that's really quashed, you know, especially now it's sort of like uh, you know, um more multiple choice. It's almost like we'll we'll take the deviation for you as well. You know, I I see a lot that you know my son's 12, and you know, that there might be that bedrock of dogma of these, these, these. But even if you want to go outside that, they kind of give you the ring fence of where you, you know, it's almost a curated uh off-piece language as well, which doesn't allow any form of um natural inquiry uh or like kind of lateral building of of how your mind could expand into completely adjacent odd tangents, which uh become more unique. Um yeah, you know, I I I don't understand why everything's so catered for. I don't either.

SPEAKER_02 11:18

Yeah. Where it'll just feel so confined because you're you're being told you should learn this, this, and this. And then if you are, if it is presented to you in a very bored way or tired way, you don't you're you're not even probably inspired to look beyond it. Well, is there anything that leads me to want to look further if no one else seems very interested in it either? Um and if you're not if you're not curating or helping young minds to think outside of those spaces, then they're just naturally going to stay confined to it unless they have that intuition to want to push and drive beyond it.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

Yeah, and I and I think I think that's really interesting space. And I I you know I've worked in in and out of education um for a while now, and I think it's not so much the teaching, it's the system of value, and and it's about you know, why is inquiry important outside of a box because most people are telling them not to because it's too much risk, and we're governed by risk now so much in everything we do, and it's almost like you know, don't be Alexander McQueen, bizarre, because this is what happens to the individual who's out on their own. They, you know, it's like the individual away from the herd gets eaten by a dinosaur, you know. It's like the the risk has outweighed the value of authenticity or uniqueness because everybody now knows the statistics of the the one black swan is so rare, it's like don't even go there, just stick to the middle and reproduce the same but different forever, and you will get the return, you will be less risk, and also for everybody, we can guarantee that we know what we're doing. And so, you know, risk has become almost like the you know the death of creativity. And I think that the you know, to to you know, and risk needs time as well, and it needs percolation and it needs room, and now we live in an on-demand society as well. It's very difficult to um teach the value of time, waiting, and risk, not being risk. It's just natural exploration, you know, and and I think that that is what's really hard where the younger the group is pushed through the education system, is how um the system that lies behind who's setting the value of um the criteria. So I think a lot of the time I'm talking about systems being challenged, really, which is more the value, you know, how we teach value in a in a in a in a time when everything is um quantified and risk assessed, uh, and how to value the value of being risky is is um is actually quite a challenge, I think.

SPEAKER_01 14:14

Do you think we're going to reach a point where we'll have a sort of another artistic revolution like there was in the past? Because I feel like at least from my point of view, you know, even with assistants or or upcoming artists that I come in contact with, a lot of it, it's just regurgitated, um regurgitated inspiration, or, you know, they're they're not looking outside of social media, they're not reading books, they're not going to museums, they're not listening to music outside of, you know, top 40 or things like that, which I think are really what sparks creativity for a lot of people. I just wonder if do you think there'll be a sort of social media media boom where it all goes away and everyone just says, you know what? I'm tired of this, I'm tired of the same thing. I want to be different, I want to be more creative, I want to shake up the system a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 15:05

Yeah, I do, but I don't think it'll be as big as we're now we're exposed to a global size numbers now. Whereas if you think about what we grew up with, and there might have been in your town some goths, some alternatives, some heavy metal guys and girls, some rockabillies, you know, you're talking about 50 of them, 60 of them, not four billion of those, three million of those. And now we're talking these numbers that we expect revolutions to be the whole planet. And actually, let's dial back and remember that maybe the you know, the Bloomsbury set or the Dardarists, there were about 85 people that then went to affect obviously the world, but not in their time, you know, there were very small numbers of people, and so now we see these pockets of amazing like re revolution, but they, you know, you I mean, look at even just you know, people going on a march like Black Lives Matter, you know, that was hundreds of thousands of people. But still people say, well, that's not really a revolution, is it? Well, it is, it is, it's a massive amount of people, but we're so used to these numbers now being so inflated that we we sort of don't believe that that revolution is happening unless it's literally like mass adoption, which has never been revolution. Revolution is like a tiny ripple that is probably not felt for like another 50 years. So I think, yes, it is happening. And I speak to lots of people who are 20 years old and treat social media like a class A and do it at the weekend for a couple of hours and are living in the forest and making their own clothes, and or people who are absolutely tech, you know, so wired in that they never leave the house, but they've developed a new language. And but these are small groups of people, you know, and and I find what's really interesting about that is that um, like I say, you know, we we've we've gone from knowing our direct town and our club that we go to, or like our concerts that we go to, that may be like a thousand people to this global marketplace of, you know, you've got the whole world chattering. And and I think that that has become overwhelmingly skewed our vision of what a movement is and what what effect is or real influence is, you know, and because we have a metric next to everything now, from our, I don't know, taxi rating to our social media engagement, has got a number next to it, which we believe somehow in some messed up world quantifies the value, uh, or we've been told it has. So people panic about it and they project that, you know, and and if you remove the number from everything currently, everything, everything becomes more in a way like speculative value taken from what you take from it. So you take back the control of basically um finding the value in yourself, not going, oh, I think that's a big shit. Oh wow, two million followers. I is it shit, you know. So, you know, that that that's the thing, you know, everyone's got skewed by that. And I think that the the movements for me will come when we reach peak fatigue stage, which I think is very, very close, because I think AI is gonna kill social media. Um, because when it's just bots talking to bots with bots content for bots, and we know and we feel it, then it's like this is this is a, you know, at the moment I still think we're in that kind of almost like drug addict stage where you're doing drugs and you and you know it's not good for you, you feel crap with it, but you're still chasing a fix that was gone 10 years ago that is never gonna come back, you know. And I think I think that it's so messed up. And it's not it, it's not, I I think because we know it's like you're returning to a I mean, I keep reminding myself when I was really little, this kid used to come and call for me. This sounds really sad, but this kid used to come and call for me because I'm sort of like a um very, very like optimistic, kind of glass half-full person that can keep coming out to play, and I'd go down there. I was probably in about four, I'd stick my head through the gate, and they used to hit me in the face. And this is horrible, absolutely horrible. But they did it every day for about two weeks, and every day I sort of thought it might be different, it might be different, which somebody says a lot about me. I go, toddle down there, coming out to play, yay, you hit, and then and then in the end I got savvy to it, like this is not this is not good. But I sort of lived on this hope that maybe maybe it'll be different this time, maybe, and I sometimes I feel like that pretty much every time I open Instagram, you know, and and I I've wanted to leave for years, uh, and I I mean, haven't we all right? You know, and it and that's that's an abusive relationship, you know, you know. 100 and I and I think you know, that's why I'm I'm building my own media, but I think and it and and this is the thing is that you've got to you can't just carp on about it, and that's why, you know, I go on to talk about this later, but you know, it's very important that we build bespoke safe spaces for people with with a unique and interesting value set that want to speak to other people in a very pure way, and it's not guided by donkeys, you know.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

I just want to say perfect you telling that you're telling that story, Alex. I actually had a really similar thing with my next door neighbors. I was really young compared to them. I think they were like three or four years older than me, and I always wanted to hang out and play with them, but I was like the little annoying kid. And they would call me over, but it was always after dark, and they'd be like, Oh yeah, come over to the house. We're gonna, we're gonna get together, we're gonna play. And so I would go over there and they're they would turn off all the lights and then they would jump scare me every single time. And that's to this day, I'm a very jumpy person, but I always fell for it and I was like, today's gonna be the day when I get to hang out with them and play. It was almost the same exact thing. And then finally I was just like, I don't like them. They're really mean people, so I'm just not gonna go over there anymore. But yeah, it's funny that you had a similar thing. The hope. Yes, you know, similar situations.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

I I feel for you completely. And I and I bet in a way you've probably repeated similar patterns with people that you you're probably friends with people that no one else likes, and you go, they're okay. They're okay. Because I think you're probably an empath, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:32

There's a couple, I think. Yeah. I try to convince friends. No, they're okay, honestly.

SPEAKER_00 21:36

Like them a chance. Yeah, yeah. Exactly so.

SPEAKER_02 21:44

So I'm kind of curious, Alex, we're gonna shift just slightly. But you started out as and still are a traditional uh fine artist, but how did you end up in fashion?

SPEAKER_00 21:54

Oh, really? Uh we're really gonna shift it. No, no, no. It's it's a good question because it's it's something that um it was so odd because what what happened was um I started to do things on the body very much uh really early on, uh like and I was really obsessed with Matthew Barney, um, and Cindy Sherman, but more Matthew Barney because there was this impossible narrative that nobody had the manual for. And I remember critiquing it with my um fellow students, and like we all had like a different opinion on what we were looking at. You know, what the hell is craymaster? You know, I knew it was a muscle in the testicles, I knew I knew and something. Oh, yeah, yeah, the craymaster.

SPEAKER_01 22:45

I didn't know what cray master meant.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

Oh, yeah. Well, cray craymaster is a muscle in the testicles that uh when you ejaculate, it makes the uh sperm come out.

unknown 22:54

There you go.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

That makes how much more sense for that film craymaster. Yes, yeah, yeah, totally and and and makes more sense about Matthew Barney in general. But as an impressionable 90s girl, you know, I was like, oh, Cryobaster cycle. So anyway, um we went to see the films. There was you know impossible narrative, excited by the change in in identity through prosthetics, and I knew nothing about prosthetics, so I went and bought a book about prosthetics, or did I borrow it from the library? I might have borrowed it from the library, and um went down to Charles Fox, uh, which was at the back of Covent Garden, and that's where I read where you could get all these latexes from and things. And I just went not knowing anything and saying, look, I want to make at the time I was making aeroplanes coming out of skin. Like, I don't need you don't don't even ask. But it was like these, it was aeroplanes under the skin. That's what I wanted to make, airplanes under the skin. And I went there and sort of uh, but when I went into Charles Fox, it was suddenly like a theatre, and there's wigs, and there's makeup, and all this Leichner and uh pansticks, and I had always like you know, before been obsessed with makeup, I was absolutely obsessed with goth. You know, I before that was Toyer, I was always trying to be Toyer or you know, Susie Sue, and then you know, was just a goth anyway. So I suddenly went into this incredible cave, and it was really dark as well. And the the guys behind the counter were kind of old, and it just felt like Hogwarts, you know. Uh, and it was just so thrilling, it was really thrilling, you know, and there was all these books on uh kabuki makeup and things like that, which I adored. And uh so I was in there a lot, and I didn't know why, I just wanted to be there. I it was I was excited by by the makeup uh and about the transformation, and I tried to teach myself prosthetics, it was terrible, but I got what I wanted in effect-wise, and I started to use uh you know, like the body and my body and other people's bodies a lot, and then a friend of mine, uh Mark Titchen, who's an amazing artist, is he he was in the the um you know the Tate Britain Awards and is it called Tate Britain Awards? Maybe I've got that wrong, but um, Tate Modern, and and he's such a phenomenal artist. And his his partner said to me, Oh, I know this guy who's working with Bjork and Skunkin Nancy, and used to work with Lee Bowery and and makes all these kind of performance art body pieces, and and they're on the body, like you're on the body, you should meet. I don't know why she said this, uh, but she did. And we met, and that's why I'm still with him now. So he was making women, he was working women's wear in the 90s in this, you know, very unconventional way with dancers and Wayne McGregor, who I still work with, he was working with his dancers, and they had a show in the Milch Gallery, and it was part of off-schedule fashion week, and they said, you know, um, we have these dancers in these latex body pieces, and is there something that you could work with? So I I did these things where I joined them together with um, I made these kind of body casts where the hands were joined together and their ears were joined together, and um, it was like all negative spaces kind of in latex, and uh it was in a sudden in a fashion context, and ID came and days and people like that, and they were saying, Oh, who did the makeup? And I and I was just like, I don't know, like there is no makeup, and they said, Well, do you what did you do? And I said, Well, I I did the body art about makeup then. I said, No, no, no, no, it's it it and they went, no, no, makeup, you know, makeup, and I went, Oh, okay, okay, and honestly, and I you know, I've not fabricated that in any way. That was literally Nicola for Machetti saw that Nicola was an intern at Days then with Alistair Mackey, and Katie England was with Lee McQueen, and they saw it, and then I was working at Shuamura at the weekend because I was working at the boy shop before that to get some money, and the woman at the boy shop went over to Shuamura, and she's in in Thomas Neill's, no, sorry, in Harvey Nichols, and she said to me, you know, what are you gonna do for money after you leave college? And I said, I don't know, you know, I still remain my artwork, but how am I gonna be able to pay my rent? She said, Well, come and work Shuamura. Shoe and Mora's like the best, honestly, was like an art shop anyway, and was my the dream brand. And in my in the back, in my head is still like the best brand that ever existed. Um, and that's amazing. I went to work there, I went to work there, you know, and and then it it kind of came together because then I was in the makeup environment. I was lurk, you know, doing work-a-day makeup on humans uh because I loved makeup, uh, and then I was doing my artwork, and then obviously this fashion context, and people are saying, Is anybody um doing tests and wants to do a test? And that was when I went from, I'm gonna wrap this up in a sec, don't worry, but I went from Harvey Nichols to Thomas Neil's in in Carvent Garden. That was next to Wendell and Moody, which was a hairdresser, hairdressers. Neil meals. Yeah, so it was it was Neil, it was um it it was it was Windells, and then it was Wendell and Moody, and at that time it was Paul Windle, and he was with Eugene Solomon, and all his assistants worked at Windells, and they came in, and um, I was there with I was at um I was at Thomas Neal's with Maxine Leonard, Linda Olstrom, and me, and we just all kind of were the oddbods, and we all started testing, and that's how it started. And I just got in with Nicola really early, and we were kids working in days together, and that's how it happened. But it was it was very much a mixture of paying my rent, um, being at Shuamora, and uh, and and and and this, you know, working with Philip, my partner, um, when he had his whimswear label. Yeah, so it was very, very odd. And and it was it wasn't instant in any way, you know. I was still very much ex exhibiting as an artist, a fine artist, and and I had a one really big show actually, and I thought, oh, it's makeup, this is ridiculous. Why am I doing this? You know, I meh I made these massive wall scabs, like huge scabs, you know, like a little scab you get by a huge one. And I I'd like graffiti, I'd done my name in these huge scabs, but I used all this uh mortician's wax and prosthetics and fake blood that I'd got from uh uh Charles Fox. And I just thought, well, you know, I I kind of you know, you know, it just it makes sense now where I ended up going, but at that time it was still very much using these materials in a different way. And I guess I kind of have always done that.

SPEAKER_02 30:02

I was just gonna say, I love the play and explore that you're constantly tapping into. That you're not looking at an item saying that item can only be used for one thing and confining it. You're taking all of these different mediums and just putting them in very unique places to just play, it seems, and to create and not allowing yourself to be so harnessed by what you what most people would see it as this one functional item.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

Oh, definitely. Yeah, yeah. I I think that I don't know if it's just a sort of like arrogance about not wanting to do what I'm being told, or it's a curiosity. I think it's a bit a bit of both. If somebody says do this, I'll do that. I it's just like you know, a thing, uh like moody, like ungovernable. Um, but I think um it's also like, well, why? Why are you telling me that? You know, and and if it's valid and it can only do that, you know, can it? And I'm always like, isn't it? You know, what if? We burn it, isn't it? Sure, you know, it because I sort of think, well, uh, why stop? I I guess we were talking about this the other day about sort of being propelled forward and like future thinking and you know what what drives us to to inquire? And I think it's because it's it's hope. There's there's like a hope that there's not a terminus to anything. And if something is this and it's that, then it's dead. It's a little bit dead, you know, it's like it's reached its peak. And I think there's a fear um naturally in all of us uh uh of things becoming like ending, you know. And I think that that that fear can be it can make you landlocked and like basically not inquire, or it can say, well, what about afterlife? You know, what about beyond afterlife? What about the cosmos? You know, are we not just secret uh you know recycling our ourselves constantly? And and if so, then why is something a terminus? Why does something is a thing and then it isn't anything else? You know, I think it's always transmogrifying, and I do feel like very much that everything is is is regenerating and it's going back into the soil, it's coming back again, you know, it's like growth cycle, renew, compostable, back again. And I think, I mean, I know that's kind of more esoteric than like, oh, it's not just ellipstic, but it it that's where it goes for me. It's like I don't want things to end and be a thing. It's more like, well, if you're fluid, then you're never defined, and if you're never defined, then you're never burned being born or dying, you're just in a state of constant flux. And and I know some people see that's chaos, and I and I can see the flip side of those things. And I've had I've had assistants that see it as as like like too like chaotic, sort of too stressful uh to be like constantly doing that or um you know, stay in a lane like not structured enough for them, you mean? Yeah, yeah. Well, it's like you know, I've had really good experiences with with some assistants where they said, you know, because I always worked with designers that would never tell you what to do. So you'd like go to Isumiyaki and they would say, they I mean, my God, the respect level of of artistry and and in that brand were was, I mean, it was I was seven years with Isumiyaki and and they they came to me personally through not through Mac, not through anybody, and said, you know, uh Mr. Um Mr. Miyaki had my book and was a was was really like revered, so many of the patterns, and and it was amazing. It was a really beautiful thing. And they took me into like where they made the fabric and they I'd feel the yarn, and then I'd you know, all these things, and they they do this like ritual of presenting the collection to you. Like nobody does this, and then they'd say, you know, and here's the music, and here's you know the lighting, and then they'd say, create, you know, and and I've had I've had assistants who've gone, oh, and other ones that have gone, yeah, you know, and it and it's kind of like in those in those situations, it's kind of like what terrifies you and what excites you about the openness of of being with you know that situation where they go, there's a light and it's above the cloud, it's so quiet. Make the makeup, you know, and I'm I'm like, yeah, yeah, I can see it, I can taste it, I can feel it. And other people are like, what the fuck is that? You know, so I think I think it's like that you attract what you you attract, right? And I and I never work relentlessly, and I I I don't, you know, I when I work with people, it's very particular people that are drawn to me and I'm drawn to them. And you know, I was never working day in, day out. That just never happened because it was so um, you know, I I guess, you know, you find your tribe or you know, whatever. And I think that people like that, it it was it was a such an honor, you know, such a fantastic um time with people like that. And some of these people, you know, they're not alive anymore, you know, and and it's kind of incredible um to look back on on so many things that I've done with these different incredible artists, you know.

SPEAKER_01 35:21

I was lucky enough to do the Miyaki show with you one time on the Mac.

SPEAKER_00 35:25

Oh, amazing! Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 35:31

Oh, which one was it?

SPEAKER_00 35:32

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:34

Incredible.

SPEAKER_00 35:35

Yeah, but pre-COVID. Oh, yeah, definitely pre-COVID. Yeah, but but that that was really special. I mean, uh, and and I think it's gone on to sort of, you know, there's been so many sort of blow motion, uh inspired looks in the uh, you know, now we're in the internet world and people talk about it still. And I mean it's such a playful, easy, fun, almost kindergarten thing to do. But um, the way we all did it, and I I do remember you doing it, and and it was very controlled, but very very free, and and it's a it was a nice balance.

SPEAKER_01 36:13

It was always really uh just incredible to see you create. And um, I'm just gonna jump in and fangirl for a second because the first show I ever did with you was Gareth Pugh. And I worked with you, I think, two or three times when I was freelancing. I would do freelance Mac shows. So I never worked for Mac, but I would be part of the team, like one of the extra non-Mac people that would they would allow me in. And it was Gareth Pugh, and I'll never forget it was me and another girl who was also a freelancer and not part of Mac. And we were so excited because we were like the chosen ones by you who got to put the eyelashes on, and it was the upside down eyelashes.

SPEAKER_00 36:54

Oh, the upside down ones, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:56

And people were really struggling with getting it right, and and her and I worked together and did it, and we were so excited that you were like, okay, you two go and you guys do the rest of the lashes. And we were like, Yes, teacher's pet. We were so excited. But the thing I remember most about that show, and it was the first show I ever worked with you, is that at the end of the show, you came around to everybody and said thank you to every single artist and like gave us a hug and you gave us this little wooden heart. And I still have it. I kept it because I was like, Oh, I can't believe that someone could be so thankful and like and so like just precious. It was just such a nice moment for me who you know was so inspired by you. Sorry, now I'm getting emotional. Yeah, me too. But I was working working with another artist, you know, for many, many years, never shown that kind of respect or just thankfulness of even being present or you know, contributing to the team in any sort of way. So it was just like a real eye-opener to be introduced to somebody who was so kind but yet so free and creative, and just like anyway. Thank you for for that, Alex.

SPEAKER_00 38:05

Thank you. I I get uh take a minute there. I sorry, I remember I remember it very well. Um I remember all those shows very well because it they were high pressure, and I know I knew that everybody wanted so much to bring their all to those shows. You know, he was the new McQueen at that point, you know, um it was everybody could feel what was happening in at those shows, and it was a very exciting uh moment, but I also know and can feel how like a mixture of excitement and fear that there is in those moments, and and I feel it too, you know, and I feel for everybody, and I I also know uh what everybody's been through for the last three weeks or months uh working for people that maybe aren't so kind and aren't so happy, uh and and I wanted to honour the fact that I know it's a bit like war, you know, and like people have gone through so much and they're so tired and away from the families and their loved ones, and they may have been shouted at, they may not been shouted at, but they're tired and they work hard and they're just here to make it work. And I know that um I, as a key artist, wanted to be a to lead with love and and like create an environment where people who are really young as well are learning how to be as a human as well as what to do. And I thought every eye is on you all the time. It doesn't matter, just you know, it's like having a child, you know, in the sense that you you what you do will be felt way after you go, way after you uh, you know, it'll be carried on. And I could see in others uh things, maybe behaviors that were being uh absolved, uh uh uh uh uh absorbed and carried on like an echo because that you know everybody loves to create these ideas of divers in fashion. Whether people are that or not, they become it. And and I didn't like that as a as a as a as a formula of success. I thought actually that's quite damaging because actually that's not a human, that that's a that's an iconic idea of a of a of a of a uh a temperament that is made up. Uh and I and you know I think people do that even when it's not them to sort of hide, you know. So I thought, well, you know, I know that the the most authentic way to be is to be myself, but also is to care for everybody in this moment because um that will have a lasting effect for everybody that ever has an assistant or ever does another show for the first time. Uh, and I think that that um was really important that that and that and that's amazing that you remember that and you felt that because I really wanted you to, you know, uh, because I really I really I know what it's like, you know. I know it, I know I have done a couple of shows with people. Uh I never will say whom or when, or they weren't nice, and and I think that you know, I didn't assist people, but I was put on a few shows in my time, and they won't even remember, but I remember. And I thought, yeah, I'm never gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 41:40

Well, that's the thing. It's like yeah, when you're a key, I think a lot of that divanness and that sort of tyrant behavior comes from insecurity. Oh, yeah. It's like you feel all that pressure or they feel all that pressure, and instead of trying to control the pressure and turn it into something productive, they turn it on the people who are under them. So at least my experience in the past with certain people is that they like to keep people below them because it makes them feel more powerful. And if there's somebody who feels like a threat in any way, or somebody who feels like maybe they they aren't cowering to you when when you want them to, then you sort of cut them down, cut them down, cut them down to the point where some of these people felt like, I don't even know if I'm a makeup artist. I don't even know if I know what I'm doing. Like, why am I even here? I should probably stay on this, you know, in this situation longer because I'm obviously not ready to go out on my own. And I saw it, I observed it time and time again with people. And then, you know, for me, I was always just around to learn as much as I could and just be in that environment and and work on amazing shows. And I learned how not to treat people. So when I keep my own show, you know, you can learn by watching the key, you can learn how not to treat people or how to treat people. So you taught me this is how you treat people. This is how you make them feel like they're a part of a team and that you respect them and you appreciate their help, and that, you know, you matter, you're being seen, as opposed to just being another cog in the wheel who's like completely unseen and and not thanked or not appreciated in any way. It's just like you're lucky to be here, not I'm lucky to have you here helping me. So I think that that's an important thing that a lot of keys don't really exercise and it really bothers me sometimes. But you know, you can't control what other people do.

SPEAKER_00 43:33

No, no, and I and I think maybe you know, it's something that you know it I mean, a lot of people have moved up through assisting. I I didn't assist anybody, so I didn't have any footprint of you know, uh learning that way. I just knew how to, you know, I was just brought up a certain way. And and I guess yeah, yeah. I just think it's you know, I I don't. Really, I have any sides anyway, like you know, I am who I am, and I um I really I just deeply feel things, I care, I can feel like and read the room of who's the most frightened or tired, or you know, and I go I use that as my base of like what we're gonna do, you know. And I I I can't um I can't stun people being bullied or or like cruelty. Um you know, and and I think that that's I can you know yeah, yeah, you know yourself by the time people got to Paris, they're so broken. And it might in it and it doesn't necessarily even be it's just the the the sh the schedule.

SPEAKER_01 44:43

It's everyone too, it's the models, it's the design, it's everyone.

SPEAKER_00 44:46

Exactly. This is it. It's like going to a thousand weddings, you know, and like they're experiencing you know, experiencing you know what I mean, uh and experiencing the the fatigue and the the rush and then the drop and the rush and then the drop of all those things, and like, oh, and then you want to the next one. I mean, for the designers, that's it, you know, they're done and they're getting the champagne, and it's like, oh, phew, you're on to the next one, absorbing the next one and the next one. And I've said this to so many young makeup artists that really like blast through the show. So I'm like, you're gonna be pushing a trolley around Sainsbury's or Wachos or wherever Whole Foods, uh, in a week's time just crying because they'll just be that you'll be able to because there's really there's no one around and release, you know. And it's it's really a big thing. It is a come down because it's like a high, high, high vibration, high state of anxiety and excitement for for a month. And I think uh it's a lot, you know. So I yeah, I think definitely like when you get to be in a room full of people who uh even like a touch on the shoulder, people are like, oh my god, human emotion, you know, because they're you know, they've been absolutely ravaged, you know, and I and I and I get that. It's so dumb.

SPEAKER_02 46:04

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SPEAKER_01 46:32

While we're on the topic, what is your favorite absolute fashion runway moment that you had out of all the shows that you've done?

SPEAKER_00 46:41

I think uh maybe it's because it's so fashion in my mind because I was only talking about it yesterday because somebody was talking to me about it. Uh, was the uh Red Cross with Gareth, which was the last show I did. But there was two. There was two. Can I have two? Of course. Okay. So the red the Red Cross with Gareth because it was the last one, and I knew it was going to be the last one, but it was also because it was like the last show that he did one with with uh with a very, you know, with all of it, like Simon Costin, everybody, you know, and it was at the VA and it was all about Boudicco, and it was all this like war paint, and it was we had to do it in the VA sort of archive area, which was, you know, when I got this red pigment out, they went, ooh, because like you can't even let this go in the air, you know, like what are you doing? And I said, Well, I'm mixing it in a prayer bowl, you know, with and I I really went like the nine yards, you know. I used frankincense in it so the the models would smell this like earthy smell. It was MAC red chromacate, MAC red pigment in a prayer bowl. It was like and it was so visceral, and we had like um uh Max Richter playing, and I was like smoothing it, smooth, and I did every single one in like these two movements, and it was just plastered through the hair, and and they were like warriors, and it sounds so cheesy, but it wasn't. It was like these girls suddenly became like boudicer, and they were just like you know, and they were really vibrating, they're like, let me out there, you know, and then they just pile down, and people were, I mean, it's giving me shivers now because people were literally like, oh, oh, you know, because the smell, there were semi-smells, and we had the music booming out and the V and A and it was just like um and it was English, and it was this, you know, English moment, and and it, and I think I think it was really, really, really powerful, and it was beyond anything that that for me that makeup was about. It was like an imbibement of an energy that like go ahead forth in this, you know, I don't want to say like, you know, our freedom, but it was like more paint, it was more paint because it was a gest, it was a gesture, so it was like a bit biblical, it was it was not about the way it looked, it was the way it felt, it smelt really strong. So it was a a very big moment. And the other one, definitely, that really sticks in my mind was also with Gareth, that was the first show that I did when first back after being pregnant, and I took my son with me to the show, and he was I was breastfed, well, I'm breastfed him for literally ever anyway, so he was about three, but he was he was with me, and um we were doing another red look, and it was the first, it was, it was um, oh it was just oh my god, it was really, really it was a very weird day. It was like a really close day. It was at Palais de Tokyo, and it was this kind of he'd done this flamenco, and it was the first time he'd used red, and I mean, obviously, I'm not in red today, but I'm normally always in red, so I was like, this is my my moment, you know. And he did these very fluid flamenco clothes, and I didn't know what music he was gonna use, and I'd done all red looks, and it was very wet and and and red, red, red, red, red, red, red. Um, but like very sort of like interpretive and kind of raw, and um, and they and it had been this close, hot sticky, and the models were like, oh my god, it was so hot, so hot. And then they went us, they went out, and it was just the heels clunk, clunk, clunk. It was um, it was uh oh, I posted it recently in the David Lynch um Holland Drive, you know, in when she's in Silencio and she sings crying, but in Spanish, and it was just this what I'm what and I was like, everyone was like, oh my god, and it was so booming out. And the minute it she it went out, it said crying, it started to rain on the roof, and the roof is made of uh tin, and it was deafening, and it was like and then the the crying, and everyone was just like, oh my god, like how what's happening, you know, and they went round once, and then I thought, oh my god, quick, give me the give me the um uh what the glycerin. I'm gonna add tears as they go around second. And Gareth didn't know I was gonna do it, and I just thought it's good that it's saying crime, it's raining, we're all emotional. So I just started adding like tears to them as they went back out, and people were like, oh my god, the makeup's running. I was like, No, no, no, it let's make it stream down the face, you know, and everyone's like, oh, oh, it's such a fashion moment, it's a it's a fashion moment. Uh, and it was just like it was just so great because it was so kind of um, you know, when those moments, and then unless you're in those moments, they sound so pathetic outside of fashion, but when you're there and you see, like literally almost like, oh my god, something's really happening, you know, like this is lit life theatre, you know, it was great because Gareth didn't know I was gonna do it, and he turned around to me and he was like, you know, and it was almost like, oh, oh, and we're all just crying, and it and obviously the babies there, you know, the whole thing. And uh it was just really, really gorgeous and memorable and about as fashion as it gets. And um, and I'll never forget it because it was just really instinctual, like I wanted to just do it. And and Gareth's the kind of person that would not say, Oh my god, don't get it on the clothes, or you know, oh, why are you doing that? We didn't work that out in the looks, it's like, no, go for it. That looks that's a great idea. So I think um I loved, absolutely loved being a makeup artist in those moments because it was responding to it being live, and I love live, you know. So it it was it was great, and the people got it, and when they got it and didn't realize it was running, they were along with it and they came back and all that I love that, you know. So yeah, and then not a lot of people change makeup halfway through a show, so that was really nice, it was really fun.

SPEAKER_01 52:39

It's really stressful to change makeup during a middle. I had to do it a couple times, and it's it's very stressful to change well, to change a look completely, adding it maybe not as stressful, but still, especially if the designer doesn't know what you're gonna do, it's kind of like, well, this could make or break me and with this designer or this situation.

SPEAKER_00 52:58

Yeah, yeah. There has to be quite a lot of trust, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:01

The the free the freedom that you had in that relationship to be able to move in the moment without fear, you know, to know that that relationship would hold itself, but also say, I'm feeling this and I can move forward with it. And because I think you've played so much, you were able to just say, look, instinctively, I just know that this is I'm feeling it in the moment, and you could actually go with that feeling. And it just added so much more to it because you were not fighting a fear or hesitation or questioning, you just ran right into it and let it become what it became.

unknown 53:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:35

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. I think I think people, I think by the time it gets to almost like a catwalk, it's almost, you know, and people do endless tests. It can get to a point where it's almost, it's not dead, but it's almost like it can't breathe. So there's not many people that would allow a little bit of chaos in at that moment because that's like Jesus, there's bias, there's press, there's you know, why would you do that? So yeah, I and I think that yeah, that comes from a humongous amount of trust and and freedom, and and also you know, developing a visual language together enough that they'll they trust you that it's gonna elevate it and not ruin it, you know. Right, yeah, absolutely. Are you still doing runway shows? No, no. The last one I did it was um with Izumiyaki, the last one that they did, and and I thought this is quite a good time to semi-retire. Uh yeah, yeah. I just felt like I it was changing, a lot was changing, and I thought I don't want to not like it. I don't want to be able to take a hiatus, a bit like Daniel Day Lewis going off and being a cobbler for a while. I love the colour. I'm not coming back and winning more Oscars. Exactly. I thought, you know, I I think that's how I feel, you know. I think, you know, um go away for five years and be a cobbler. Uh that makes sense to me. It makes sense to me a lot. I mean, it's funny because I haven't physically done physically like real makeup on a real face for a long, long time, a long time. And then the other day, I I've got so many people, like like very close friends, just like, just do some fucking makeup. And I and I said, well, yeah, well, um, when it feels right, when it feels, you know, when it and then the other day I was putting stuff out of our bedroom into another bedroom, and I was getting my kit out, and I thought, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, actually. And then also have to say, yeah, yeah, yeah. And also because obviously I'm so involved with, well, I mean, go on to talk about it, but I'm so deeply involved in material capture, which is working with makeup every day to digitize real makeup into digital, uh, like a new way of basically materializing real stuff into the digital world. Um, I am with makeup all the time, but I'm so heavily involved in the physics and the science and the it, you know, it's not when I get to play and when I'm in v metics, and I actually just, you know, the lights are off and the music's on, and I'm playing, it scratches the same part of my brain. So I have, I can't say I've not been doing makeup because I've been doing it digitally on vMetics for a long time, but it's actual powder of paint on a face. I do feel um there's a couple of people that have asked me to do something recently, uh, and it's I think I I feel like it's a time to do that because it is about this, what we're touching on already. This just doing it for the sake of the love of doing it, not for the likes, not for the content, for uh with no bloody pictures, just like people being there like a rave of makeup, and just really being part of that like tear coming down the face when you weren't expecting it and witnessing it and feeling it, and then going and being inspired by it, and not selfieing it with you in it, and you know, it's just so I mean, I know that sounds really old school, but it's more the fact that I think and I I do respect the future and the present, but I do think there's a lot to be said about being in the in the moment of it and not standing outside of it to to take a picture of it to then experience it through the value of others validating it. I think that's gone a little bit awry.

SPEAKER_01 57:38

I agree 1000%. In fact, there was a moment, I want to say it was last year on a show. Um, I won't say what it was, but um, you can probably guess. But there was a there was a makeup look that happened on a runway, and it was the first thing that I'd seen in a really long time that I was like, oh, this is really beautiful, this is really inspiring. It's not necessarily something I haven't seen before, but it's something that I hadn't seen on the runway, at least in a really long time. And it actually got me really excited about makeup for a second, you know, because it's it's been hard to be excited about things lately, honestly, with just being spoon-fed so much content and things like that. I've had to physically push myself away from social media and make a considered effort to just have me time away from that. But I was very excited about it. And then immediately, immediately it was like broken down, and everyone and the whole entire internet needed to figure out what was used and how it was done, and then everyone was recreating it, and I was just like, okay, it's not magical anymore, it's over. Like it had its moment for about 10 seconds, and now I don't even want to see it again. Like I'm so sick of hearing about it and seeing it. And I just thought this is so sad that this is what social media does now to creativity or to something beautiful, whether it's new or not new, it's just something that is inspiring, and people can't just let it live. People can't just let it have its magical moment. They have to break it down and tear it apart and recreate it. And I just found that really sad. And it, it just, I don't know. And then it turned into like a marketing thing, and then now it's into this like a sales thing. And I just think, oh, this is so gross. You know, it's just, I don't know. I mean, it just it it just kind of disheartened me with the industry a little bit and and with the beauty world and everything that social media is kind of turning it into. So I just in the last year or so I've just found that I have to really make a strong effort for myself to take a step back, to not look at anything anyone is doing anymore, and just have me time and read and be out in nature and and have a hobby that I do and and just it's nothing related to makeup. And that's helping me get re-inspired and and have my own thoughts about things because I think it's really easy to be influenced by things that you see, especially when it's just like constant, constant, constant. And you know, I talked about this before on the podcast. It's I don't even want to see a mood board. Like I hate mood boards, I hate when photographers send me a mood board. I say, I have my own ideas, I don't want to be influenced by anything you're showing me, you know. And I understand that people want the security that they're gonna get what they need for, you know, whatever it is they have in mind, but you know, sometimes it's it's people that I've worked with multiple times and and there there was a trust there, but because of everything else that's going on with what I just talked about, they start to get insecure about things and they feel like they have to micromanage and then all I don't know, it's just like all that magic kind of dissipates. And now it's like we're just we're just robots being hired to do a job and then leave, you know, and let's create the content and let's get let's get the eyes on the content and let's get the likes or let's get the money. And it's just you know, that sorry, I went on a tangent there, but just no, no, no, no, no. Hearing you talk about those old shows and and and doing those things and being inspired, it's just it reignites that passion that is hard to hold on to sometimes in this present climate with social media and how people, like I say, they just want to break everything down and pick it apart and recreate it. And instead of making it new or being inspired by something from it and creating something new, it's just like a carbon copy with a slight difference and it's just not interesting. It's not it's not punk, it's not cool, it's not edgy and groundbreaking in any kind of way. And I don't understand why no one sees that, you know, and I don't know if it's just a generational thing or I think it's because you can see so much.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:46

I think it's because I think what's happened is and and this is I could go on about this forever, but we're we're being trained, you know, we're not training AI, we're being trained, we're not training algorithms, they're trained, they're training us, you know. Um the behavior of wanting the same thing but incrementally different is a relatively new thing, you know. It's a rel if you think about uh moments like I mean, I know you talk about glass skin, you know, that I loved that because everybody was suddenly like ignited and it and the community was together about a look. And I I sent a message to to Pat saying, This is such a great moment for makeup. This is I love it. You know, people are enchanted, but I knew it was gonna immediately be like the recreation of the recreation, recreation, and I didn't, it didn't bother me like it bothered you because I I thought this is the world we live in. This is the only way people can. It's a little bit like when people went to see Ziggy Stardust and they drew the flash on their face. It's like I I don't I want to be you and I I want to I devour you and I want to be it and I and I think it's this and you know it's like if I can just recreate it, I'll be it and I'll be closer to the idol of that. And I think I think that's where we live in the at the moment is that they're not necessarily makeup artists who are thinking, how could I recreate that? How could I do glass skin but with you know three-dimensional textures, sheen? How could I do it, how could I do it thicker, how could we do it thinner, how could I take it onto the body and then build out, how could I, how could I do the mattest skin in the world? They're not the inquiry isn't to take it anywhere, it's to say, look at me, I like it, I recreated it. Do you like me as much? You know, it's it's it's the currency of the moment. The quicker you do it, the more currency you have. You know, if you recreate it as it's coming out, you you get a higher like because people go, you did it, you did it, you did it, you did it. And it's like a trickle down. And the value is in doing it and recreating it, it's not in digesting it and taking it anywhere because that's not what they're looking for. They're looking for the value of the algorithmic response, and that's because that's where the value sits. If if the value sat in like where did you take it, people are like, oh my god, I love where you've taken that. Let's let me talk to you about that and let's take that there. But there isn't a discourse. There's a like, I like that, and I like that again, and I like it again. I saw it there, I like it there too, until you stop liking it, until it becomes petered out, and then you're like, I can't, uh I can't like it anymore. I can't like it anymore, and then you hate it, and then you go, why is it taking a year for this to come out? You should have brought that out then last week. And it's just like, oh my god, you know, right? It's like it's not enough that it's come out now. It's like that moment went, you know, it's almost like, how dare you?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:45

Like you just snap your fingers and products are created.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:48

Exactly. You see, they'll they'll want to destroy it now because now it's turned, it's turned into why didn't you bring that product out a week after? And and so you, you know, it's like perfume, the scene in perfume where you know he basically falls into the crowd and they eat him, you know, uh and they devour him. It's like I don't know why, and and he lets them. And I and I think that that's kind of like another that's an idea now. It's like I saw that with Is He Hungry, you know, Is She Hungry? I mean, I I I know them quite well. And when I when I very first saw them come out in this beautiful identity, again, a real moment for makeup, this you know, mirrored, beautiful, sort of half animal, half botanical, half it's just like incredible, copied, copied, copied, copied, copied, copied, copied. There is not a makeup artist alive that hasn't taken something from Hungary that isn't in the beading, this symmetrical, the lip that that's but that is their identity. You know, it's not just a it's just not just a moment, it's not just a makeup look, it's part of their act, it's part of their identity.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:52

It's not just a look I'm dark, it's it's their identity.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:55

Exactly, exactly. And for me, the problem with that now is that you're taking. Someone's or like someone like Salvia and Rick Owens, you know, that's not just a makeup look for Rick Owens, it's spring, autumn, winter. That's that's who they are, and actually that's who they've built their currency online as. And I think that to take that and just like, I'll take that, I'll take that, I'll take that, you know, without ever like understanding that you're taking almost like bits of soul, bits, years of work, you know, that is now that's a result of of the behavior of more of the same, more of the same. And now that behavior is now like basically AI does that without, you know, AI just takes everything and regurgitates it to more of the same, more of the same, and erases to the middle quicker than anything anybody ever could repeat something. So the behavior trains us, we become that, you know, we won, become so hungry for the same but different, same but different that you're then given back the ultimate machine that does that. And then you go, why has nobody got any ideas? It's like because the value is in the quickest person to to repeat it, not the quickest person to take it somewhere. And you're gonna have to retrain people why that's worth talking about, why that's worth anything, uh, to be able to establish a new way of an old way or a new way of of exploration. Yeah, and I think I know.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:29

No, I know, sorry. I I know all that about AI and and about social media. I think I think it's just it just bothers me. And it's just something personally that I have to, you know, come to terms with. But it just I I think when you see it, you see it happening as opposed to being born into it, it's way more stark and way more like shocking and kind of disruptive to your life, or at least for me. But I'm better now. Oh, just that that moment was something where I was like, I I just wish that I wish people could see it for what it is, I guess, is what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:03

Yeah, well, I think what you want, and I think this is what anybody pre-internet wants, is they want it to just live a while, you know, just stand by at least a day and just yeah, at least an hour, right? At least an hour. It's just I think what it is, is it's like um magic, you know. I I almost think like the uh, you know, to be for a moment not knowing uh in a magic trick is basically, I mean, they call it like petty more, it's like a little death, which I love. And and it's like for a moment you don't know, and it's like, I'm floating, is it real? I'm not sure. Am I I'm scared is are they real? Am I and and like in that moment you don't know, and all of a sudden anything's possible. So for a moment, all bets are off, right? And you you don't know. So if you don't know, anything could happen. And I and I and I can't help thinking that since the pandemic, since um the risk, the fear of not knowing, all these things have heightened people of like, I want to know, to the point where they killed it, they've killed the innocence of it or the exploration of it, because the value is only in replicating it, but that they don't get any love from it. You replicate it, you don't go, oh my god, I really get it now. I'm inside it. Like you don't, it's so empty, it's just such an empty experience, and I and I guarantee it's an empty experience doing it. It's not because it it there is a need to be beguiled and they want to be transfixed, people want to be petty maud, but it's like that the all the buttons have been eroded, uh, and it's like we have to kind of somehow it's like I was talking about this museum of time and value the other day, like trying to like almost re-train people to be able to appreciate a space and a time and a value to just stepping back. I I agree with what you're saying, I just wasn't shocked by how people reacted because I knew they would react that way. So I think it doesn't do it doesn't upset me. I just understand it and I want to help it because I I think there's just, and again, it's en masse, you know. I get I guarantee there'll be a group of people who did take it somewhere, but you would never have seen it because it wasn't being pushed around the internet in the same way, and it wasn't, you know, more of the same, which is what the algorithm loves. So there might have been all these beautiful explorations that you never got to see, and then you think, oh God, the world's shit. And it's not, it's just what you're being shown is a bit, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:37

I also I I feel like when you were talking about all of this, it it when you're talking about that space, I just kept thinking about suspension. You know, you're living in a suspended amount of time where you don't know the beginning or the end. And that can also fan that fear or like that drive, I want to get to the end of this not knowing how the how the face was created or how this look was created. So let's just hurry it along because we're impatient. But allowing, allowing the creative sauce to marinate and live in that suspense where the magic resides because the magic kind of burns out at that end when you realize how it's all done. And I I do I remember when this whole glass skin, I mean, everybody, I think we're all just like, oh, oh my God, it was so stunning. And I did not want to know how it was done. Yeah, I wanted to just live in its suspense of not knowing. Yes, and allow it to just permeate my joy. And then I had other artists that were reaching out to me asking me, oh my God, what did they use? How did they do it? And I'm like, why do you think I would know? I don't I'm okay not knowing. Can we be okay not knowing and letting that be something that we honor the artist for and have that respect and and and reverence for it and treat it with a lot more uh respect and love? And then, yes, we'll go on and we can have these iterations. So I love, you know, the idea where you were just like, yeah, I want to go the opposite. Like, let's let's be the rabble browsers and the chaos. Let's go fully matte, let's put sand on the face, let's do all these other things that are so different. And I think it leads into a question that I've I've had um for you about artists in social media. For all of us who, you know, we we haven't maybe had, I know my my career is more of a commercial advertising type of world. I have had the joy of doing beauty campaigns and fun beauty editorials where I could explore myself. But a lot of the times we do feel a little bit more confined to the spaces that we're working within. And then you have the compounding of social media where, yes, for the longest time we felt like we have to feed the beast, you know, we have to give it something. And I've gotten to a point where I just don't want to give it anything. Um, I rarely open it up. Yeah. I'm like, I don't you can just become a tiny little skeleton and you know, maybe I'll peek in and say hi every now and then, but I don't want to know what other people are doing. I don't want them knowing what I'm doing. I don't want their opinion of what I do. You know, I I love something, I post it, I get two likes, and I'm like, wow, really? You know, but I also have gone to a point where I'm like, well, I know it was pretty great. Like I loved that for myself, having a security in it, but it's disappointing when brands still look to that and need to have those numbers, or, you know, how many do you have for followers? And how how do you explore this space of wanting to live in your creativity, but also still almost having to have a relationship with that beast we don't really appreciate. And of course we know it's best not to feed it, however, we're in a society where we kind of have to tend to it.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:00

Yeah, it's it's the um the burden of necessity. Yeah. I mean, it's it's it's also because it's all interoperable, interoperable with commerce and business, and it never should have been. Um, you know, it's like having your doctors, your dentists, your your you know, your gym, your parents all in one place. Like, you know, what on earth? It can't and and the and the problem with that is that all those people are there with their opinions and their needs and their wants and their you know, their metrics and their values, and and it's just it, you know, they're all sewn up together as well. I mean, all the tech, you know, you've got if you want to leave Facebook, you've got to leave WhatsApp, you've got to leave WhatsApp, you've got to leave Instagram, you know. And and I think that's the worst bit. The worst bit is the secular connection of tech companies that have made it impossible for you to leave. Um, and it's so interwoven that, and there's no, there yes, there are alternatives, of course there are, but I think that there's not enough alternatives. There's also not enough people adopting the alternatives, so it's almost like if you go and you go, I'm leaving, and you feel really triumphant, and they go, and nobody's with me, you know. And it's something, you know, and it and it and I think everybody feels that thing of like, you know, they know they don't want to be there and they don't want to feed the beast and all these things. Um, and that's a grown-up, you know, mindset of this isn't good for me. I don't do this anymore, I've put down this relationship, this doesn't work for me, but I'm still doing this that doesn't work for me, and this is such a big part of my life. It's almost like, you know, instant like repulsion, like what why can't I leave this thing? You know, and I think that is a big problem because I think there's a huge guilt shame cycle that goes with doing something in your life when you've excelled, you've you've probably psilocydened yourself into you know enlightenment and you're still on Instagram, right? Like, what is going on, right? So I think, and this is where I'm building my own media company. But no, the the thing is it's like, yes, I am. But I mean, the thing is, I I think you have to be, I think we have to, I don't think there's a there's I haven't got the answer answer. I don't think there's there's not one answer, but there's definitely, there's definitely a sort of I think people don't believe they can take anything on that's tech. Like it's almost like that's this impenetrable black wall of obelisk that is run by these giants.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:42

It's a people say I'm not good at that.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:44

I'm not good at that. It scares me, it's weird, you know, or it's that's you know, what is that? You know, what even is that? What even is the internet, you know? And I think I think the problem is it's like you sort of should get to know a bit of what it is that you're doing every day and where it comes from, where it goes to and where it goes from the cables into where and who owns your data, and because actually that's that is really an empowering when you think, oh, I can build my own tech platform. Oh, you know, I can be an entrepreneur in technology, who knew? You know, and I think you know, I I felt that very early on. Like the minute somebody said, Oh, there's this free platform, and you you it's like a web web, you know, page and you don't have to pay. I thought, really? You don't have to pay, you know, you're paying somehow, you pay, you know, and the whole that thing of, you know, if you if it's free, you're the product. And I'm not putting a tin, I'm not putting a tin hat on, but I knew this was all coming, you know. I I felt very strongly like again from my dad being like Greenpeace, CND. It's always like question the question, like, where's it coming from? And I think that I don't think it's set out to be a maniac maniacal data trench harvesting machine at all. I don't think that, and I think the early days were really good, but I think the problem is now it's very much, you know, bots speaking to bots, there's troll farms, there's you know, the ag the aggregation is is nothing anywhere near what you know, it's pushing negative always, and we know, and we know where we are with the politics and everything now. So I think now, and also this is this is 10 years ago, these people were 18, they're now getting to an age where they're 29, 30, and they're getting that hitting that enlightenment, what is life really about and moving into another decade, and they don't trust it and they don't want to be on it, but they don't know where to go. So I think there's there's gonna have to be a lot of um decommissioning of behavioral patterns. So a bit like AA, but for social media, so like 12-step how to leave. Totally. Is there anything like that now?

SPEAKER_01 1:18:45

I wonder.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:45

I think there is I've heard I've I've heard tale of people just showing it, their version, but there's definitely no mass adoption of like there should be, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:56

Because I heard that social media and Instagram specifically are like some of the largest contributors to mental health problems in children now. So I feel like this is something that should be addressed, you know, because especially for the younger generation, um, it's it's gonna be a big problem down the line. I feel like, you know, not having the the the the actual touch and and real experiences with humans the way that we had growing up, I think it's really gonna start to affect people. Um I wanted just to skip back because I want to actually read this post that you made, Alex, the other day on Instagram about social media. I believe this is about social media. Um you said it's all living rage bait, every signal, motion, wording, and action calculated and designed to drive the negative push, to pump the algorithm. It's painful, but it's vitriol by design to trigger humans and drive traffic to the exact platforms that they all own and shape this exact cycle of behavior on. Try to stand back a little if you can. Be kind to your own heart and the ones you really care for. And I thought that was a really important message. And I was glad that you posted that. Because I think people, when they're in it constantly, they don't even see it, you know, they don't even realize it's it's gotten to the point where I even mean like I have to delete apps from my phone, or I'll just find myself like Doom scrolling, you know, and I'm like, wait, what am I doing? I was I came on my phone to like look at my calendar and now I'm on Instagram looking at stuff I don't care about. So I think people don't even realize because it's just like a reflex now, you know, it's our finger does this, you know, it's this reflex. So I think it's important to make those statements for people like, oh wait, actually, she's right, you know, maybe all this is just you know being fed to me for a reason.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:47

Oh god, yeah. I mean, more more than ever. And I think it's yeah, I mean, I saw this amazing um thing on Instagram. I saw this great no, it wasn't it, it it was on it, it was on YouTube actually. But it's about fleas in a jar. I think you may have seen it, yeah, where the lid's on. Uh okay, so there's they there's fleas in a jar and they put them in, they jump out, but then they put the lid on and they jump to hit the lid, and they leave the lid on for about two to three days, and then they take the lid off, and then the fleas only jump to the height of where the lid was, they don't jump out because they they've been given a ceiling and they've learned the behaviour and now they don't they can't jump out of the yeah, they're conditioned. And I think that's you know, a very good, a very, very good uh sort of analogy for social media is that it you know, we really and it was it's a bit like man who fell to earth when he's he realizes he's free and he walks out and he just walks out, you know, and it's and it and it's it's kind of like well, he would never you were never imprisoned, you know. And I think I think this is the thing is that I think people think, oh my god, the world's gonna end when I leave, and and there is nothing, and we've just said there's nothing, and there's nothing, and who's here with me? But it's like, you know, I thought that about the kids having their mobile phones taken off them at school because my son's in his second year, they've banned mobile phones, um, smartphones at school here now, uh in most schools. And I thought, how are they gonna cope? Because a lot of them are really like entrenched in this world within a few days, not bothered. And then they're playing cards, they're and I said, How are you, how are you, how are you doing? And my son my son sort of said, Well, I I can play, you know, I can play on it when I come out. I'm like, I'm not really bothered. And I said, and I I was going, really? And he said, Yeah, we're playing cards. And I said, and I said, and everyone's okay with that. I said, Oh yeah, everybody. I said, and they call them bum sweats, people who are on the phone forever, bum sweats. I said, even the bum sweats, they're okay. And he said, Oh, yeah, yeah, no one's bothered. And I thought, wow, you know, it's always like the fear of what's gonna happen, really, really, not necessarily we're so enslaved, oh my god, we're so entrapped. It's more like the fear of of almost like over fetishizing the idea of what it is to be without, you know, and actually, oh, everything will collapse, and it won't. I don't think it will, you know, and I and I and I'm really I'm really excited by the idea of it collapsing. Uh, and I'm like, ooh, you know, great. I mean, I do honestly believe that AI will make it collapse, and and I think that that's a good thing. And I think, you know, great, bring it on. You know, there's so many alternatives of of of how we can be and and how we can experience. And and I do think the kind of golden age of the people that were on it and got the best out of it has gone a long, long time ago, and they've grown up now, and they and even they know that. I mean, I speak to so many people, they don't believe any of it. And it and also the younger, really younger generation know it's all a lie anyway. And I mean, that's never good to go into a go into anything knowing it's all a lie. You know, it's like they're not, you know, I've got loads of hope, I loads of hope for children, and I think that they're very savvy. I mean, my my son is so savvy about what fake news, AI, oh that's not real, oh that's funny, oh that's not funny. You know, they're so sophisticated, and I don't believe that they've been obliterated by technology at all. I think it's made them micro-nuanced. They know in it like in a wide, vast array of minutiae, meme, meme body, memeology, you know, it's so nuanced and like so collective that that, you know, he'll say skibbity toilet, Ohio Riz, you know, and so will somebody that lives in, you know, Portugal or somebody that's in Portland or something. What was that, Alex? Skibbity toilet, what? Skibbity toilet, Ohio Rizzler. So it's like all these like it's a collection of about 10 meme words that kids, if you if you look that up now, you'll see loads of stuff everywhere. It's kind of brand. I'm like, no, it's a universal, yeah. So it's like this so it was this character that was on YouTube that's like a sort of game character, not game characters, like a meme called Skibbity Toilet. It was a man's head coming out of a toilet.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:21

And it had a song with it, and it became like a meaning. And then Skibbity was it taken on by people as a joke. Like it's you're a joker, and it's a funny, like you say, I'm funny, I'm Skibbity, and then it'd be like, you know, Skibbity Riz, and Riz means charisma. And it's like me rhyming sling. It is, but it's universal, it's universal. So it's like, you know, I see kids um, you know, in their pickup truck with their dad in I don't know, Texas saying it, and the dad's go, skibbity riz, and they go, Oh, dad, you're so embarrassing. And then you think, well, this is universal language, you know. And I find that absolutely intoxicating. I love it. Because I just think this is like the the joy of um a collective joke on the elders. You know, it's like you don't know what you're like. You said, What do you mean? And it's like, what do you mean, old timer? You know, like you don't know what's getting boomer, you know, and I think that's great. That's punk, that's punk rock to me. And that's the closest they get. And and what's really great, and I absolutely love, is that they they take the piss out of like, you know, there's this thing called you know, Sigma Chad, which is supposed to be like the most masculine face you can possibly get, which is the Sigma Chad, which is uh it's a meme of a man's face with like super, super, super heightened, like masculine jaw, like almost, you know, really surgerized. And instead of aspiring to that and seeing that as like, oh, attractive, they think it's so pumped up, it's ridiculous. So he's like a ridiculous figure. And so my son and his friends are just like they could, they're like, oh, you know, get this jawline and sort of take the piss out of anyone that would want to do it. But they sort of they're mocking this aesthetic of what everybody else as a grown-up is chasing. And I think there's a lot of hope in that. There's a lot of hope that they see the artifice, the comedy, the fakeness, and they are probably you know on the cusp of being almost scared of like, do they want that, do they not want that? So they're in that kind of like era where they're testing, is it ridiculous? Yes, is it funny, is it to be mocked, is it to be feared? And I and I find that like a really, a really, really, really um joyful and positive um way of dealing with the modern world is to just completely take the Mickey out of it uh and see it for what it is. And and I think we are very scared and oh, oh, the world and oh, you know, and it's like no, it'll be fine. It's gonna be fine. It's gonna be fine.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:53

Thank you for listening, and tune in next time for part two of our interview with Dr. Alex Box.