Makeup54 Is The Coolest Beauty Brand On Instagram Right Now

Industry heavyweights like Pat McGrath, Bobbi Brown and Laura Mercier have all left a lasting mark on the beauty sphere, but there's another pioneer worth noting. Having spent the last five years at NARS, leading the brand's senior makeup team across the UK and Ireland and serving up some serious looks, makeup artist Anna Priadka is stepping out on her own with debut beauty brand Makeup54. And when a renowned makeup artist uses their expertise to create their own line of products, rest assured that everything in that line will be worth your hard-earned cash.

Inspired by her love of disco, the unashamedly bold, vegan and sustainably packaged brand, which comprises some of the most Instagram-worthy lipstick shades we've ever seen, embodies the glittering glamour of the '70s and '80s and pays tribute to the style icons of the era. Refinery29 sat down with Anna to get a peek into what to expect...

Definitely. It’s been a goal of mine for nearly a decade. I decided that I didn’t want to make money for anyone else, instead I wanted to make my own. I was quite late to the game with social media as I only created my profile in 2013, but I started seeing these really niche LA-based brands that I’d never heard of such as Jeffree Star and Natasha Denona and it gave me the idea of creating a brand via Instagram. Together with my friend, photographer Alice Luker, I started building a gallery of really bold makeup looks inspired by the '70s and '80s. Originally we based them on Andy Warhol’s Polaroids, with the idea of shooting the models against a stark white background, and it evolved from there. Part of it was taking a calculated risk, as there’s so much competition and I don’t want to be a quick win. Makeup54 is about creating an experience rather than just a great product that’s going to be in one day and out the next.

NARS has been a huge inspiration for me. It’s a brand that is so great at storytelling and François Nars creates incredible characters with his images – it’s not just boring makeup pictures which we’re seeing a lot of on Instagram lately. From an aesthetic point of view, I wanted to have a brand that had the same iconic feel and told stories through its imagery. Also having worked with NARS, I felt the pressure to create high-performance products. NARS' standard has given me the grounding for the standard I want for my own brand. I was quite lucky with my role at NARS because while I was the lead makeup artist managing a team of five artists, I was also head of events across the UK and Ireland. Because it was so small we were all really involved in each other's work and I was involved in all the sales and NPD (new product development) meetings, and that gave me the structure to sit behind a desk because as a creative I find that quite difficult!

So Makeup54 alludes to Studio 54, as the whole collection is centred towards the late '70s and the disco movement. It plays into all the different groups that stepped out during the '70s and I want to bring the icons of the era to the audience of today. Makeup54 is all about being seen and not fading into the background. It says 'Here I am, I’ve arrived'.

So I decided to launch with four liquid matte lipsticks (and a lip topper) because they're products almost everyone wears. I love wearing liquid lipsticks and the matte boom hasn't slowed down. 'Lips' is the second biggest NPD category behind 'complexion' and lipstick is a little luxury that women can afford.

I was heavily involved throughout the formulation process and the suppliers I’ve worked with have all said that they can tell I’m a makeup artist by the way I test products, colours and formulas and the feedback I give on them! I’ve come from a big brand, so people can expect something great. With Glitterball, our lip topper, a lot of the versions I was shown were just iridescent glosses and I was adamant that I wanted something different. The whole idea behind it was the Lipcote you’d see in the '80s, applied over lipsticks to seal in the colour. Of all the shades I looked into, rose gold was the only one that worked. A lot of the others were just solid gold which isn’t as wearable.

I decided to create two pink and two nude lipsticks, too. It was really important that they suited every skin tone. Gaynor, a caramel-nude, is amazing on darker skin tones but can be a strong autumn lip colour for lighter skin tones. I tested all five shades on all different skin tones, which is why it took me a while to develop the colours. I was also really conscious of the packaging for Makeup54. I wanted something that wasn’t a cardboard box. Instead, every lipstick comes in a recyclable foil bag with each recyclable component listed on the back. I want Makeup54 to be an ethical brand without losing the glamour of disco.

On Instagram, everyone is doing the same thing with the heavy highlighting and cut creasing. I don't just want to explode with these overly highlighted macro images, I want to do something different and you'll definitely see that in the imagery with its heavy nod to disco. Makeup54 is an Instagram brand and the aesthetic of the imagery is my sole focus.

I always love experimenting with colour, especially a smoky eye – pairing dark colours with bright tones is one of the best ways to switch things up. I love a dark emerald green eye, or pairing a bright orange lid with a toned-down coppery shade, even using blush through the brow and around the temples. I use my bronzer all over around the temples and then lightly dust my blush over the top of it. The bronzer mutes the tone but you can still see that colour coming through without going overboard. Using a lilac shade on the temples looks especially gorgeous. I’m also a big fan of shading the socket with a bit of blush, swiping the lid with a touch of NARS Orgasm Blush and a coat of mascara.

You know what, it's not possible to have a glossy eye that lasts all day. The extreme glossy eye I do on Makeup54 is for photography and involves layers and layers of Elizabeth Arden’s Eight Hour Cream, which is great because there’s a lot less movement than with a gloss. But for a glossy lid for everyday, try just a finger swatch of the Eight Hour Cream on top of a really clean, flawless lid and a little mascara.

Your concept has to be original. People can see if you’re genuine and authentic and they can see past it if you’re not. To be a good makeup artist you have to be well rounded in everything. I always say if you can perfect a red lip, a liner, great skin and a great brow, then you’re on your way to being a great makeup artist. The problem with 'Instagram' makeup artists is that while the technique is epic, it's only one way of doing makeup and that gets me a bit because you get people like my younger sister looking at that and thinking that's the only way to do it. But I do think there is opportunity for change and the industry is starting to pick up on doing makeup a bit more naturally, particularly with brands like Glossier.

But also, as a makeup artist, I often found Fashion Week quite frustrating because there’ll be a 'no makeup makeup' look, and while I appreciate good skin, I used to travel across the Atlantic with a full kit and end up putting just moisturiser on the models, and I don’t think that’s realistic. I think Makeup54 was born out of that frustration. I was fed up with this extreme end of Instagram makeup and these women on the catwalk, but finding the perfect red or nude is a constant for everyone, no matter what the trends are. Makeup54 is a brand that sits in the middle of those two extremes.

Those decades were the most exciting for me in terms of what was happening in fashion, beauty and politics with things like the hippy movement, Studio 54 and those legendary venues that don't exist anymore. So many groups were emerging in the '80s with the rise of the supermodel, makeup artists and photographers, and more importantly, the '70s and '80s were two of the most important eras for change. There are so many icons I reference in my work, like Jerry Hall, Antonio Lopez, Chris von Wangenheim. I was also brought up on '70s music – my dad was a musician and my mum was really into her makeup. She always wore a massive smoky eye which I loved recreating on my dolls, and she always wore her blush around her temples, similar to how I do now. If you look at fashion shows back then, the models were so aspirational; it was so much more exciting and I think we’ve lost that.

The first year will mainly be about lips, with five other lipsticks launching soon. I’ve already picked the shades and colours so you might see disco purples and disco oranges. My vision for Makeup54 is to create the same colours in a variety of different textures. If you look at the most popular reds on the market for example, you’ve got Ruby Woo and Lady Danger by MAC, then Fenty Beauty's Stunna and NARS’ Mysterious Red and Dragon Girl – it’s usually the same kinds of shades that women come back to.

As for face products, there’s definitely a Makeup54 blusher in the works and I would like to launch complexion products eventually; it's just so important to get it right and offer a shade range that works for everybody. I’ve also got a lot of ideas for a recycling programme and developing the sustainability part of the brand and I'm revamping Makeup54’s Instagram page. I’ll be keeping the original images, as I know people love to scroll through, but it’s evolving and there will be more exciting things to come. There will be a SoundCloud channel linked to the page where we're going to post some really cool disco mixes, too!