On her tomboy beginnings:“I was a complete tomboy, but my mother dressed me up as a boy. I didn’t ask for it. She bought me the boys’ uniform for school—gray Bermuda shorts, a white shirt, a blue jumper, and a blue blazer—but my sister had the girl’s uniform. So she wanted a boy, for sure! She cut my hair short, and people in the street called me ‘Mon petit gar,’ short for garçon. I didn’t feel bad about it; it was just the way it was. Later in life, I thought, Why am I so uncomfortable being a girl?”

On beauty wisdom from her mother:“She always complained that she had put on too much [makeup] in the ’60s, that the eyeliner was too strong, that every girl looked the same. It wasn’t very individualistic, so she regretted that. She would usually put makeup on in a taxi, bringing me to school. Blush was always something she did with her fingers. Mascara, I didn’t really see her put any on. And then a little crayon on the top lip. I observed—very, very much—but I didn’t try things until much later on.”

On her experience with makeup on camera:“The first makeup artist [Joël Lavau] that I really worked with was on a film called An Impudent Girl. I was 14, and it was my first big part. In that film, it was all to do with emotions, and [Lavau] was a real artist; it was very, very tactile, the way he would work with his hands. He went for all the details he could observe and enhanced them, like marking the veins in blue. Since then I’m always trying to help the character with makeup that will [further] the emotions, like redness when you’re about to cry. All the imperfections, that’s what I like.”

On growing up alongside iconic parents:“When I worked with Beck, he said that you have to start [writing] every day—don’t think about it, just do it. It was too embarrassing; I couldn’t because of my father. He’s on a pedestal, so of course what I’m going to come up with is not good enough! It took me all those years to finally think, I don’t care. [My mother], for me, was the most beautiful woman that existed. At the same time, when I looked at myself in the mirror, I thought, in comparison, where do I start? But she was always very sweet, saying that she felt the same because her own mother [the English actress Judy Campbell] was such a beauty. Being uncomfortable was sort of our trademark.”

On helping shape her daughters’ approach to beauty:“It’s very surprising—because I can’t do anything about it! It’s just happening. I think the least I say, the better. I just want them to explore and not to feel restrained, and I hope that they’ll be as comfortable as possible in comparison to me. It took me such a long time to accept anything about myself, so I’m just watching them. I think they’re on a good path.”





1 / 5 Chevron Chevron Photo: Courtesy of Nars Charlotte Gainsbourg for NARS Multiple Tint in Alice, $39, available April 15 at narscosmetics.com

A feature on Charlotte Gainsbourg and the new NARS collection appears in the April issue of Vogue.