Dua Lipa on the Makeup You Need For Her Anticipated “After-Hours Album”

“I love to go to a city and just walk around, and most of the time I can go about unnoticed,” Dua Lipa says on a recent afternoon in downtown Manhattan. That seems plausible enough in New York, where concerted nonchalance is a point of pride. But the pop star’s new video for “Training Season,” the latest song to drop from her still-unnamed third album, offers a hyperbolic glimpse of a high-profile life. In the video, she sips tea in a cafe crowded with onlookers. Outside on the sidewalk, passersby press up against the window, camera phones in hand. Before long, the room starts to spin, the frenzy of attention whirling around the unflappable redhead at the center of it all. That dye job, which Lipa debuted last fall, has complicated her incognito mode. “I really love the change,” she smiles, “but I think having dark hair [made it] much easier to blend in.”  

These days, Lipa is particularly hard to miss. At this month’s Grammy Awards, she teased her upcoming album with a dance-heavy performance of the first two singles. For the BAFTAs, she traded Barbie pink (the color of her mermaid wig in Greta Gerwig’s blockbuster) for screen-star red—after all, Lipa is fresh off a turn in Matthew Vaughn’s spy romp, Argylle. Today, she makes another splashy appearance: half-submerged in water for her inaugural campaign as YSL Beauty’s global Makeup ambassador. The new role builds upon her ties with the brand, whose fragrance, Libre, she has fronted since 2019. “Because of the amount of time that we’ve spent working together, the team really knows me and what I’m down for,” says Lipa. “And what I’m down for seems to be a lot—whether it’s with me walking in a desert in nine-inch heels at the edge of the Grand Canyon, or this, where they’re like, ‘Do you want to get in a pool and do this fully clothed?’ I’m so down for an adventure.”

Dua Lipa, YSL Beauty’s newly minted global makeup ambassador, ushers in the brand’s new Loveshine franchise.

Elodie Daguin for YSL Beauty.

Lipa describes a character shift between her work with Libre and now with makeup. “The cosmetic side has such a different kind of story to the lead woman,” she says. “[It’s] a bit more hyper-feminine, but quite tough at the same time.” The same could be said about Lipa’s persona as a musician, and a keen observer might notice synergy at play. The silver bullet in hand in the YSL makeup campaign—an instant-hit formula called Candy Glaze Lip Gloss Stick—also makes a cameo in Lipa’s “Training Season.” (The tawny shade she reapplies mid-video is called Nude Pleasure.) Here, the 28-year-old discusses the makeup mood for her next album, how red hair shifts her style, and what the next decade holds.

Vanity Fair: When we spoke in 2019, you shared that kohl eyeliner might best capture the spirit of your then-unnamed “dance-crying” album—what we later came to know as Future Nostalgia. With your third album ahead, what makeup might best accompany it? 

Dua Lipa: Less of everything, because it’s an after-hours album. If you’re going to go out dancing, I think a lipstick and some mascara and just get sweaty. That’s the vibe.

Your song “Houdini” implies a disappearing act. Are there times that you find yourself disappearing into a beauty transformation? 

I love a strong eye or a strong lip, or accentuating features in different ways for different events—having a story to tell with every look, for sure. But for my everyday, I have a very simple, set routine. I know how to do it. It’s foolproof. It takes me 15 minutes. First thing’s first: shower, wash my face, face cream. Then it’s probably the [Touche] Éclat concealer and brown lipstick—the shade 15 Candy Glaze, a really easy, nude-y, shiny, everyday look. Maybe mascara. If I don’t put mascara on, I definitely curl my lashes. Oh, and blush. I love a little blush on the bridge of my nose and on my cheeks. It gives me a bit of sun kiss. And then I’m pretty much out the door. 

When you think about Yves’s own era, is there someone from his personal circle of muses, or from the Studio 54 crowd, that serves as inspiration?

I think of Brooke Shields. When you see her so young dancing at Studio 54, there’s such a youthfulness and freedom to that. Bianca Jagger in all her glamour, coming in on a white horse, and you’re like, “Oh my God, this woman is just so herself in every way.” Both of those are on the complete opposite sides of the spectrum, but both that I really admire.