This Designer's MAC Line Will Inspire You to Be a Beauty Risk-Taker

Updated on April 22, 2016 at 6:00 PM

Courtesy of MAC Cosmetics

When I signed up to meet with Chris Chang about her new collaboration with MAC Cosmetics (launching May 5), I was expecting she'd be a vibrant personality. The designer of fashion brand Poesia incorporates colorful, intricate patterns — including multihued plaids, florals, and birds — into each of her collections. This love of vivid hues is reflected in her range of makeup for MAC, too. The packaging features illustrated women lost in a flower garden, but what's inside is even more exciting. The line features five lip colors, three creamy face paints, and four shadows, all in electric shade options like turquoise, yellow, and lavender — and that's just the lipstick!

My expectations were exceeded when we met in person. Chang wore different moody lacquer shades on each finger, braids accented with feathers and beaded accessories, and a bold cat eye. She was shrouded in a jacket embellished with thick Mongolian lamb fur. But most notably, she rocked a thick stripe of pink across the bridge of her nose, mimicking war paint, and a single large green polka dot above her left eyebrow. My initial shock at seeing such an unexpected look quickly turned into a strong admiration for her daring sense of style.

Chang became even more admirable — and fascinating! — once we started talking. The unusual shades in her makeup collection come not just from her love of maximalist style, but her empowering feminist attitude when it comes to wearing bright colors. She cited quirky Vogue Japan editor-at-large Anna Dello Russo as a muse ("I would like to have her closet — she buys the same thing that I would buy") and how being bullied for her looks became a source of inspiration.

Read on to learn all this and more, including styling tips for wearing edgy makeup hues, why she hates the term "man repellant," and why yellow lipstick is the new nude.

POPSUGAR: How did you come to collaborate with MAC?
Chris Chang: It’s a dream come true. I never thought that I would be applying my aesthetics to cosmetics. I have done colors and patterns all my life and I’ve used MAC since I was in college, so when [the brand] found me in China, it felt like the perfect fit.

It just felt like a getting together of kindred spirits that were all about colors and were inspired by daring, confident women — who dress for themselves, who do the makeup for themselves and not necessarily to be sexy or be pleasing to men. I really hope we find women around the world that won’t care about “what my boyfriend thinks” when wearing that blue lipstick, because it's all for ourselves.

PS: Do you remember what your first MAC product was?
CC: Lipstick! Yeah, because I’ve got these big gigantic lips that are so uncommon for the Chinese. I was taunted a lot as a child, and these lips didn’t become appealing or "on trend" until the last seven or eight years. But before that, it was something I was insecure about. That insecurity turned into the extreme. [Now] I want to play it up and I don’t care if people find it appealing or attractive.

PS: What’s the story behind the print on the packaging?
CC: This collection is called “Kunqu Madness,” and it's about giving something historical a futuristic spin. Kunqu is one of the oldest performance arts in China. [The performers] have really theatrical, colorful makeup and headdresses — everything is very elaborate. When the MAC collaboration came up, it took a split second to decide that this [would be the inspiration], because everything in the Kunqu is always the way I dress.

PS: How so?
CC: When I was going to [Parsons School of Design] in the '80s, people were always talking about minimalism: “when you’re done with your design, take that one last thing away.” I felt so awkward in this whole teaching method. I thought, “minimalism? . . . I’m definitely maxi.” There’s something about Kunqu that’s also very maximalistic and extreme — the makeup, the singing — and also, it’s very poetic.

PS: How would you style these colors with an outfit?

CC: Since I’m about maximalism, I don’t think about what goes together and what doesn’t go together. I keep putting it on. For the average person, the makeup would be the accent to a more subtle outfit. It will be a focal point, like this lipstick with a neutral-colored outfit. Look at the way I’ve worn this pink color as a kind of war paint — it’s a focal point. Everything can be worn together.

PS: I’ve always been excited by rainbow lipstick shades, so I was so happy when I saw your collection.
CC: I made sure that these lipsticks made the teeth look whiter, because that’s a big plus for women. Everything is from the spectrum. People should experiment with color without having a lot of bias opinion about “I don’t look good in this color.” That’s how you find a breakthrough and get new looks. That’s what's exciting about fashion and makeup — when you go beyond what you’re comfortable with.

PS: Why these shades in particular?
CC: We started working on this collection three years ago. Three years ago, blue lipstick and yellow lipstick were unseen and very avant-garde. To launch it now actually is the perfect timing. People are even more individualistic these days, so they won’t be intimidated by yellow. And that yellow goes on . . . not like an opaque, dead, pasty color. It’s a little bit dewy, so it’s really becoming. It’s like a new nude for me.

The colors are meant to be worn like opposites. If you have purple lips, then you do a yellow eye shadow, or if you have a pink lipstick, then you would do an aqua [eye]. It’s about how to get a sense of poeticism to it. To me, this all has the rhyme of poetry. To a person who just looks at it, it’s all loud and it’s chaotic, but to me, it’s my poetic interpretation.

PS: Can you talk more about makeup becoming a feminist statement?
CC: I’ve never worn in my life anything which I find will be appealing to men. It’s just not something I think about, and it’s very much in tune with the times now. Women are strong. We’re equal, if not even better. Makeup and clothes are definitely to please a woman and not to please a man. I hate that [phrase], "man repellent, so we should dress for ourselves.

Love and relationships are such a small part of what a woman can do. Women should be beautiful and feminine, but it’s not to appeal to the other sex. It’s to be happy and feel beautiful herself. That in itself is a new kind of feminism.