Rina Sawayama is surrounded by lush plants and greenery at the courtyard at Mexico City’s Four Seasons hotel on a sunny October morning. Just a few days earlier, she arrived in the city to collaborate with Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in the form of its latest ‘How To’ series, wherein the pop star would learn about makeup and beauty from the headpiece artist Lyle Reimer, the instagram makeup artist sensation Sweet Mutuals and Mexico City native wig maker Evanie Frausto. The event ended with a panel between the collaborators, at the colorful Luis Barragan-designed Casa Gilardi.
Last year alone, pop star Sawayama had been called “one to watch” by Vogue. She has also been on tour, opened shows for Charli XCX and had her first acting role in Turn Up Charlie, the Netflix comedy starring and produced by Idris Elba. In the past, she’s been signed as a model to Anti Agency and Elite Model Management, and has modeled for campaigns for Versus x Versace and Jourdan Dunn’s Missguided.
Up next? Her upcoming debut album, SAWAYAMA, out April 17th, which tackles many different genres: rock, electro, pop, punk; all with sugary sweet vocals.
And although she’s emerging more and more as a young musician to know, she always seems to go back to beauty — and her love of experimental beauty is obvious. She’s worked with MAC Cosmetics numerous times (the latest of which saw her star in the brand’s campaign for Love Me lipstick, which supported self-empowerment), since she graduated from Cambridge in 2012 with a degree in politics, psychology and sociology. A simple look at her latest video release for song Comme Des Garçons (Like the Boys) instantly reveals her penchant for beauty: there’s extreme nail art, extra pigmented blue eyeshadow and face painting along with neon orange bangs.
“I always pick a character, the person who I want to be on stage, and then think about how they would do their makeup,” Sawayama of the impact of beauty has on her work. “I have a whole collection of makeup looks I love, and I love that and I’m not scared of that.”
It’s true, that Sawayama doesn’t shy away from the bold. She’s had dramatic streaks of black rimmed down her eyes — like something akin to a modern version of the metal band KISS, as well as pearls scattered around her eyes and chin, for performances. The Japanese-English singer, who first released her mini album, Rina in 2017, credits her brave approach to beauty to one of her all-time idols, makeup artist Pat McGrath: “When I was growing up, I’d look at Dior in the 2000s, when Pat McGrath was doing like these amazing, insane looks,” she says. “We didn’t have as much access to stuff like that, but now we have all these beauty communities on Instagram.”
“I think that’s the strength of Instagram, to be able to tap into these communities that will appreciate your creativity,” says Sawayama. “I think that’s been a really positive thing. People are not as self conscious, maybe. Previously, you’d have to look at magazines and archives and books, but now you don’t because of Instagram.”
Sawayama has also always been outspoken about cultural issues in the music, fashion and beauty scene. She has called out Madonna, for using inappropriate imagery to promote her skincare line, for example.
“I think the number of Asian faces is definitely increasing, and I love to see that fashion brands are giving Asian people a personality,” she explains. “But, I still see campaigns where brands want to portray the Asian talent as the quiet one. It’s almost like there isn’t much communication going on behind the scenes.”
She recalls a few times when she was on set and felt slightly tricked by the creative direction of it all. “There’s been some instances where I’ve kind of been tricked – they just want me to look like the stereotype, for example. I feel like I didn’t have a voice in those times, but now I feel like I do have a voice.” Sawayama credits this to changing times and fashion and beauty industries both embracing diversity as they should. “Fashion is the fastest paced, in terms of these types of changes, and that makes me really happy.”
Aside from that, the London based singer attributes her eclectic beauty aesthetic to the city she calls home. “The diversity of London has been huge for me,” she says. “At school, I didn’t even think about religion, race, so I feel so lucky.”
As Sawayama prepares to release her brand new album, there’s one surprisingly unexpected beauty icon that has stood the test of time for her: her mom. “She’s like 60 and she has no wrinkles,” she says, with a laugh. “I asked her, ‘What’s your skin skincare routine?’ She’s like, ‘I use baby oil, then I wash my face with shampoo. I’m like, okay, well I need to ditch my ten step Korean skin care routine because I don’t need to do all that!”
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