Viva Glam Cyndi
Viva Glam Gaga
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For MAC Viva Glam From Our Lips With Cyndi Lauper and Lady Gaga colour story, CLICK HERE.
Q & A WITH JAMES GAGER
Lady Gaga and Cyndi Lauper are such a dynamic duo. What was the thought process in choosing them to appear together in the new VIVA GLAM campaign?
I wish I could say I am the only one that picks the spokespeople for VIVA GLAM campaigns, but I am not. Rather, it’s an ongoing dialogue among many of us at M·A·C. What’s really important is that we get the right people to speak out on behalf of the M·A·C AIDS Fund, people who are influential and put their hearts into it. Conceptually, the pairing of these two music icons felt absolutely dynamic. Cyndi Lauper is incredibly well-respected – she’s a legend and an icon – and she’s still out there making amazing music. Cyndi also speaks out on behalf of many, many people whom she has lost to AIDS. Lady Gaga, the newest kid on the block, is the sensation of all sensations. She and Cyndi are also fashion icons. There is total
synergy between the two of them. Lady Gaga loves Cyndi Lauper, and Cyndi Lauper loves Lady Gaga.
What was the synergy like between Lady Gaga and Cyndi Lauper on the set?
There was mutual respect, they both had high energy and Cyndi was actually very mothering to Lady Gaga. Cyndi, who knows how to work the camera from doing hundreds of shoots, gave Lady Gaga a tutorial on the placement of her legs and how to sit; it was fascinating to watch her mentor Lady Gaga on how to get the best body posture going on set. Lady Gaga was open to all Cyndi’s tips and took them to heart.
The visual looks and feels different from past VIVA GLAM ads. Can you tell us more about the concept and inspiration in shooting the new campaign?
This campaign is about the power and empowerment of women. These two very glamorous women have the ability to speak up and make a difference. We wanted highly charged femininity, to bring back the glam in VIVA GLAM. I came up with the concept of shooting in a boudoir-like setting so it would feel intimate, as if we’re looking in on Cyndi and Gaga getting ready to go somewhere or just playing with makeup. It’s about girls talking to girls, sharing points of view – as well as the idea of being safe in sex.
Why did you choose Ellen von Unwerth to shoot the campaign?
Our prior campaigns have all been shot by men. I thought it would be interesting to see what Ellen von Unwerth, whose images are incredibly provocative, sexy and very feminine, would bring to our campaign. When you see the image, I think you’ll understand why I picked Ellen. She had a great rapport with both Cyndi and Lady Gaga. I think shooting with a woman made them feel comfortable expressing their femininity.
The makeup in the visual is gorgeous. How did you decide on the lipstick shades for Lady Gaga and Cyndi Lauper?
The VIVA GLAM lipstick shades are developed by Jennifer Balbier, Senior Vice President/Product Development, M·A·C Worldwide with my input. Cyndi is iconic for wearing red lipstick, so for her we developed a new red – a rich, drenched, glamourous, toned-down red. Lady Gaga has a sort a Marilyn Monroe/Madonna quality, so for her, we created a beautiful, light, bubbly pink lipstick. It’s a colour with a fashion edge, and is a different way of looking at VIVA GLAM. Both Cyndi Lauper and Lady Gaga had seen the lipsticks early on and loved them, especially Lady Gaga, who wanted to wear it immediately.
The outfits that Lady Gaga and Cyndi are wearing in the visual are feminine, yet provocative. How did you come up with the look that they are wearing?
I worked with Patti Wilson, one of my favourite stylists of all time. We talked about what these two women would wear in a boudoir setting. Patti showed many, many ideas to me, and to Lady Gaga and Cyndi. We came up with something that’s provocative, sexy, a bit tongue in cheek – a large strand of pearls for Cyndi, and certainly Lady Gaga had to be over the top and outrageous. At no time did either of them say anything we showed them was too sexy. They’re both at ease flaunting what they have.
How do you keep the VIVA GLAM campaign fresh year after year?
Keeping the VIVA GLAM campaign fresh is a bit of a challenge, but when we pick the spokespeople, they almost dictate what the next campaign needs to be. VIVA GLAM’s visual is always meant to grab attention. Advertising needs to elicit a response from you in a very short amount of time. You have to be able to have subliminal recall, so it’s there in the back of your mind. It takes time to develop these campaigns, but being M·A·C, we have the ultimate creative freedom and can be as outrageous as we choose to be, from who we choose to how we style and photograph them. With that in mind, keeping it fresh is really not as difficult as it seems.
Q &A WITH CYNDI LAUPER
You are a music icon with fans from all over the world. You are a fan of Lady Gaga’s, and she is a big fan of yours. How does it feel to be doing a M·A·C VIVA GLAM campaign together?
I am really looking forward to it. Lady Gaga is the undisputed breakout star of the year, and I have been cheering for her. She’s a very cool and different artist. As far as working together on this campaign, we share a passion for fashion and music and performance. And yes, cosmetics. I think we are going to have a blast.
HIV/AIDS was ravaging the world in the early ’80s, a time when you were becoming one of the most important female singers in history. How did AIDS affect you during that time?
I lost a lot of dear friends to AIDS before we even knew what it was. People are still dying more than twenty years later, and we have to help find a cure.
The M·A·C AIDS Fund has supported numerous GLBT organizations around the world. You have also been a vocal advocate for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender equality and cofounded the True Colors Fund. What motivated you to do this?
I’m not a politician. I am just a mom who happens to have the benefit of being famous and can bring attention to something that is wrong and needs to be righted. I think standing up for one another is something that we all have to do. So that we all count. I want my son to live in a country free of bigotry and hatred. That won't be possible until we all have the same rights – that one segment of our population isn't given less so therefore can be treated as less, ya know?
What do you hope to bring to the VIVA GLAM campaign?
The VIVA GLAM campaign has always been amazing. I am thrilled to be part of it in 2010.
Tell us about your new VIVA GLAM Lipstick/Lipglass colour?
A really fabulous red…and it’s called Cyndi. How cool is that?
M·A·C VIVA GLAM Lipsticks and Lipglasses have raised over 150 Million dollars for the M·A·C AIDS Fund to help people living with HIV/AIDS around the world. How do you feel about this?
I am very proud to be involved with the M·A·C AIDS Fund, and I am very glad to lend my name and time to help raise money for people living with HIV and AIDS.
Women account for almost half of the HIV/AIDS cases around the world, and your new VIVA GLAM campaign will focus on helping women living with HIV/AIDS. You and Lady Gaga create one very powerful voice. What would you say to young women today about staying safe from HIV/AIDS?
Be smart, be careful, protect yourself, practice safe sex and look out for your sisters to make sure they are doing the same. But there are also huge populations of women in many places like South Africa and in the Congo who are becoming infected through rape. For them, I ask the world to stand up and get involved. They are all sisters, mothers and daughters, and they need our help.
CYNDI LAUPER BIO
Cyndi Lauper burst onto the world stage as the quintessential girl who wants to have fun. After more than 20 sterling years and global record sales in excess of 25 million, she has proven that she has the heart and soul to keep her legion of fans compelled by her every creative move.
The beauty of Cyndi Lauper is that she has evolved into a richly multi-faceted renaissance woman who strikes a resonant chord with each project. With her first album “She’s So Unusual,” Cyndi won a Grammy Award for Best New Artist and became the first female artist in history to have five top-10 singles from a debut album. Along the way, she has continually won accolades as a singer, musician, actress, and writer. She has been nominated for 13 Grammy Awards, 2 Emmy Awards, 2 American Music Awards, 7 American Video Awards and 18 MTV awards.
At the center of Cyndi’s life is music. With her 2008 Grammy-nominated recording “Bring Ya To The Brink,” she firmly asserted her position as one of the most beguiling, innovative, and downright exciting recording artists of this - and every other - generation.
Cyndi is currently recorded her newest studio album, a record of blues covers that will come out in June 2010. She is once again reinventing herself by putting her unique twist on one of music’s most beloved genres. An Emmy Award winner for her guest-starring role as Marianne Lugasso on “Mad About You,” Cyndi continues to show her range as an actress and personality on television, in film and on stage. Currently she is appearing in the recurring role of bewitching psychic Avalon Harmonia on the FOX hit “Bones” and will be competing on the upcoming edition of the NBC hit “Celebrity Apprentice.” Cyndi recently inked a deal with Mark Burnett Productions for her own reality series, set to launch later this year.
In film, Cyndi has appeared in such motion pictures as Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle(Fine Line/Miramax), Life With Mikey(Touchstone), Off and Running(Independent), and Vibes(Columbia/Imagine). Perhaps most notable has been her affecting, acclaimed performance opposite Christopher Walken in The Opportunist(Independent). In 2006, Cyndi made her Broadway debut as Jenny in The Threepenny Opera. Cyndi has enjoyed a sparkling and colorful life that continues to expand to greater creative heights and global prestige. She is currently capturing her journey in literary form for an autobiography that will be released via Simon & Schuster in 2010. It will, no doubt, be another bar-raising milestone in a career that continues to leave the world craving for more of the artist.
“I still have so much to say and share,” Cyndi says. “I’m grateful for each and every day that I get to make music. As long as there’s a corner of the world where people want to hear me, I’ll be there… singing and acting and writing my heart out.”
An unwavering advocate for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) equality since the start of her career, Cyndi created the True Colors Tour in 2007. The Tour has brought together artists like Erasure, The B-52s, the Indigo Girls, Deborah Harry and Joan Jett & the Blackhearts for shows that successfully merge great music and public awareness about the issues facing the GLBT community.
To further her role even more as an activist, Cyndi founded the True Colors Fund in 2008. The non-profit seeks to inspire and engage everyone, particularly the straight community, to become active participants in the advancement of GLBT equality. The Fund is set to launch an extensive public education campaign this spring to help fulfill its mission.
In appreciation for her work, Cyndi has been honored by many organizations including the Human Rights Campaign and PFLAG.
“It’s an honor to always have the genuine affection of the gay community,” Cyndi says. “They have never turned their back on me. I will never turn my back on them. We’ve had a long and enduring love affair.
For more information about Cyndi, please visit her website at www.cyndilauper.com
Q & A With Lady Gaga
You used to sing to Cyndi Lauper as a little girl and now she is a big fan of yours. How does it feel to be working with her on the new M·A·C VIVA GLAM campaign?
She has such a beautiful spirit, and the best thing about her is that she's a really genuine person. She gave me some pointers at the VIVA GLAM shoot. We have so much in common, and we just really enjoy one another. It’s surreal.
M·A·C VIVA GLAM Lipsticks and Lipglasses have raised over 150 million dollars for the M·A·C AIDS Fund to help people living with HIV/AIDS around the world. How do you feel about this?
I've been familiar with this campaign since it began, and I've always respected M·A·C for what it stands for - ALL AGES, ALL RACES, ALL SEXES. This is more than just makeup. Anything I can do to help raise money for HIV/AIDS awareness - that's what I'm here for, and I'm very honored to be a part of this.
You are very theatrical and creative in your performances and even create your own outfits. How important is makeup to your performance?
I've been wearing M·A·C since I was 10 years old. I see vanity as a form of identity and lifestyle. M·A·C always has shocking and outrageous VIVA GLAM spokespeople.
How does it feel to join the likes of Boy George, Ru Paul, and Lil Kim?
To be joining the likes of iconic former VIVA GLAM spokespeople is an honor. I can't believe I'm here. I am truly grateful and excited to do whatever I can for AIDS awareness.
You got your start performing on the club scene, which has a largely gay audience, and a part of the population that is very susceptible to HIV/AIDS. How do you think you can send a message to them about HIV/AIDS prevention or education?
Considering how rooted I am in the gay community and the deep respect I have for them, research and charity work for this cause is very important to me. By being vocal and raising awareness about HIV/AIDS and being as outspoken as possible on this subject we can raise awareness and protect the health of those we love. But it isn't just the gay community. It’s all communities, and this is an important message to relay to the younger generation.
Women account for almost half of the HIV/AIDS cases around the world. You and Cyndi are both strong, vocal women, and the two of you create one very powerful voice. What would you say to young women today about HIV/AIDS?
Use protection, and be selective and strong about those you love. Your body is sacred, and it’s ok to say no. Make your partners get tested, go together: it will only make your relationship stronger and healthier.
You and Cyndi have seen two very different stages of the AIDS epidemic and the changes in the public's perception of the disease. In the ’80s people were dying daily and today people with HIV/AIDS are living full lives. As a young person, do you think that today's youth feel they are not at risk for the disease?
Certainly the public perception is very different now than it was in the ‘80s, because (and this is good news), we have more ways to control the virus today than we did before. However, this is precisely the reason VIVA GLAM is so important: were taking a commercial organization and using its values of strength and identity to raise CURRENT awareness in the EXISTING public sentiments about AIDS.
Tell us about your new VIVA GLAM lipstick/lipglass colour?
My new VIVA GLAM lipstick colour is amazing. It's a bluish pink, great for everyday. It's a little bit ‘80s, which is very me. It's for the everyday woman - anyone can wear it and feel great about themselves and embody what VIVA GLAM is all about. I hope that women buy this lipstick, and honor themselves and honor the cause.
LADY GAGA BIO
When Lady Gaga was a little girl, she would sing along on her mini plastic tape recorder to Michael Jackson and Cyndi Lauper hits and get twirled in the air in daddy’s arms to the sounds of the Rolling Stones and the
Beatles. The precocious child would dance around the table at fancy Upper West Side restaurants using breadsticks as a baton. And she would innocently greet a new babysitter in nothing but her birthday suit.
It’s no wonder that little girl from a good Italian New York family turned into the multi-talented singersongwriter with a flair for theatrics that she is today: Lady Gaga.
“I was always an entertainer. I was a ham as a little girl and I’m a ham today,” says Lady Gaga, 22, who made a name for herself on the Lower East Side club scene with the infectious dance-pop party song “Beautiful Dirty Rich,” and wild, theatrical, and often tongue-in-cheek “shock art” performances. Gaga – who designs and makes many of her stage outfits -- would strip down to her hand-crafted hot pants and bikini top, light cans of hairspray on fire, and strike a pose as a disco ball lowered from the ceiling to the orchestral sounds of A Clockwork Orange.
“I always loved rock and pop and theater. When I discovered Queen and David Bowie is when it really came together for me and I realized I could do all three,” says Gaga, who nicked her name from Queen’s song “Radio Gaga” and who cites rock star girlfriends Peggy Bundy and Donatella Versace as her fashion icons.
“I look at those artists as icons in art. It’s not just about the music. It’s about the performance, the attitude, the look; it’s everything. And that is where I live as an artist, and that is what I want to accomplish.”
That goal might seem lofty, but consider the artist: Gaga is the girl who at age four learned piano by ear. By age 13, she had written her first piano ballad. At 14, she played open mike nights at clubs such as New York’s the Bitter End by night and was teased for her quirky, eccentric style by her Convent of the Sacred Heart School (the Manhattan private school Nicky and Paris Hilton attended) classmates by day.
At age 17, she was one of 20 kids in the world to get early admission to Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. Signed by her 20th birthday and writing songs for other artists (such as the Pussycat Dolls, and has been asked to write for a series of Interscope artists) before her debut album was even released, Lady Gaga has earned the right to reach for the sky.
“My goal as an artist is to funnel a pop record to the world in very interesting way,” says Gaga, who wrote all of her lyrics, all of her melodies, and played most of the synth work on her album, “The Fame”(Streamline/Interscope/KonLive). “I almost want to trick people into hanging with something that is really cool with a pop song. It’s almost like the spoonful of sugar, and I’m the medicine.”
On “The Fame”, it’s as if Gaga took two parts dance-pop, one part electro-pop, and one part rock with a splash of disco and burlesque and generously poured it into the figurative martini glasses of the world in an effort to get everyone drunk with her Fame. “‘The Fame’ is about how anyone can feel famous,” she explains.
“Pop culture is art. It doesn’t make you cool to hate pop culture, so I embraced, it and you hear it all over “The Fame”. But it’s a sharable fame. I want to invite you all to the party. I want people to feel a part of this lifestyle.”
The CD’s opener and first single, “Just Dance,” gets the dance floor rocking with its “fun, L.A., celebratory vibe.” As for the equally catchy “Boys Boys Boys,” Gaga doesn’t mind wearing her influences on her sleeve.
“I wanted to write the female version of Motley Crue’s ‘Girls Girls Girls,’ but with my own twist. I wanted to write a pop song that rockers would like.”
“Beautiful Dirty Rich” sums up her time of self-discovery, living in the Lower East Side and dabbling in drugs and the party scene. “That time, and that song, was just me trying to figure things out,” says Gaga. “Once I grabbed the reigns of my artistry, I fell in love with that more than I did with the party life.” On first listen, “Paparazzi” might come off as a love song to cameras and in all honesty, Gaga jokes “On one level it IS about wooing the paparazzi and wanting fame. But, it’s not to be taken completely seriously. It’s about everyone’s obsession with that idea. But it’s also about wanting a guy to love you and the struggle of whether you can have success or love or both.”
Gaga shows her passion for love songs on such softer tracks as the Queen-influenced “Brown Eyes” and the sweet kiss-off break-up song “Nothing Else I can Say (Eh Eh).” “‘Brown Eyes’ is the most vulnerable song on the album,” she explains. “‘Eh Eh’ is my simple pop song about finding someone new and breaking up with the old boyfriend.”
With the new tour for this album, fans will be treated to a more polished version of what they saw (and loved) at her critically acclaimed Lollapalooza show in August 2007 and Winter Music Conference performance in
March 2008. “This new show is the couture version of my handmade downtown performances, of the past few years. It’s more fine-tuned, but some of my favorite elements to my past shows – the disco balls, hot pants, sequins, and stilettos – will still be there. Just more fierce, and more of a conceptual show, with a vision for pop performance art.”
It’s been a while since a new pop artist has made her way in the music industry the old-fashioned/grass roots way by paying her dues with seedy club gigs and self-promotion. This is one rising pop star who hasn’t been plucked from a model casting call, born into a famous family, won a reality TV singing contest, or emerged from a teen cable TV sitcom. “I did this the way you are supposed to. I played every club in New York City and I bombed in every club and then killed it in every club and I found myself as an artist.
I learned how to survive as an artist, get real, and how to fail and then figure out who I was as singer and performer. And I worked hard.”
Gaga adds with a twinkle in her eye, “And now, I’m just trying to change the world, one sequin at a time.”
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