Makeup artist Sam Visser killed the clean girl aesthetic at Demna’s Times Square takeover and the beauty industry is still talking about it
Words | Rohini Wahul
On 16th May, Demna shut down Times Square for the Gucci Cruise 2027 show and turned the most overstimulated block in New York into one enormous Gucci campaign. Massive screens blazed above the city, phones went into the air and for a moment the entire crossroads of the world became GucciCore. The fashion was cinematic, the casting was character-driven and the energy felt exactly like a paparazzi shot taken at 3am outside a hotel nobody can get into. But beyond the spectacle, the beauty story unfolding on the models’ faces deserved its own spotlight entirely.
Sam Visser: The Artist Behind the Alter Egos
Makeup artist Sam Visser, who has been the creative force behind Gucci’s beauty under Demna across campaigns and runway shows, delivered a look that was everything the clean girl aesthetic is not. Smudged, heavy, slightly slept-in and deeply seductive, models’ eyes were enveloped in deep black, deliberately smudged in an imperfect way, as though they had been out since midnight and had no intention of going home. Visser executed the grungy yet glamorous heavy eye on half the models, while others like Emily Ratajkowski received a fresh face paired with striking eye contacts that created the same eerie after-dark effect as the smoked-out lid. Two distinct beauty personalities, one completely unified vision. This was not makeup as polish. This was makeup as character, and Visser is one of the very few artists working today who understands the difference completely.
Green Contacts, Faux Freckles and the Signature Red Lip
Alongside the smoked-out eyes, unsettling green contact lenses pushed several looks from editorial into full alter-ego territory. Faux freckles dusted across noses and cheekbones added a paradoxically innocent touch against the darkness. On others, Visser’s signature red lip appeared, precise and bold, cutting through the grunge with a note of old-school glamour. Together these details created something that felt less like a makeup look and more like a cast of very specific, very real people who had wandered in from different corners of New York City at the same hour of the night. Rich chaos, as one observer put it, luxurious but alive, and slightly out of control.
Hair by Mustafa Yanaz, Nails by Cam Tran
The entire beauty team’s work was as considered as the makeup. Hair stylist Mustafa Yanaz built looks that felt deliberately undone, lived-in and textured, matching the grunge-opulence tension of the entire show. Manicurist Cam Tran finished the looks with Gucci stripe nails, placing the house’s most iconic archive detail directly onto the fingertip. It was a small but precise decision that extended the GucciCore identity all the way to the models’ hands.
Paris Hilton Goes Brunette
Demna and his team stripped Paris Hilton of her signature blonde locks for her first Gucci walk, moulding her into a Gucci character and letting the world see her in an entirely new light. A sharp brunette fringe, a printed yellow belted dress and a fur coat completed one of the night’s most photographed individual looks, proving that at Gucci under Demna, hair is as much a design decision as the clothes.
Gucci Cruise 2027 put a definitive nail in the coffin of quiet luxury beauty. Nothing at this show looked soft, fresh or restrained. Everything felt heavier, smudgier, sexier and more alive. Sam Visser, Mustafa Yanaz and Cam Tran created a beauty world that matched Demna’s vision beat for beat. The smoky eye is not going anywhere and after Times Square, it just got its biggest endorsement yet.
