“She’s always got that cool, calm, ‘it’s going to be O.K., we’re all good’ smile,” says producer Teddy Park in the new Netflix special BLACKPINK: Light up the Sky, a glossy look inside the all-female K-Pop juggernaut. He is speaking about Lisa, the group’s Thai rapper and lead dancer: a wasp-waisted 23-year-old with heavyset bangs and a kind of firefly charisma. “When it’s crunch time, she has this executioner killer instinct,” Park adds—though, given the group’s relentlessly upbeat tenor, that instinct plays out as knife-stroke dance moves and a blunt-cut bob.
In a year that has seen the music industry struggle without live performances, BLACKPINK—whose arena-filling fans are just as devoted in the digital sphere, making it the most subscribed-to music group on YouTube—has kept its high-profile rollouts arriving like clockwork. A guest spot on Lady Gaga’s “Sour Candy” landed in May. The group’s “Ice Cream,” featuring Selena Gomez and accompanied by a pastel-fantasy video, followed at the end of the summer. This month, on the heels of BLACKPINK’s debut album and the Netflix doc, the latest accolade falls to Lisa. As of this exclusive announcement, she is MAC Cosmetics’ newest global ambassador—which means that her “we’re all good” smile will be well dressed in the months ahead.
BLACKPINK at Coachella in 2019.
By Natt Lim/Getty Images.The leap from pop sensation to campaign face is familiar territory for MAC, which teamed up with Rosalía (also an ambassador) on a shade of flamenco-inspired red lipstick this fall. “The first MAC product I used was a lip product,” Lisa explains in an email, describing herself as a “huge fan” of the experimental makeup house and “a loyal user for a long time.” That might sound like polite praise, but her raft of beauty looks bears that out. A crystal-embellished cat eye in a recent Instagram look conjures up Sporty Spice by way of Lil Miquela. (“I often draw my eye-line a bit thicker and bolder than usual to make [it] look clearer in pictures,” Lisa points out, citing the graininess of film photography.) Another post features a glossy mauve mouth and a raspberry wig, with long tips and gold hoops that bring her a step closer to BLACKPINK’s latest collaborator, Cardi B. Meanwhile, Lisa’s product picks, below, offer a roadmap for those wanting to recreate the glitter-dusted eye and pink suede lip of the MAC campaign image.
That chameleonic quality is part of the appeal for the cosmetics brand. (Lisa’s 40 million Instagram followers is surely another.) As Drew Elliott, MAC’s global creative director, explains by email, “We were drawn to her confident, edgy-chic style and ability to take risks in the name of fashion”—something the fashion industry has keenly noted as well. Hedi Slimane photographed Lisa for this season’s Celine ads (she’s now an official ambassador); Bulgari has tapped the pop star to model its heavyweight jewels. There’s an independent streak throughout, as when Lisa wears a crop top by buzzy French designer Marine Serre alongside a matte lilac lip and a pileup of silver chains. “The music world is filled with so many fierce tastemakers who aren’t afraid to break the mold and express themselves in entirely unique ways,” writes Elliott of the natural crossover into beauty—a reason why both Gaga and Gomez have beauty lines of their own. He teases that Lisa will be a muse to product innovations ahead, while the Blinks (as BLACKPINK fans are called) eager to go behind the scenes can expect an insider’s look at her everyday routines.
The pop machinery undergirding stardom is the clear backdrop to all this. BLACKPINK debuted in 2016, after years of strenuous teenage training run by Seoul’s YG Entertainment. (In the Netflix doc, the women recounted having a single day off every two weeks as they geared up for fame; now between 23 and 25 years old, they still live together in the dorm.) Just three years later, BLACKPINK made a rhinestone-studded debut at 2019’s Coachella, becoming the first female Korean group to appear at the festival. The rapid rise provoked some early self-questioning: In the documentary, Lisa recalls her first trip back to Thailand, swarmed at a shopping mall by legions of fans, where she found herself thinking: “Could I really become their role model? What should I do to not let them down?” Writing by email, Lisa imagines an alternate life as a photographer, maybe—behind the camera, not in front of it. But for now, glittering in the public eye, she is in her element.
Lisa’s Guide to Subtle Glamour
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