At the unveiling of her Holiday Collection campaign with singer Celine Dion in London, beauty mogul Charlotte Tilbury credits her charm and fun to being one-third Irish. She also talks about her inspired upbringing that led to a billion-euro empire, tackling ‘generation exhaustion’ with her make-up range and instilling confidence with her new fragrance
Beauty mogul Charlotte Tilbury, who worked as a celebrity make-up artist for 20 years before she started her brand in 2013. Photo: Matt Easton
Darlings, name a more iconic modern-day duo than Charlotte Tilbury and Celine Dion? Seriously, I’ll wait. Can you even think of anyone who matches their level of glam and talent? As a beauty lover and a woman in her 50s, theirs is the exact kind of star power I want to see at the forefront of ad campaigns this party season.
The pair’s Christmas collaboration is another home run from Charlotte Tilbury – the make-up artist turned cosmetics mogul who has become one of the biggest names in the global beauty game. And guess what? We can claim Tilbury as one of our own; her grandmother hailed from Kilkenny, while DNA testing has also revealed Irish blood on her artist father’s side. “I’m a third Irish,” Tilbury tells me, swishing her marvellous mane of red hair. “My mother is half Irish and I got a bit from my father. My mother’s blonde and my father has dark hair, and the great aunts on my mother’s side had red hair – so all the Irish genes came through for this girl here!”