From director Boots Riley, I Love Boosters takes place in a surreal universe where a team of professional shoplifters confront a ruthless fashion icon. Featuring Keke Palmer, Taylour Paige, Lakeith Stanfield, Will Poulter, and Poppy Liu, the movie’s makeup artist, Jeremy Dell, envisioned an opulent glam look to form the unique visual realm inhabited by the characters.
Powered by monochrome outfits and an abundance of colorful hairstyles, I Love Boosters’ provocative playful vibe enabled makeup details to evolve into an integral part of the film’s environment construction. Due to this, Dell endeavored to create a distinctive beauty vocabulary for each character. For Keke Palmer’s role as Corvette, it meant emphasizing her assertive aura with striking lips and a fluorescent color scheme.
Adept at drawing inspiration, Jeremy Dell pulled from beauty trends of yesteryears to settle on a makeup aesthetic he terms “expressive, bizarre, dramatic, and emotive — all in unison.” Owing to close collaboration with the costume and hair department, Dell’s artful glam not only influenced I Love Boosters’ innovative imagery, it stands as a fundamental component of the movie’s intrinsic nature.
Looking forward, we converse with Jeremy Dell on his experiences working on I Love Boosters and the significance of makeup in the film’s narrative.
On Conceiving the Makeup for I Love Boosters
When devising the makeup looks for I Love Boosters, I aimed for each character to possess a unique beauty lexicon that mirrored their disposition and vitality. Much of the creative spark stemmed from integrating fashion references, subcultures, and conveying emotional narratives through makeup.
Corvette (Keke Palmer) is daring, vocal, and unmissable, and her obsession with Happy Rustlers candy drove me to opt for impactful lips featuring dynamic, radiant hues every time she appeared on camera. Christine Smith (Demi Moore) is the quintessential designer prototype. I desired her allure to project timelessness and composure, so we retained a traditional aesthetic with refined skin and a varnished red lip. Sade (Naomi Ackie) is the reliable confidante perpetually disregarded, thus I explored the concept of her serving as Corvette’s “sun and moon.” Her ombré sunrise eyes and lunar decoration beneath the eye were directly inspired by Erykah Badu.
Mariah (Taylor Paige) embodies a fusion of bohemian and edgy qualities. I sought to reinvent a cat eye in an unforeseen fashion, opting to position the liner across the eye’s center, rather than extending it outward. Jianhu (Poppy Liu) starts as a factory worker and transforms into a fashionista, imparting her makeup with an expressive, K-pop and Harajuku-inspired dynamism. Violeta (Eiza González) is the hyper-conscious, philosophical cannabis enthusiast within the group, compelling me to channel LA and Bay Area “Chula” aesthetics — slender eyebrows, outlined lips, and a septum piercing.
And then, there’s Pinky Ring Guy (Lakeith Stanfield), whom I consistently characterized as a vampire snake charmer. We delved into gothic eyes and varnished lips to amplify the enigma surrounding him. The film offers a plethora of additional looks, yet these examples encapsulate the essence of the world we fabricated.
