An Article From Fashion Week Daily mentioning Gemma
Napoleon Perdis
The man, the makeup, our new obsession...
Tuesday, December 13, 2005(NEW YORK) A few months ago, mysterious butterfly boxes appeared on our desks. Stuffed with unfamiliar (but gorgeous) makeup, they bore an equally foreign name: Napoleon Perdis. A quick Google search revealed some answers: He was a Greek from Australia. He was Down Under’s answer to Bobbi Brown. He was finally launching his cosmetics line stateside. And—most tantalizing—he was one of the judges on Australia’s Next Top Model. Intrigued (and frankly, a little obsessed), we tracked him down at Saks Fifth Avenue:
We don’t believe your real name is Napoleon Perdis.
“It’s not a stage name! I’m Greek, you know. Greek first sons are named after their grandfather, and my grandfather was baptized Napoleon John. My dad is John Napoleon, and now I’m Napoleon John. My father says now he should charge me royalties! ‘Perdis’ comes from a village in Greece—only goat herders and olive growers there. Perdis is actually short for a very long Greek name, Perdikaris. It’s real!”
Are you Australia’s Tyra Banks?
“No. The winner of Australia’s Top Model—her prize is to be the face of my cosmetics line.”
Is that the contest that Gemma Ward lost?
“No, Gemma was part of a supermodel contest by one of the magazines. Funny now, that she lost! I worked with her a lot last year, and she’s like a machine, that girl! I worked with her last September when she did the cover of Australian Vogue, and also did 40 pages with Gemma for Greek Vogue, the Olympic issue." Are you friends?
“Well, we do work together, so I know things about her guest editor job at Australian Vogue. Like, the magazine talked to all these photographers she’d worked with and said, ‘Give us all the Gemma photos you’ve never used.’”
Ooh, secret Gemma photos!
“And you know, Gemma wrote a giant piece, 10,000 words, and it was so good. She said, ‘I really wanted it to be substantial,’ and I was like, ‘You’re so brilliant! Why are there no other models like you?’”
Tell us more about Australia’s Next Top Model.
“One of the things I said to them was, ‘Prove to me why you should be the face for Napoleon Perdis.’ And the one that won was the one that said, “I’m more beautiful than the rest of them!” So of course I picked her. She’ll come to New York in February."
Okay, back to Gemma. Tell us a good makeup trick.
“Do foundation, then mascara, then get dressed, then put on the eyes and lips. You want that feeling of beautiful skin when you’re walking around. The mascara inspires you, gives you the windows to the soul. Then you get dressed, the foundation and mascara are a lot like lingerie. Then you use the eyes and lips to complete it.”
why wont it let me make a name for it
