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Partying like its 2021 has an etiquette all of its own, from masks to lateral flow RSVPs. But when it comes to the dress code it seems we’re dressing to impress, with Google searches for party dresses and out out makeup on the up. And when there's certain uncertainty on what the future holds, there’s every reason to go for it in the statement look stakes, as you never know when the next opportunity may arise. 

Cue the glam party season pairings of red lips, black liner and a smattering of gold sparkle. But in this alternative party season we’ve reworked this glamorous trio, with Sophie Cookson serving as model and muse. The actress who stared opposite Mark Wahlberg in blockbuster Infinite, and who’s TV turn in BBC's hit The Trial of Christine Keeler complete with killer 60's liner flick, seared itself into our beauty memory. 

Here, Sophie plays dress up, working different beauty moods in a palette of red, gold and black, and chats to Josh Smith about her own beauty adventures and mishaps and what’s coming next in 2022.

Dark Arts

Opposites attract so why not switch up the traditional black liner and classic red lips for smoky red tones on eyes and dark lips instead? 

To create the red winged eye, Chanel makeup artist Ninni Nummela who created these looks says, “I use two different shades, a slightly burnished red eyeliner [Chanel Stylo Yeux Waterproof in 928 Eros, £24, Feel Unique] to frame the eyes and add depth and a brighter red eyeshadow (from Les 4 Ombres in 268 Candeur Et Experience, £47, Chanel) to smoke all over the lids, blending it out at the end to elongate the eye." Finish off with lots of mascara such as  Maybelline Sky High Mascara, £9.99, Feel Unique, concentrating on the lashes in the outer corner to emphasise the shape.

For a dark lip Ninni recommends,  “Applying a dark lipliner just over the natural lip-line, as deeper shades can make your lips appear smaller. When you’ve got the shape, fill in with the lipstick." For a true black try Anastasia Beverly Hills Matte Lipstick in Midnight, £20, Cult Beauty - but if black feels a little too harsh go for a deep rouge noir such as Chanel Rouge Allure Lipstick in Rouge Noir, £35,  suggests Ninni.

Disco Diva

Who never said that’s too much gold? Go full glam with metallic eyes and lips.

“I started by framing the eyes with a bronze eyeliner, and blended the gold creamy eyeshadow -  Chanel Ombre Première Laque Glitter in Or Ambre, £28, Feel Unique - all over the lid and underneath the eye to get that 70’s glam look,” says Ninni. "Then added multiple layers of mascara on top and bottom lashes to really open up the eyes.” 

“On the lips I applied a peachy nude lipstick, Chanel Rouge Allure in Rouge Brulant, £35, Chanel  as a base and then washed the same gold gloss as the eyes over the centre of lips to make them look extra plump and luscious. Finally, sweeping  a golden highlighter on top of the cheekbones to catch the light.”

Tough Blush

Not just for lips, dramatic bold blush is an alt way to wear red. It’s all in the placement, high up on the cheekbones, with a nod to Bowie-esque androgyny. “Red is the natural colour when we flush, bringing health and radiance to our complexion, and it’s an amazing shade to enhance all eye colours and when placed on the top of the cheekbones and temples it really frames the face," says Ninni.

To create the look she gradually built up the intensity of colour using Nars Cosmetics Blush in Exhibit A, £25, Feel Unique, dabbing off some blusher on the back of the hand before blending onto cheeks and across the outer eyelids. “Use a translucent powder to help blend any hard edges and keep the rest of the face minimal,” Ninni adds. 

The Tri-Liner

The ultimate seductive eye accolade has to go to the winged ‘cat eye’ liner, but why work one colour when you can work it three different ways? “The beauty of layering colours is that you will see a flash of the different colours at different times, it all depends on the angle of the eye and your eye shape,” says Ninni. 

She started with a black liner Chanel Signature De Chanel in Noir, £33, Feel Unique along the lash line to create depth. “Perfect this shape and then it’ll be easier to follow with the other colours. I added a sparkly gold Chanel Stylo Yeux Waterproof in Or Antique, £24, Feel Unique in the middle to catch the light, and a deep red [Makeup Forever Red Chromatic Mix Liquid Pigment, £10.61, Makeup Forever mixed with MAC Cosmetics Mixing Medium, £16, Selfridges] over the lid for a flash of colour.” 

Pair with a high impact gloss finish on lips. Create a bleed-free base first with a lip liner and lipstick and then lacquer on your gloss. Ninni used MAC Cosmetics Lip Pencil in Cherry, £16, Look Fantastic to create the shape, Chanel Rouge Allure Lipstick in Emblematique, £35, Chanel for the colour and layered with a red gloss Fenty Beauty Gloss Bomb Heat Lip Luminizer + Plumper in Hot Cherry, Fenty Beauty.

Sophie Cookson is one of the most in-demand actresses of our day and she’s starring next in what's set to be our new TV obsession, the costume drama, The Confessions of Frannie Langton coming soon to ITV.  Sophie chats to Josh Smith on her hankering for simpler days, the beauty of the 1990s and ridding the world of sexist preconceptions.

“Pretending to be Bowie for a hot minute with insane makeup was great, when do you ever get to do that?” Sophie Cookson asks whilst we discuss her day on set for the GLAMOUR shoot, “I loved being some kind of glamour goddess, too, pretending I was in the seventies - it was very unlike normal Tuesdays!”

Would she channel these bold AF looks in real life? “My God, 100 hundred percent,” Sophie responds, wrapped up in multiple layers as she Zooms in from her home office, nursing a cold. “The rouge noir lip is so cool. I've always wanted to do that. Probably not for a Christmas party, though, because under the mistletoe it would be a disaster, but definitely the big seventies goddess hair!” Everyone deserves to unleash their inner goddess, I suggest. “Everyone's got one. It needs to come out. I know that Tesco Express sees my Goddess a lot,” she laughs.

Away from turning the local supermarket into her runway, this 31-year-old goddess learned about beauty, like any child of the late 90s and early noughties, through key pop music icons. “I remember buying CDs and albums and looking at the little leaflet thing on the inside particularly with Steps and looking at all their looks and thinking, ‘tomorrow I'm going to recreate that look,’ and then looking in my wardrobe and being like, probably not going to work,’ then going to use acrylic paint or something on my face!”

However the school disco allowed Sophie the chance to truly unleash her Top of The Pops based fantasies. “I was part of an amateur dramatics group and I remember having a Christmas party the year that Ricky Martin's Livin’ La Vida Loca came out. I said to my Mum, ‘I want to go as one of the dancers from Ricky Martin's video.’ I haven’t watched the video for a long time but I think they were quite sexually dressed. My Mum, God bless her, made me a turquoise sequinned little spaghetti strap dress to go to the party and I wore some glittery makeup. You know what, before speaking to you I thought I hadn't really made many fashion faux pas, but I'm beginning to reassess that!” Any commitment to a Ricky Martin music video is no faux pas in my book, I reassure her.

How has Sophie’s beauty philosophy evolved from the dizzy heights of the late 90s obsession with pencil eyebrows and Juicy Couture, I ask? “I've always been too worried about what other people think,” Sophie answers as our laughter disperses and we take a more serious path, “and what other people's perception of, ‘if she wears that beauty look, then it means X, Y, and Z.’ As opposed to just being free and expressing how I feel. The older I get the more okay I feel in my own body and you really do begin to care less, you just want to be free and not be confined by other people's preconceptions. Not giving an F is a really good way to go.”

“Maybe a few years ago or nearly 10 years ago now, I associated female strength with having to be maybe more masculine,” she continues. “I wanted to be edgier. I wanted to feel or let people know that I felt tough and that I wasn't just some young girl that would be walked all over. But now I feel maybe it's the time that I am in my life - thankfully lots of things are changing in the industry, too - I feel very comfortable and confident with a more female softer strength. Being female in all of its beauty and delicacy is a very strong thing to be able to accept. Even with this shoot what you present publicly is not necessarily what's going on for you on the inside, we are so many different people all combined in one body. It’s good to know that they're available and accessible to us. We're not one boxed in thing.”

When it comes to her career, Sophie has certainly not boxed herself in. Since she landed the role of secret agent Roxy in the much loved spy franchise, Kingsman whilst still at drama school in Oxford, Sophie has gone on to play a troubled singer opposite Naomi Watts’s psychiatrist in Netflix’s Gypsy, played a young Judi Dench in spy thriller, Red Joan and took the West End critics by storm starring opposite Orlando Bloom in trailer park based drama, Killer Joe. However it was her role playing the title character in BBC’s The Trial of Christine Keeler, the 1960s model, who was vilified, hounded and silenced by the British media and government after War Minister, John Profumo confessed in Parliament to having an affair with the 19 year old, not only brought Sophie’s career to new heights but gave her a new faith in her own voice, too.

“There were a lot of women running the show and we all identified with Christine,” Sophie says. “There was part of us that felt like we'd been Christine at some moment. We haven’t been listened to. We'd been sidelined. We'd been told we weren't good enough. We were told we were too this, too that. That we didn't fit in. I felt that by playing her I was giving her voice finally and being on set all day, every day I had to learn to take charge and it really taught me what I have to say is just as important as anyone else.”

“Ever since I've been in this industry, it's always been a very male dominated place to work. I remember being on Kingsman, and being like, ‘wow, I'm literally like the only woman on set today.’ You get used to the only other women being in makeup or costume which I find deeply frustrating but particularly on a set like that, full of fast cars and lots of cool weapons it does lack a bit of the female touch. In those situations bringing a bit of female energy is very good, but they can be overwhelming places if you are the only girl there and it is Mark Wahlberg and you feel like, ‘oh my God, why should I raise my hand and say, excuse me, I think we should do something different,’ but you have to stand your own ground,” Sophie adds referencing her recent blockbuster turn opposite Mark in end of the world thriller, Infinite. “It's important you go home at the end of the day and feel like, ‘you know what, I did my job because I asked the questions that I wanted to and I did it my way.’”

Away from male dominated sets, Sophie faced a new wave of sexism when she recently became a mother. “I find it really annoying when I'm with my partner and someone will ask him a question rather than me, or particularly in a restaurant setting where they expect the man to pay. That drives me up the wall. I've just had a child and I've said to a few people that I've been back at work and they reply, ‘oh, so you've not stayed at home?’ Bloody hell, what century are we in! Some people still struggle to cope with the idea of a woman raising a child and being able to have a career at the same time, which is just unbelievable,” Sophie reveals, reflecting on her latest role as mother to her first child with her partner, fellow actor, Stephen Campbell Moore who she met on the set of Red Joan.

Sophie’s go-to role is rapidly becoming bringing voices to those who are silenced and her next star turn in the ITV costume drama, The Confessions of Frannie Langton is no different. Based on the best selling book by Sarah Collins it follows Frannie who after being born into slavery in a Jamaican plantation travels to the 1880s Mayfair mansion of scientist, George Benham and his wife, Madame Marguerite Benham, played by Sophie. In a dramatic turn the couple are found murdered in their beds and when Frannie is found lying next to Marguerite she is dragged to prison, accused of their murder.

The drama reflects class, race and oppression and isn’t your usual Sunday night costume drama, as Sophie tells me. “There are a lot of taboos that we were trying to crack. My character, Madame Benham struggles with an opium addiction throughout the whole series. She's in a loveless marriage. She’s an incredibly intelligent woman but what she might want from life is quashed, not just because she has a manipulative psychologically abusive husband, but it just wouldn't have been the done thing at the time. And suddenly she has someone new come in like Frannie and has this illicit relationship with her whilst her husband's still there. Also, a relationship between two people of different ethnicities would've been totally frowned upon, let alone the fact she's also a servant. 

It's set in the 1800s and we were trying to inject a bit of life into that because sometimes when you watch period dramas they can be quite stifled by all of those societal constraints and it feels quite rigid and Marguerite is anything but rigid! She is incredibly spontaneous and erratic, which makes her an 1800s wrecking ball.” Alexa play, Miley Cyrus, please!

Exploring such a range of tough subject matter must take an effect on Sophie’s own mental health, I suggest. “Thankfully we had someone on set. We had a mental health counsellor who we could call and talk to, but you do have to be aware of it because in filming you do end up taking yourself to some very dark places,” she says. “There were whole weeks on set that were really trying and draining. But the older I get, the better I get at boxing it off. You can't take that home with you, but it takes practice to do that. Before I would always be reeling from the day and still living whatever was happening. You have to cut off because otherwise you do get yourself in a bit of a pickle.”

The Confessions of Frannie Langton will be on ITV in early 2022.

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