Cool collaboration
Two London-based Malaysian creative entrepreneurs team up to shoot a beauty advertising campaign.
CREATIVE collaborations can lead to unexpected and delightful results, more so when it comes about from a chance meeting with a fellow Malaysian abroad.
That’s what happened between Jameson Juwily, the founder of MYJ Beauty and Zarina Holmes, founder and creative director of Glue Studio.
MYJ Beauty (makeup by James) is an affordable brand launched in London in 2013 that specialises in cruelty-free lip colour and lip care products made of natural and fragrance-free ingredients. The brand won “Best New Lip Product” at the Pure Beauty Awards UK 2019.
Holmes, 47, and her twin Salina Christmas, hail from Perak and co-founded Glue Studio, a graphic design and marketing agency in London that won the award for Best Creative/media Startup at the Hammersmith and Fulham Brilliant Business Awards 2018.
Juwily and Holmes met at the Malaysia Merdeka Carnival in London in 2018 and decided to collaborate on MYJ’S new advertising campaign for Spring/ Summer 2020 and Autumn/ Winter 2020, with the theme, “Stealing Beauty”, inspired by the namesake movie.
“We were at the Malaysia Merdeka Carnival in London to buy his lipsticks! I love his brand, not only because it was created by a Malaysian, it’s elegant and easy to wear. It’s a proper London beauty brand with an international appeal,” says Holmes.
“Zarina approached me for a collaboration because she wanted a beauty portfolio and I immediately agreed. I had previously collaborated with a London based fashion designer and I believed that this is a good opportunity to introduce my beauty brand in London and internationally. This is my first ad campaign and for now these images will be seen on social media,” Juwily reveals.
For the campaign, Juwily was the makeup artist, Holmes was the creative director and photographer, while Christmas handled the styling.
Holmes has done campaigns for fashion, luxury and lifestyle brands before, but MYJ Beauty is her first beauty project.
She says the idea for the ad campaign materialised after a conversation with Juwily.
“The heroine that popped in my head was Liv Tyler’s character from the movie Stealing Beauty. She looked natural yet breathtaking. The next challenge was finding the right model. I spotted Leah Wei Mao from Guangdong, China, on a photographer friend’s Instagram. It turned out she’s also a postgrad design student at Central Saint Martin’s College, which is perfect.
“We planned the shoot in advance, on the sunniest day in August. Because it’s London, the weather is unpredictable. Whilst Jameson was doing the makeup it started to rain heavily. So, we dashed out into the sun as soon as the rain stopped for the shoot. I’m pleased with the end results because the rain gave us the perfect autumn look in the park. We got both our summer and autumn seasons in one day! That’s London weather for you,” says Holmes.
Named after famous streets and bridges in London, the key products for MYJ Beauty’s Spring/summer 2020 are the MYJ lipstick (Baker Street) and lipgloss (Westminster Bridge), while for Autumn/winter 2020 they are MYJ lipstick (Downing Street) and lipgloss (Vauxhall Bridge).
MYJ Beauty cosmetics are available locally at Parkson department stores and at Play up Advance at Fahrenheit88 in Kuala Lumpur.