Anna Plunkett
“My best friend who works at MAC, I asked her one day, ‘How often are you meant to actually curl your lashes?’ And she was like, ‘For God’s sake, you’ve got to do that every morning, every day before you put mascara on.’ I’m like, “Okay.” So, I do that. When I do, I have this Maybelline mascara, that green and pink one, it’s my favorite.”
On her beauty routine:
“Well, I start with the Neutrogena Gentle Face Scrub. I use this everyday. I just wash my face, and then I try to use as much natural beauty products as I can.
I love the SK-II Facial Essence. I use that as a toner, kind of thing. I really, really love that product. Then, I use a moisturizer. I change it up. I have this rosehip oil, which is certified organic and really nice as a base. I don’t usually like wearing foundation during the day, I only wear it if I have an event, but the rosehip makes my skin really glow.
Then I put sunscreen on, which is over SPF75+.”
“Even when I was little, I remember, at school, trying to do my hair differently each day. I was really into experimenting. I went to a Catholic school and it was really uniform focused, so I’d play with my hair a lot. I remember spending so much time on my hair, trying out different plaits and braids”.
“Luke and I met at college, and we started doing our school assignments together. We talked about ideas, we were just into the same sort of things. We started making costumes for musicians like Karen O from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs when she first came to Australia. Since I’ve met Luke, when we’ve worked together, it has really been electric. The energy of it has had momentum. It was way more exciting than what we were doing at school. So we entered a competition together, then we got selected, and we never thought that would happen. It gave us the confidence to work together and make it a thing.”
“If I need to calm down, I love lavender oil. I love this at work. And sometimes if it gets too hot, I’ve got this awesome Jurlique Facial Mist. It’s on my desk actually, it’s the rosewater. That’s probably one of favorite things as well. I spray that on and I feel like a new person. Soothing, I think, because of the rosewater, it reminds me of my nanna.”
“I do have these toilet drops and I swear by them. They’re A.P.C. It’s this oil, they sell it through Aesop, and it’s really good. I keep it beside the toilet.”
“When I get dressed, I usually gravitate towards something that I’m in the mood for. That’s usually something from my own brand. When you choose something you really love, I think you start with that one piece, and then you work with it, because it’ll put you in a good mood. That’s how I get dressed. I work out how I feel, and then I go that way, as opposed to wearing something to look cool, or look hot, or sexy.”
On her favourite products:
“My MAC lipsticks, the matte ones in particular, there’s an awesome neon orange.
There’s another awesome color called Party Pigeon, which is a pretty awesome pink. It’s very bright. They stay on really well. It’s not neon, but it’s a really strong magenta – more on the lighter end.
I love Lady Danger, as well”.
On her signature beauty look:
“Probably a bright lipstick. I tend not to do to everyday anymore! I love a MAC lipstick.
I use the back of my toothbrush, which has a rubbery thing. When I’m brushing my teeth – at the end, I brush my lips. It kind of gets rid of the skin, before I put on my lipstick. It’s really awesome.”
On her personal style:
“Spontaneous would be a good word, and eclectic, because I like mixing high and low, and vintage with new. That’s probably my favorite thing to do. Color, is one of my favorite things, and print.”
“I eat pretty healthy, I guess. I love making juices in the morning, and ginger is one thing which gives me a lot of energy. I feel like it’s the most amazing, natural way to not have to go to a doctor, literally. I love an orange, apple, carrot, and ginger [juice].
I always take a multivitamin, and I take fish oil and evening primrose. Fish oil is really good for your skin, as well. Evening primrose is really good for period pain. I feel like it keeps me mentally alert.”
“I know we never really imagined being embraced the way we were, because it was really offbeat, and it was a bit more experimental, but we got a lot of acknowledgment early on for the more one-off things that we were making. It gave us energy to continue.”
On her day job:
“[It’s] carefree, because I’m in control, and I do whatever I want. I do have deadlines, obviously, but I also have a lot of choice, and there’s a lot of freedom. We never want to push it up a hill, we have good energy and fun.
I think that’s what makes it so fun, because we are creating this world, and we’re creating our own identity, and our own pathway. We don’t often know what we’re doing, as well, so we use a lot of our emotions. We’re emotionally driven, and I think that’s what makes what we do so beautiful. It’s coming from another place. It’s not really coming from a commercial space, but it’s more like it’s doing things that we really love.”
“I’m aesthetically very drawn to colour. I really love heavily embellished things that are more on the more extreme end. It’s really subconscious, as well. It’s not like I think about wearing lots of it, it’s just I never really think about wearing black or white.”
On whether beauty is an important part of style:
“To be honest, it’s not really something I think about a lot, but I do love it. It’s really an integral part of my whole brand, but it’s not something I lust over. I feel like I’m pretty low maintenance.”
“I love Bikram yoga. I started causally going, but now I try to go at least 2 to 3 times a week. What it does for my mind is so empowering. It’s more like spiritually, it brings me back to calm.
I [get] mentally inspired, and my mind is quite excitable. It’s probably the best thing that I’ve found for myself.”
“I love getting my nails done. My friend Nella, who has a nail salon in Sydney, called Nail Polish Anonymous. She comes to my studio and does my nails when I don’t have much time, and she’s the nail guru for colours. We did this really beautiful baby blue, which I’m really into at the moment”.
On her hair:
“Well, I used to dye it a lot, and color it crazy all the time, but I just didn’t like the way it was feeling, so I’ve gone back to natural. I don’t really do anything to it anymore. If I’m wanting to look like I’ve done something, I pull out my hair straightener, which is a GHD one. I don’t like to do it all over, just parts, so it still has that bit of shine. Then I love this GHD product called Final Shine.
I do like treatments. I occasionally put them in my hair for an hour. This Aveda Dry Remedy treatment, it’s like a hair mask”.
“For night time I wash my face again with Neutrogena. I have a couple of moisturizers that I just mix it up. I have this favourite one at the moment, it’s the Aesop Perfect Facial Hydrating Cream. It’s not too greasy, and it’s super light – just makes you feel really fresh before you go to bed. It’s got this frankincense scent to it. It’s really beautiful.”
“My favourite fragrance is Chanel Bois Des Iles. I like how it takes me to another world. It’s the world I want to be in, that’s why I love wearing it. I think everyone in Paris smells like Chanel. “
On her ideal Sunday morning:
“I love to sleep in. Catch up on house stuff. The other day, I was by myself, and I thought, ‘I’m going to wax my legs. I want to dye my eyebrows.’ Then I was making a smoothie and I was like, ‘This is awesome’. I love taking it slow and enjoying home time.”
The lovely Anna Plunkett makes up one half of Romance Was Born, the Australian label that is at once brilliantly iconoclastic and, simultaneously, unapologetically iconic. Case(s) in point: past collaborative partners include insanely prolific brands like Star Wars, LEGO and Marvel Comics, as well as Australiana textile legend Jenny Kee.
Anna Plunkett and her partner in design and aesthetic/spiritual soulmate, Luke Sales, met at design college in 2002 and launched their indelible debut collection ‘Weird Science’ at Australian Fashion Week in 2007. Ever since, Romance has been slaying with fearless fashion that inspires awe and joy.
In addition to being co-creator of one of the most artful and singularly creative fashion brands to come out of Australia in the last decade-plus, Anna’s also kind of a walking work of art. It’s abstract-expression meets girlish impressionism meets pure Pop, denim and then some.
“I guess spontaneous would be a good word” she says, when pushed to describe her personal style – a question she’s regularly asked but constantly finds difficulty answering off the cuff. “Spontaneous and eclectic,” she says. “Obviously, colour is one of my favourite things. And prints.”
Just look at the photos from our shoot – they speak for themselves.
From a young age she was using that eclectic approach to style as an expression. Anna recalls experimenting with different hairstyles in lieu of fashion choice diversity when she was at school. “I went to a Catholic school and it was really uniform-focused, so I’d play with my hair a lot,” she tells us.
After school, that translation of personal expression into something vivid and tangible and visual, evolved into the label that has amassed a throng of influential style mavericks as devotees, from Cate Blanchett to Nicki Minaj to Grimes. Anna, too, wears at least one piece of Romance Was Born every day.
“I don’t really buy a lot of things,” Anna explains of her fashion choices. “I’m more drawn to sentiment, or nostalgia, or to something someone’s given me.”
When it comes to beauty her attitude is less sentimental, slightly more practical.
“I love SK-II face mask,” she told us. “Sometimes if [Luke and I] are going on long flights, we usually put one on and look like freaks, but it’s so good because you get really hydrated – and it’s so much fun.”
That’s a vision we definitely want to feature in the follow-up article.
Words Susannah Tucker
