It was one of the first truly crisp nights of October when Willow Smith took the stage at Sony Hall in New York. Beneath the iconic music venue’s starry ceiling, a crowd of undeniably cool concertgoers milled through the smoky atmosphere like ants swarming a popsicle-splattered sidewalk. The crowd erupted in applause when the singer and youngest of Will and Jada Pinkett Smith’s children emerged from the velvet curtains—a vision in persimmon lace and chartreuse silk, with a striking wash of lavender shadow across the eyes. Why purple? I later asked the singer when we rendezvoused in a cozy green room several flights below the stage after the show. “Purple is the color of the third eye chakra,” she replied coolly. The intentionality of her artistry—from the thrumming beats of her spiritually charged music to the symbolism of her Dior makeup choices—is not lost on me as we dive into the beauty behind her latest album, The Thread.
At just 25 years old, The Thread marks Smith’s eighth solo album. But it’s not merely a new project for the artist: Smith refers to the collection as “a devotional album,” one inspired by nature, the different chapters of her life, and an inner sense of homecoming as she continues to forge her journey. “It feels like a sense of an arrival at a certain point in my career,” she explains. “Obviously there’s so much more to go, but The Thread is a through line through every different era that I’ve ever been through.” And Smith is the first to acknowledge the bold beauty choices that have marked each one.
“I’ve been bald. I’ve done big hair. I’ve done a lot of stuff. I’ve done nothing,” she tells me, leaning forward on the plush chaise. “I used to just not wear makeup on stage, like, ever—I used to feel like it would get in the way,” she adds, “but now I feel like it adds to the energy. And I’m always down for a little change, honey.”
Smith’s creative confidence in beauty can be traced back to her mother, who was one of her earliest examples, she tells me. “Watching her do her makeup—just being so enamored by her sense of what she knows looks good on her…knowing herself inside but also out so well—that was very inspiring to me,” Smith says with a small smile.
It takes a fellow visionary to translate the abstract themes of Smith’s ethereal music into beauty, so celebrity makeup artist Dee Carrion—praised for her work with Doja Cat, Doechii, and Ayo Edebiri, to name a few—has been the conduit for these colorful makeup manifestations. “She really has been so instrumental, specifically [with] the makeup looks, for this album rollout,” Smith praises. We take a few seconds to effuse over her gray-toned glam on Doechii at the 2025 Grammys. “The girls love her!” she exclaims.
Carrion herself is much humbler about her recent work when discussing Smith’s color-splashed new era. “I use a lot of shimmers, sparkle, soft pastels, and washes of color to translate the ethereal energy into the makeup look and overall ensemble,” she explains simply. Smith’s look that evening—a bright lilac eye, accentuated by brown feline liner—was a symphony of Dior eye products, including Diorshow 5 Couleurs in Plum Tutu, the Flash Stick in Celestial Star, and the Waterproof Liquid Liner in Satin Brown. “
“There’s a color-blocking element that’s happening,” Smith says, elaborating on her recent kaleidoscopic looks. Her previous album—Petal Rock Black, released this February—followed a black-and-white theme that reflected the artist’s period of creative isolation. “I wanted to do something that was a juxtaposition to that,” she adds. “I feel like it is very expressive of all the colors that nature uses to paint this insane tapestry that we call life.”
Carrion applauds Smith’s creative approach to beauty (“She’s down to do fun glam,” the makeup artist tells me) but also respects her discernment when she knows a performance would look and feel better stripped back. “Most of our glams are pretty collaborative, and I think each [one] really depends on her energy that day,” she explains.
Though every session with Smith produces a new, creatively charged look, there are a few ol’ reliables that Carrion keeps close by. The Diorshow Overvolume Waterproof Mascara in Overblack is one— “It’s the blackest mascara, and we need the waterproof!” the artist explains—and the Dior Backstage Glow Maximizer palette and Dior Forever Glow Luminizer are the others. “The Glow Maximizer palettes are so versatile, and I love the shimmer payoff—they’re just beautiful,” Carrion muses. Alternatively, she relies on the Glow Luminizers for lit-from-within radiance versus eye-catching shine. “I reach for both often.”
Smith is aligned on the glow front. “I love a good highlighter,” says the singer, her eyes trailing off in memory as if looking back on the stage she just left. “Picking it up on the camera… a good highlight always hits the light so well.” The pair relied on the Dior Backstage Glow Maximizer in the new Icy Rose Glow palette—an array of frosted white, lilac, petal pink, and champagne shades—and the Diorshow Flash Stick shade in Celestial Star for touches of radiance on the star’s cheeks and eyes. “It has this really beautiful icy purple shade that added such a gorgeous sheen and glow to her cheeks and complemented the eyes,” says Carrion. She then added “the perfect sparkle” to Smith’s inner corners with Celestial Star—something that made all the difference under the lights.
At this point in Smith’s life and career, there are few beauty risks she has yet to take. What’s important to her now is inner work—not just as an artist, but a person. “I’m trying to actually see myself—not through a lens of lacking something, but through a lens of intentionality and your sincerity,” she states. “There is nothing that is more important than your sincerity.” Smith is candid about how the experience of performing onstage can rattle her if she lets it (“Sometimes I’ll be like, ‘Oh, I fucked up that note. I fucked up that guitar riff. I wasn’t good—and that’s not cute on the inside.”), but is vigilant enough to understand that these self-described flaws are worth embracing rather than shunning. “I think that the real beauty comes from loving yourself and loving your imperfections.”
It’s this self-love journey that makes her even more grateful to be a beauty ambassador for Dior Beauty. “As an extremely tattooed and pierced African American woman, to be involved in this campaign is, I think, groundbreaking,” says Smith. “I want other people to see that the perception of beauty is wider than ever before, and it’s only going to get wider and wider until hopefully one day it encompasses literally every fucking body. And that’s what I want.”
Shop Willow Smith’s Concert Glam
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