Boots Riley’s latest film, “I Love Boosters,” shines a pulsating, rainbow light on unethical labor and cultural appropriation (alongside a dozen other hyperpolitical themes) with the humor, levity, and hypersaturated aesthetic of a cartoon. The film’s visual maximalism can perhaps be most strongly felt through its hairstyling and beauty, as constructed by hair designer Jessi Dean and makeup designer Jeremy Dell. As the film's core girl gang of shoplifting “fashion philanthropists” rob fast fashion stores in Oakland, each heist requires a different, kitschy, colorful wig and makeup disguise.

As a hair designer, the film posed a unique challenge for Jessi Dean. Rather than hone one signature hairstyle for each character, Dean was tasked with sourcing, cutting, and styling over a hundred different wigs in accordance with Shirley Kurata’s costumes. Dean’s process lay in “images of shapes” rather than traditional moodboards filled with real-life characters.

Similarly, makeup designer Jeremy Dell relied on “landscapes, textures, and tones” to set the mood for his makeup looks. He focused on a myriad of highly-produced lip textures, ranging from purple mattes and fuzzy lips to shimmers and vinyl, to create Corvette’s (Keke Palmer) head-turning glam. “Corvette is one of those [characters] that has a lot to say, “ Dell says. “So I leaned into textures when it came to her lips. I wanted her character to always have some type of lip that was defining her. Before she even said anything, you were looking at her lip.” 

In one of the film’s most memorable montages, Corvette sports a 2018 Moschino runway look as one of her disguises. “I grew up playing with baby dolls and I consider all [of the wigs] my dolls,” Dean says. “My favorite [wig] would have to be Corvette's floral, Moschino look. Shirley wasn't able to get the hat that went to that runway [outfit] in time and so I ended up duplicating the look with actual hair strands, and we made those petals by hand.

For Corvette and Pinky Ring’s (LaKeith Stanfield) signature “natural” hair looks, Dean used the wig designer Gretchen Makes Wigs in Atlanta. Though she also sourced from a myriad of other online and brick-and-mortar beauty supply shops. “Sometimes we have wigs on top of wigs,” Dean shares, explaining how Corvette’s pixie cut was also a wig, albeit one designed to look "undetectable." Density, texture, shape, movement, and color are the qualities Dean scouts for in a good wig. “If it's not working right, I'm gonna fix it,” Dean says. “If one [quality] is coming without the other, then you either give or you take away. That's always my motto.”

Dell fashioned the closest character the film has to a love interest, Pinky Ring, into a debonair, Prince-esque figure through gothic eyeliner and luminous, textured skin. “When [Stanfield] came in, he was methoding and very in character,” Dell says. “I wanted to vamp his eye out so he had some type of smolder, whether it be black, brown, or charcoal, because his whole character drew you in as he talked to you.” Dell maintained a natural texture while highlighting the planes of Stanifield's face with sheen. “We wanted him to still look human-like, even though we didn't know if he was,” Dell says.

Dell and Dean envisioned each member of the Velvet Gang with their own relationship to makeup, varying in skill and passion. Mariah’s (Taylour Paige) makeup look was constructed to allow her freckles and beauty marks to show through minimal foundation. “I really wanted the skin to breathe on certain characters,” Dell says. For Sade (Naomi Acke), Dean opted for individual braids adorned with beads. “It was as if she was at home braiding her own hair and beading her own hair,” Dean says, “It's a protective style.”

Dell privileged creative expression over technical precision by peppering human errors into his makeup looks. The seasoned MUA intentionally feathered and overdrew lip liner on members of the Velvet Gang to emulate the work of an amateur. “I really leaned into things not being perfect. I wanted every character to feel like this was something that they did on their own.”

 “Expression sometimes comes from within when you least expect it, so it's not necessarily going to be perfection,” Dell says. “Even if you don't have the skill, if you have the inspiration or if you have the artistry, it has to be perfected to the way that you feel your perfection is, and if it's haphazard or it's a little bit more splotchy, that's your identity. You lean into that.” 

Across all characters, the beauty duo took Corvette’s ethos of “I don't think people want to be the art, they want to be the artist” to heart. “I removed myself as an artist from this particular project, and I leaned into the characters being the artists that they are,” Dell says. “I wanted it to be haphazard. I wanted it to be fun. I wanted it to be carefree.”