Before makeup artist Gucci Westman got married two years ago, her life was as dreamy as the looks she creates for celebrities. She was in constant motion, flitting between fashion shows, shoots with photographers like Steven Meisel, and tête-à-têtes with clients like Drew Barrymore and Kate Hudson. And her husband-to-be was the dashing David Neville, the British codesigner of the Rag & Bone clothing line. Then she got pregnant on their Italian honeymoon, and ... a lot changed.
"I had just found out and wasn't telling anybody," recalls Westman, 37, who exudes the kind of cool you'd expect from someone raised in Southern California and Sweden. "I was doing a job with Christy Turlington and was picking her brain about having babies, and she said, 'Trust me—wait another year. It's hard.' And I was like, Awesome." But Turlington, Westman says, was spot-on. "It does speed things up. I don't even think David and I had an argument before we had a baby."
After son Dashel (a.k.a. Dashie, now 17 months old) was born, Westman went right back to her old life. She jetted to and from Paris as international artistic director for Lancôme and brought both Dashie and her mom on location (one salient memory: pumping outside a motor home in the Spanish countryside while on a Vogue shoot with Penelope Cruz). Pretty quickly, she realized something had to give. "Now I prioritize," she says.
The first thing to go was the nonstop travel. In April, Westman signed on as global artistic director for New York-based Revlon (a much easier commute from her Chelsea loft), where she is sharing her fresh beauty sensibility with a broader audience. "It's a fantastic time for mass products," she says. "People want to pay less for better quality. Personally, I'll go anywhere to get something if I know it's good. If it's sold off the back of a truck, great!" Far-flung celebrity jobs take a backseat to family, too: "I can't be gone four days for a half-day's work."
As much as she cherishes family time, Westman still craves time with just her husband. "You can't let yourself go," she says. "Those nursing bras, they're not sexy. You have to buy lingerie, because doing that makes you feel like you're in charge." On the beauty front, where her blush-eyeliner-mascara routine has shrunk from 20 minutes to 5 since she's become a mom, Westman advises doing "something different—make an effort with your hair, or do a lip stain."
She practices everything she preaches. "The first time we had a date night, I wore a dress and heels, did my makeup, and texted David where to be at what time," she says. "It was really fun." More important, it stoked the newlywed fire that a baby can so easily snuff out. "Your honeymoon stage ends abruptly," says Westman. "But persevere, because it all comes back, tenfold."
The unhealthiest thing I ever passed off as dinner for my child was... "...chips, guacamole, and hot sauce."
I define downtime as... "...Sundays with David and Dashie, just kicking it, going on long walks with no pressing engagements."
I wish I had more time for... "...reading books. It's nice to get lost, be uninterrupted."
My meltdown-prevention tactic is... "...singing to Dashie in Swedish, taking him outside for a change of scenery, or a distraction: toy, alarm clock, phone."
I wake up in the middle of the night thinking about... "...work. A couple of months ago, I did the cover of Vanity Fair with Madonna, and I was really nervous."
My spouse and I are always disagreeing about... "...who will bring Dashie for his shots. I can't bear it. I say, 'You take him next time—I'm not doing it.'"
