Margaret kimura

Biography

Margaret Kimura was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. Being of a Japanese heritage seemed at first a stumbling block. In her insightful book, "Asian Beauty", she reveals,"Beauty is a subjective notion at best, but that doesn't seem to matter when you're an Asian-American teenager growing up in Southern California, where beauty is synonymous with long blond hair and blueeyes. Finding out where I fit into the beauty equation twenty years ago was difficult and painful at best. Yet from this conflict, she pushed on and taught herself about the world of cosmetics. " I'venever set limits for myself. I'm self-taught, so I've always made my own rules instead of following someone else's. Maybe it's because I had to deal with issues of beauty when I was a teenager, and soI learned very early how to bring out the best in everyone I work with."
Since her father was a music producer, and her mother a television commercial producer, Margaret was raised steeped in theentertainment world. She first began working with makeup while most other girls her age were still playing with dolls. Margaret and her friends fell in love with the fashion industry, hoping one day towork as models or photographers. At the tender age of 12, they began copying fashion editorials, recreating the photographs they saw in magazines. Eventually, her close friend started working for theWilhemna Agency as a model, and Margaret was the one who helped her shoot, style and put together her portfolio.

Wilhemna, impressed with the shots, began sending over models to be shot by Kimura,unaware of her young age. After graduating from high school at 15, she saved up her money and moved to Milan with a close family friend as her guardian. In Europe, she honed her craft under thetutelage of professionals, which caused her to form the opinion that the best way to learn is to be, taught by mentors, not instructors. "You can't learn makeup from a textbook." These teachers inspired...