Color designer scours New York for inspiration

? Poppy King is scanning a wall of paper. It’s bursting with colors from purple to puce in a huge floor-to-ceiling display, while stripes and plaids and floral patterns compete for attention. The wall virtually vibrates with color, but somehow she zeros in on a single sheet of paper.

“I’ve got a thing about jade green at the moment,” King says, fingering the 8-by-10-inch sheet that apparently is exactly the right shade, with a little shimmer to boot. “Did you know it was a symbol of fertility? On the weekend I’m going to go hunting for jade.”

If King has a thing about jade, chances are you will too, a year to 18 months from now. As Prescriptives’ color designer — the cosmetics equivalent of a fashion house’s top designer — it’s King’s job to imagine what’s next and bring her vision to life. To come up with next season’s big ideas, the 31-year-old Australian scours New York City for inspiration.

Whether she is catching museum exhibits, walking around her Soho neighborhood, wandering through spice stores in the Little India area of the East Village, or sorting through piles of ribbons, fabric and buttons at her local notions shop, King is always hunting.

“I’m such a fossicker — that’s an Australian term; it means explorer — when it comes to this stuff. I don’t go to regular places,” says the avid flea market shopper, who takes a similarly eclectic approach to her line of colors.

A recent trip to the American Museum of Natural History’s planetarium inspired some new Prescriptives lip glosses, and an entire upcoming line was born at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival after King caught a showing of “Style Wars,” a 1982 documentary about hip-hop culture and subway graffiti artists in New York City.

“I can’t give it away but will say it has to do with aerosol,” she says.

‘Passionate about color’

Color is a subject of great importance for King, who started her own line of cosmetics in Australia at age 18 because she couldn’t find just the right shade of lipstick. Poppy King Cosmetics was a success initially, and King became a media star — the government named her Young Australian of the Year in 1995 — but the company foundered in the late 1990s and shut down operations in 2001. Prescriptives, best known for its skin care line, was beginning to focus more on its color palette and hired King as its color designer in 2002.

Poppy King smiles in her apartment in the Soho neighborhood of New York City in front of a poppy painting she brought from her native Australia. King, Prescriptives' color designer, scours New York City for inspiration in deciding what colors will be featured on next year's cosmetics counters.

“I’ve always been passionate about color, and I can focus on that now,” says King, who favors minimal makeup and pops of color like strong red lips to highlight her blond hair, blue eyes and fair skin. “I had so many ideas that I’d never been able to make happen because I didn’t have the technology.”

King’s love of color is evident in her Soho apartment, a dramatic, vibrant space that is covered in reds, animal prints and her various flea market finds. Elegant Art Deco-style chairs and a sofa are cheekily paired with lamps shaped like poppy vines, a huge painting of an orange poppy and a collection of 1970s Vogue magazines.

A zebra-print spread covers her bed, while a leg wearing fishnet stockings holds up a lamp next to the bed. The walls are lined with paintings of Japanese women and a favorite thrift store find, a photo of Marilyn Monroe wearing fishnets.

As King sets off for a typical day of hunting, she throws a leopard print trench coat over her red turtleneck and black skirt. Next to the door, a mounted matchbook cover that says “Thank you, come again” bids visitors farewell.

Ribbons and spice

The first stop is Kate’s Paperie on Broadway, where King finds the perfect sheet of jade paper. Walking through aisles of stationery, wrapping paper and invitations, a box of polka dot cards catch her eye. She logs the idea — coral lipstick with a pale green eye — but doesn’t buy the cards. The jade paper is a keeper, though, and after buying it King is ready to move on to the next store, K. Trimming Co. on Broadway.

The notions store looks more like a warehouse than a Soho boutique, with water-stained ceilings, spare metal shelving and harsh fluorescent lighting. But to King, the rows and rows of haphazardly arranged ribbons, fabric and buttons are heavenly.

“It makes my heart race, you know, the excitement. It’s kind of like a buzz, I’m sure I’ll find something that inspires me,” she says.

After closely examining several spools of ribbon, King gravitates toward some black ribbon with gold trim. But she leaves with some shimmery button covers instead, and sets off for the Little India section of the East Village.

Milon on First Avenue, one of King’s favorite restaurants, is an explosion of color. The small eatery’s ceiling is dripping with flashing colored lights, illuminated red peppers, silk flowers, Christmas ornaments, floral garlands, gold fringe and even beach balls.

King often has lunch at Milon, then stops in the Indian spice shop next door to browse the rows of rust-colored paprika, dark yellow curry powder, pink pepper curry, greenish brown garam masala, black sumac, green pepper corn and orange chili powder.

“Just the smells in here; it’s very exotic. You’re not in New York anymore,” she says. “I love the packaging and the artwork. The femininity of it, the kookiness.”

At the end of every hunting expedition is a stop at Prescriptives’ midtown headquarters, where King’s office — stuffed with color swatches, a gold vintage dressing table, leopard-print and lip-shaped pillows, and a collection of 1960s cosmetics like “American Beauty” — stands out in the corporate environment. But King is proud of her treasures, the varied patchwork of influences that fuel her imagination, and she says she’s always eager to find more on the streets of New York.

“The language you hear, the films you see. You get access to so much stimulus. Just kind of the energy on the street, I find that inspiring here,” she says. “The thing that’s so glamorous about New York is that sense of opportunity, that you can walk down the street and anything can happen.”