EVANGELISTA: I just have so many great—and very blurry—memories of those days when we started working together.

NARS: Of course it’s annoying. It’s getting so hard to find the good names after almost 20 years. I have this little agenda that I’m filling up 24 hours a day with names. So I’m working on it even when I sleep. Sometimes I wake up and write down a name in my agenda. Can you imagine?We appreciate enthusiasm for new releases but ask readers to please hold questions regarding if/when

EVANGELISTA: I thought you were critiquing. I thought I was gonna be thrown out for the knees and the gums. NARS: That’s the good part: we don’t know what color it is exactly. That’s why it’s so good. It’s not pink. It’s not peach. It’s not apricot.

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EVANGELISTA: It’s those colors you always mixed together to put on my face—the colors that you used on me. They were flat and matte, and then you’d add. Hydrogenated Polyisobutene, Synthetic Wax, Polyethylene, Dimethicone, Dicaprylyl Carbonate, Bis-Diglyceryl Polyacyladipate-2, Hydroxyapatite, Diisostearyl Malate, Microcrystalline Wax/Cera Microcristallina/Cire Microcristalline, Hydrogenated Polydecene, Phytosteryl/Octyldodecyl Lauroyl Glutamate, Calcium Sodium Borosilicate, Glyceryl Behenate, Sorbitan Sesquiisostearate, Tocopheryl Acetate, Tocopherol, Passiflora Edulis Seed Oil, Moringa Oleifera Seed Oil, Isopropyl Titanium Triisostearate, Calcium Stearate, Tin Oxide, Simethicone, Bht, Phenoxyethanol, Fragrance (Parfum), Linalool, Citronellol, Limonene, [+/- (May Contain/Peut Contenir): Blue 1 Lake (Ci 42090), Carmine (Ci 75470), Iron Oxides (Ci 77491), Iron Oxides (Ci 77492), Iron Oxides (Ci 77499), Mica, Red 28 Lake (Ci 45410), Red 33 (Ci 17200), Red 33 Lake (Ci 17200), Red 6 (Ci 15850), Red 7 Lake (Ci 15850), Titanium Dioxide (Ci 77891), Yellow 5 Lake (Ci 19140)]. EVANGELISTA: Yes, built in. It’s unbelievable. But there are so many things where I’m like, “No, I don’t remember that”—and they’re, like, big things . . . Actually, I remember the awful things about those early show days because I felt so out of place there.

EVANGELISTA: When you work with a retoucher, do you talk to them and tell them what you want? Or do you sit there and guide them, direct them? EVANGELISTA: I know. Finding a name is easy. But matching it with a color . . . The colors are the names that you give them. NARS: Oh, I’m right next to them. I tell them exactly the smallest details of what to do—even if it’s one hair of an eyebrow that I want moving this way. I’m the same as I am with makeup. EVANGELISTA: Because initially, the rest of the girls were all “show” girls and I wasn’t. I didn’t have a place yet. I wasn’t a “print” girl or a “show” girl. I felt like I was the new one. NARS: Well, the only thing I can tell you is that I was obsessive. Today, it’s all about postproduction, though, which is a bit sad to me because I come from an era where there was not as much retouching. There were mirrors—we learned about mirrors. But a good photographer and a good makeup artist could not rely on retouching. It’s very funny because I was talking with Bruce Weber the other day, and he said to me, “Do you believe that everything is so computerized? I’m still shooting film; I never went to digital.”EVANGELISTA: There’s always so much hype when you launch a new collection. The blogs go crazy. Does that freak you out? NARS: As soon as you tell people, “Oh, I loved this time . . .” they start saying, “You cannot be nostalgic.” Well, you know what? I’m very nostalgic—and I don’t care. [ laughs] As much as there are good things today, talking about models now . . . You feel that they are really out there. But are they really enjoying being models? It’s very hard to say. I mean, I could always tell that you loved being a model. You loved being photographed. EVANGELISTA: I think I might know someone who can do it. Speaking of video cameras, do you remember the video camera we bought together on the street? Linda Evangelista, who has known Nars since the late ’80s—and has frequently served as a canvas for some of his most iconic work—recently met up with him at the Star Lounge at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel off Central Park in Manhattan. NARS: Oh, me too—of that time. The fabulous thing is that I have so many videos. I never transferred them to digital. I need a professional to do it—somebody I can trust, who will not duplicate them or sell them or put them on the internet. You have to be so careful. That’s why I never went forward with transferring them. But there is such gold on those tapes.