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allure.com December 2009 issue is celebrating the 15th anniversary of makeup legend Francois Nars. He has an intriguing story on coming from small town France to the worldwide fashion stage—and why he credits his mother with much of his success. He dishes on some of his favorite products (why Orgasm blush looks good on everyone) and his most famous images. The Allure December 2009 issue hits stands November 24.

From left: Francois Nars, MADONNA, 1991 “I know every inch of her body from applying makeup.”

Here is a sneak peek to the article by Lindsy Van Gelder in Allure:

The word “genius” is flung around the fashion world like confetti at a parade, usually as an adjective (as in “J’adore that genius lipstick”). But if there’s anyone who deserves the noun form, it’s François Nars. Younger fans of Nars’s 15-year-old cosmetics line might be forgiven for not having realized that there is indeed a man behind the compacts. “I don’t like to make too many appearances or talk too much to people,” Nars acknowledges. Somewhat reclusive for the past decade, he leaped back onto the fashion-genius radar earlier this year with his work at the Marc Jacobs fall and spring shows.

From left: PAULINA PORIZKOVA, 1986 “She had perfect features.” SHANA, 1992 Steven Meisel took this. “It was a fabulous time.”  KATE MOSS, 1996 This combination of voluptuous red lips and fresh skin was a Nars trademark from day one.

The real genius, though, according to Nars, was his mother. “She was my PR,” he laughs. Growing up in the ’70s in a small rural town in southwestern France, where his father owned a pork-products factory, Nars loved nothing better than to do makeup on the women in his family. He was a sensitive, opera-loving boy who mostly lived in his own little world: “At ten, I was already obsessed with fashion.” He knew he wanted to be a makeup artist after he finished school, but “I had no connections, and the fashion world was a closed elite.” So his mother made herself appointments for makeup applications with three top Paris artists and used the opportunities to tell them about her creative son. “She was so beautiful and elegant that they must have figured that maybe her son had taste,” he says. One of them offered him a job as an assistant, and within two years Nars was working for the magazines he had devoured as a child. His mother also inspired the style of makeup that turned Nars into a star…