A marie claire cover veteran, Celeste Barber was an easy choice to star on our 30th anniversary issue. Here, the celebrity satirist turned A-lister in her own right does what she does best: spoofs on iconic fashion moments. But, as Kathryn Madden discovers, there’s more to Celeste than comedy.
Celeste Barber is flinging jungle-print chiffon, billowing like wings from her bare navel, with Big Diva Energy to rival Jennifer Lopez. “It happens all the time,” deadpans the comedian. “I go through most days thinking, ‘I’ve overshadowed JLo today; this is going to be a lot for her.’”
Barber is doing what she does best: parading and peacocking in front of the camera, unreservedly committed to the bit. Today, for marie claire, she’s re-creating some of the most iconic moments in fashion history: she’s a near-naked gazelle channelling Bella Hadid in spray-on Coperni; she’s laughing riotously with her supermodel besties Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell and Linda Evangelista for Versace autumn/winter 1991; she’s on all fours crawling down the catwalk like fashion roadkill Carrie Bradshaw.
“I had a moment where I was on the ground and I looked up and yelled, ‘I don’t know any other actor in this country who would do this shit.’ And everyone was like, ‘Us either!’” recalls Barber. “And the supermodels shot was fun. Actually, I’ve got to send that video to Cindy. She’s going to love it.”
If you’ve got a pulse and an Instagram account, or just a flicker of pop culture awareness, you’ll know Celeste Barber’s story and schtick. She’s the Australian funnywoman who skewers celebrity culture and beauty standards one granny pant-wearing, body-contorting, piss-taking clip at a time.
“Instagram was just a place for beautiful people to make you feel bad about yourself,” says Barber. “I’ve spent 10 years pushing out images that make women feel better about themselves on a platform built for the opposite.” And that content, laugh-out-loud funny but also smart and relatable, has become a tonic for some 15 million followers.
But Barber was never solely a content creator, and over the past 12 months she’s been spreading those palm-frond couture wings metaphorically as well. A trained actor whose first love was the stage, she’s gone back to her roots with a sellout comedy tour across the United States, United Kingdom, Europe and regional Australia. She launched a beauty brand, Booie, with business partner and P.E Nation co-founder Claire Greaves. And, yes, she’s marie claire’s 30th birthday cover star, helming the magazine for the third time.
It’s a sign of the times that for our 20th birthday in 2015, supermodel Gisele Bündchen featured on the cover. Ten years later, this special anniversary issue stars a comedian who parodies supermodels. That is: a comedian who parodies supermodels who also happens to be on a first-name basis with supermodels, because everything is meta now.
“I know, I’ve gone to the dark side, I’m friends with Cindy Crawford. What’s going on?” Barber mock gasps. So culturally resonant is the comic’s work she’s become a star in her own right, and now finds herself in the same rooms as the very people she built her career spoofing.
“My whole mentality is that I’m going to blow [the culture] up from within,” she continues. “Though there wasn’t actually a big shift for me. I didn’t think, ‘Oh well, I was an outsider and now I’m in.’ Or, ‘Now I’m spending time in LA doing things with these people so I need to shift the lens or focus.’ I’ve always just done my thing and kept working. Success has come in many different forms, and being seen and being respected in the industry – and also somewhat feared – is a part of it. And I quite like that. But I’ve always had that kind of mentality … When people say to me, ‘Can you believe all this is happening to you?’ I’m like, yeah, absolutely. Why wouldn’t I have this thing? Why wouldn’t it be me? Why not? Come on, I work hard enough. I’m talented enough. I am on the right side of things. Why wouldn’t it be me?”
Barber’s refusal to succumb to imposter syndrome, or to any of the limitations imposed on women, extends to her beauty brand. Inclusive in spirit, but targeted at women over 35, Booie aims to “cut through the bullshit” with a tight edit of easy-to-use essentials. “Booie is makeup you can’t fuck up. My husband tested it on me, and he was good. It’s about going back to the fun of makeup and putting the best version of yourself out there in a world where, as a woman, when you get to a certain age you become invisible,” explains Barber, who is 43.
“I honestly feel like I’m getting better as I get older, and I don’t know why there aren’t more products that are celebrating this face I’m taking through the world with me. As women we are inundated with so much shit that we’re like, don’t worry, we already hate our faces. You don’t need to sell us more products to double down on that.”
A cynic might suggest that any beauty brand, by nature, banks on women’s insecurities, but to its credit Booie is challenging the status quo with thoughtful product lines and messaging that stays true to Barber’s word. A new perimenopause toolkit doesn’t claim to solve the midlife hormonal shift, but the rich body balm and cooling rose water spritz help soothe crepey skin and relieve hot flushes. A collab with accessible beauty start-up ByStorm offers grip-friendly silicone tools for differently-abled bodies. And a marketing campaign pictures awkward schoolgirl Celeste with the caption “Not everyone wants to look younger.”
Despite it all, Barber admits she sometimes grapples under the weight of today’s beauty standards and the creeping spread of Benjamin Button-style sorcery available to women. “I have to take stock every now and then with myself and go, you better bloody buy what you’re selling woman. Like, lean in. Because sometimes I think, maybe I should do ‘the things’. And then I’m like, stop. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, people can do whatever the fuck they want with themselves. But when I have those moments, it’s not from a [place of positivity], it’s shame.”
She’s forthright about the rise of skinny jabs, shrinking bodies and what this means for body positivity. “This is why pretty people can’t have nice things! They got hold of Ozempic and they fucked it for everyone. There are people who need Ozempic, and I know people who are on it [because they medically require it] and it’s great. But then the beauty and fashion industries took it, and they’ve ruined it for everyone.”
Being the poster woman for self-acceptance could be a heavy cross to bear, but it’s a cause Barber feels in her bones. “I lost three of my best friends before they turned 40,” she shares. “So I say all the time, how, ‘Come on, we’re dead in a minute.’ And people are like, that’s quite a crass thing to say. But my friends Jo, Mark and Nick did not make it to 40. And they love, love, loved life, and it was just taken from them. So come on, we have to enjoy what we have. It’s so exciting getting older and I’m super grateful for it, because it’s a privilege.”
When you’ve pashed fashion icon Tom Ford at an airport – a viral spoof you go on to emulate on these pages – what does a girl from the Gold Coast dream of next? Bold ambition still burns for Barber. She hopes to one day “play Jim Carey’s wife and win an Oscar for the role”. But her biggest aspiration is to be a backup dancer for Janet Jackson – a lifelong mission that inspired her latest comedy tour, Backup Dancer, a “fucking crazy” spectacle “for my girls and the gays”.
Big dreams have also steered Barber’s relationship dynamic with her husband, Api, with whom she shares two sons, Lou, 14, and Buddy, 11, and two stepdaughters in their twenties. “We had this conversation very early on in our relationship where I was like, I have massive dreams. I want to live a really big life, I want to be an actor and I want to entertain, and that’s something I have to work towards forever and I never want to give that up,” says Barber. “And he was like, I want to have a family with you, and I want to raise that family and I want to make surfboards. People think that he’s just given up his whole life and sacrificed everything for this, but don’t they know the nuances of our relationship. I’m like, he retired at 40, he’s good. We’re good over here. But it’s interesting, because women never get that audience [or praise]. Api’s great because he’ll point that out to some of our friends and say to the wives, ‘Goddammit, he’s lucky to have you for staying home.’”
The family is tight-knit, with Api and the boys joining Barber on her European and UK tour legs earlier this year. “My boys are so excellent and they’re just getting better and better. They don’t have any social media at all. They don’t play games or anything on their phones. I’m really full-on about that. It’s hard, but I’m like, ‘You will never have Fortnite. Just know that.’ And they’re hilarious. My oldest son, Lou, has watched every episode of The Office. He’s now watching every episode of Modern Family. They watch Brooklyn Nine-Nine all the time. They’re really funny. They have a real understanding of storytelling and comedy, which I love.”
Maybe Barber’s boys are satirists in the making, poised to take the mantle from their mum. Though not anytime soon, because while the performer plans to focus on acting, TV and a play next year, she won’t be hanging up her social-media boots (thigh-high stilettos) just yet. “Sometimes I think surely people are sick of this now, but then I get them coming up to me in the street telling me a post is funny. And it is funny, I know it is. I know it’s making people laugh and there’s a message behind it,” she says. “And I surprise myself sometimes. The other day I was just staring into the abyss half an hour before I had to get my kids from school, and suddenly I had an idea and had to film something – that’s an ADHD thing – and I went up onto the roof and set it all up and shot it. It’s satisfying.”
And why would she stop now? It’s just the beginning for Barber, who didn’t break big until she reached her thirties. Which means she might have some words of wisdom for marie claire on the dawn of this new decade. “Keep on keeping on, honey,” she says with the giddy pride of a stage mum. “You’re just getting better. Wait until 40 – you’re going to lose your mind.”
