MEET THE MAESTRO
isamaya ffrench is not your average make-up artist. For one, she never trained in traditional make-up artistry – in fact, she studied product and industrial design at Central Saint Martins before turning her attention towards children’s face painting, where she could get playful and creative with colour and characters. ‘Growing up, I was never mad about make-up for myself,’ explains Isamaya (right), with a confident nonchalance that you can tell from the offset is entirely authentic. ‘I didn’t even want to be a make-up artist. I literally had no interest in it at all. And, because of that, I still feel like it’s not what I think I do… I still think of myself as a face painter.’
It wasn’t long before Isamaya secured a body painting job for i-d Magazine (2011 to be exact), and her designs turned their trajectory from fun to proper fashion. Then came a flurry of high-fashion shoots with the likes of photographers Mert & Marcus and David Sims, a music video with Kanye West and that September issue Vogue cover with Rihanna sporting razor-thin eyebrows, which sent the internet into a spin and kickstarted a brow conversation not seen on the fashion circuit for over a decade (see Dior’s 2009 and John Galliano’s 2010 catwalk shows with make-up by Pat Mcgrath).
Fast-forward to 2020 and, at the age of 31, she is one of the world’s most in demand make-up artists, having worked with the likes of YSL Beauty, Tom Ford, Christian Louboutin Beauty, Burberry and, most recently (after two years in the making), Byredo Makeup – the brand’s first foray into the world of cosmetics and the products used for the images you see here.
True to form, Isamaya wasn’t concerned about appeasing industry trends or ticking boxes set by the powers that be, which is exactly why Ben Gorham, founder and creative director of Byredo, wanted her on-board as his collaborator. ‘I wasn’t interested in launching just another make-up brand. It didn’t appeal to me and I didn’t understand the need for it – I felt there were enough cosmetics on the market to satisfy everybody already,’ Isamaya says frankly. ‘So, I said to Ben, if we’re going to do this, we really have to do it in a very different way… I want it to be about self-expression and about a new way of approaching make-up and colour.’
‘For me, there was a gap in the make-up market for pure sticks of colour, and I wanted to create a product that felt more like a beautiful accessory that you could really have a relationship with,’ Isamaya explains. With colour as a starting point, Ben sent Isamaya off on a project to source her ultimate ‘Byredo colour library’, a folder comprised of hundreds of coloured pixels, which later became 16 Colour Sticks (a selection of which you’ve seen on p155). Featuring glossy and matte textures in shades that you’d be pushed to find elsewhere, these Colour Sticks sum up what the pair wanted the collection to be – colourful, spontaneous, approachable and wearable.
‘What was fascinating to me was how confidence around make-up has changed over the last few years and how people are becoming a lot less conservative with their colour choices,’ says Isamaya. Swerving the traditional ‘face’ of a make-up campaign, Ben and Isamaya chose Jesse Kanda – a digital and CGI artist – to create an almost cyber-style campaign image. ‘The reason why many people choose models [for their campaigns] is to help them define the face and who their brand is. But this is for everyone. I didn’t want to exclude anyone.’ Ben reiterates the sentiment: ‘Our mission in this project was to use colour to tell stories, to inspire people to express themselves – it was really that. And it was people. All people.’
If you’re looking for Isamaya’s advice for the exact lip colour you should choose for your skin tone or the shadow shade that will enhance your eye colour, that’s not her style. ‘I don’t want to tell people how to wear cosmetics – I just want to inspire them. I wanted to create a sense of freedom in the way we approach using make-up, but also in the way we communicate the products.’ Consider limits well and truly off the table. Byredo Makeup launches 1 October on byredo.com and selfridges.com