BYREDO Makeup in Collaboration with Isamaya Ffrench

“I have been working on this project for two years, maybe longer... Why did I start?

After the initial run of making fragrance and how that related to people’s ideas of beauty, I started to learn how it related to being beautiful. I started to feel that there could be a very visual manifestation of beauty for Byredo; I thought our visual ideas could be as different as our approach to scent. As I started to really look at the beauty world I found much of it conservative and conventional. I thought I can do this, and I can do it differently. Ultimately, beauty is subjective – Byredo Makeup had to reflect that. »

– Ben Gorham, Founder & Creative Director, Byredo

“When I first started talking to Ben, he asked me how my ideal makeup brand would look... I replied 'unwearable', so of course we had to compromise!

Fundamentally it is about making things that you would like to own and to wear and how the communication of it is as important and interesting as the product. With Ben,

I share a love of the outdoors, a background in sport and we both come from outside the fashion and beauty industries. Neither of us wanted makeup that was too conformist or precious. In many ways, we wanted to abstract the idea of what a cosmetics brand would be. »

– Isamaya Ffrench, Makeup Artist & Collaborator, Byredo

Isamaya Ffrench

Before her fully-fledged career in beauty, Isamaya Ffrench was a diver and a dancer – her experience in sport and performance having defined the physicality, expression and artistry of what she does today. After studying 3D design at Chelsea College of Art and product design at St Martins, in 2010 Ffrench joined the Theo Adams Company.

The London based collective of artists, dancers, musicians, actors and singers from across the globe, create unique large-scale theatrical productions, films, events, photography and sound work. In tandem with this role, Ffrench also found she had a knack for face-painting which led to and reflects her unconventional and iconoclastic role in the beauty industry.

In 2017, Ffrench launched the distinct Dazed Beauty as Creative Director and has since played a key creative role for numerous international luxury cosmetic brands as well as becoming widely known for her daring editorial and fashion show work. Her work has featured in Vogue Italia, British Vogue, Vogue China, i-D, LOVE, Dazed, Garage, Antidote, M Le magazine du Monde, Teen Vogue, Pop and AnOther. Ffrench has worked with photographers including Mert and Marcus, Tim Walker, Steven Klein, David Sims, Inez and Vinoodh, Richard Burbridge, Tyrone Lebon, Miles Aldridge, Harley Weir and Pierre Debusschere. Her work on fashion shows includes Louis Vuitton, Junya Watanabe, Olivier Theyskens, Kenzo and Giambattista Valli.

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