Isamaya Ffrench
Make-up Artist
Conceptual model and edible cosmetics inventor: the maverick make-up artist has come a long way from face painting at kid’s parties
Juggling competitive springboard diving with weekends gigging as a children’s face painter during her early twenties, self-made make-up artist and beauty editor Isamaya Ffrench is no stranger to transformation. What she can do with a make-up brush is unparalleled – her own skin becomes the canvas for metamorphic looks, emerging out the other side unrecognisable. (She recently used Tom Ford products to create characters including a balding cult leader, a geriatric housewife, and a glamorous pin-up, for instance.)
Hers is the eyebrow pencil behind the futurist face etchings in Rihanna’s “Sledgehammer”, Kanye West’s “BLKKK SKKKN HEAD”, and the punk-inspired looks for Junya Watanabe AW17. Having also trained as a chef, she’s worked with Bistrotheque to put on Ffrench Pharmaceuticals dinners, where guests enjoy an entirely edible cosmetic line. Continuing to push the boundaries of make-up artistry with the questioning of identity and beauty, Isamaya Ffrench has established herself as one of the pioneers of new-age make-up.
Kuba Shand-Baptiste