Next-Gen Icons
Valentina Li, Ammy Drammeh, and Cecile Paravina are shaking things up at the iconic brand.
But what if artists didnt have to create alone, but could collaborate with one another instead?
In person, they are a striking trio.
For some projects, we start individually and then we regroup, says Paravina of their collaborative process.
But its also important for us to respect our own individuality and artistic choices.
We need someone to share the same passion, to understand us.
Ammy Drammeh
Describe where you grew up.
I grew up in Barcelona where there wasnt much diversity.
I was the only Black person in the whole town just me and my dad and my two brothers.
Whats your earliest makeup memory?
I started to practice those techniques on my classmates.
She had probably five, six makeup products tops, so I would mix things and make it work.
What are you inspired by?
I found my representation on MTV music videos.
I was obsessed with these amazing, beautiful people who I could see myself in.
The makeup shades used in these music videos, they were very modern already.
The artists were mixing all these different textures, like the the mattest-matte with metallics and metal glosses.
How would you describe your collaborators beauty aesthetic?
Cecile has amazing attention to detail.
She is very particular about her colors and her textures, and is very, very precise its amazing.
Valentina, the way she sees beauty is just really different.
It goes beyond makeup.
Valentina Li
Im from a small village in Guangxi, in the south of China.
It was really rural, so we didnt get a lot of information from the outside world.
Growing up, I spent quite a lot of time climbing trees and running in nature.
That was my freedom, physically.
But after a while, I was like, OK, I really need to see the outside world.
From age 12, I knew that I would eventually live in Shanghai.
Its the most international city, and theres so much energy there.
I spent a lot of my childhood painting in my room.
Nobody told me that you couldnt do that.
To me, makeup is another form of painting.
But when we do makeup, were painting on a living figure.
I was so fascinated by Japanese manga.
I watched a lot ofSailor Moon.
I feel like being a makeup artist gives me the same power to transform.
And with transformation, comes empowerment whether its within myself, or someone Im doing makeup on.
How would you describe your co-collaborators makeup aesthetic?
For Ammy, its fierce elegance and a bold yet classic approach.
Cecile is a romantic perfectionist.
Its beyond forward, limitless her vision of beauty is truly unique.
Cecile Paravina
I grew up in the northeast of France in a super-small village.
At the time that I lived there, there were 1,000 inhabitants.
It was just me and the cows.
How did that environment influence your approach to makeup?
Its where Art Nouveau was born.
Its a region that is really famous for glass and crystal making Baccarat is from there.
But as a kid, I didnt really know it was there.
It was just this soft influence on me.
Ive kind of just gone full nerd-style into it.
I was a creative kid.
I wanted to draw; I liked to paint; I liked to knit, to sew stuff.
Ammy really cares about people at more at the core of her practice.
Its about emotion and how she interacts with colors in her work.
Valentina is the funny one.
She says that all the time like Ammy and I are two boring human beings.
[Laughs]
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
