Isamaya Ffrench’s cosmetic instincts are like those of a painter—and for all brilliant painters, instinct is a natural ability. Despite the pressure of a rigidly-structured, jam-packed Fashion Week schedule, Ffrench was able to harness such powers to unlock the uncanny and the sublime.

Never fearing boundaries or rules, Ffrench lets her wild imagination drive her work: Her make-up pays homage to the material and conceptual underpinnings of each runway presentation—their fabric textures, subcultural citations, and speculative realities. For Document, Ffrench clarifies her artistic intentions in New York, London, and Paris, breaking down looks from Dion Lee, KNWLS, Junya Watanabe, and more.

Dion Lee

Dion Lee’s collection was full of references from nature—very organic, with insect-like graphics. We used a fishnet fabric as a stencil to spray soft, metallic colors from ISAMAYA’s industrial palette to reach a reptile-like effect around the eyes.

Poster Girl

The girls let me explore the potential of our BROWLACQ brow gel—we did exaggerated, razor-cut brows, amped up by face piercings. It provided a really cool and edgy contrast to their fun, sexy, colorful outfits.

KNWLS

I love using soft metals like chrome, bronze, or copper on top of a contoured eye look, to add extra dimension. It complemented the glitter in the hair and the beautiful shades of the collection!

16arlington

We created a fresh, dewy base for the skin, brushed up the brows, and [added] punchy color in the lower waterline. It gave a fun and wearable twist to the 16arlington looks.

Balmain

Natural glowing skin, and lightly tinted eyelids covered in gloss, with a bit of black kohl pencil for a few models. It was very much in tune with the face jewelry, and the nomadic feeling of the collection.

Giambattista Valli

Giambattista loves a super dewy skin, so we pretty much used all of the glossy products that exist in MAC’s collection—especially on the cheekbones and eyelids. We also added a big, raindrop-shaped cabochon on a few models’ foreheads.

Yohji Yamamoto

For this collection, we let the jellyfish-inspired hair by Eugene Souleiman do all the talking. The natural matte skin served as a blank canvas for the hair’s texture to come alive.

Junya Watanabe

One of my favorite shows of the season! Mr. Watanabe likes his models to have their own personas, so each wore a different look. The idea was to think about what New Romantics would look like today if they were wearing his clothes. We had elements from the initial Romantics (pale skin, fake moles, pink cheeks), the punks’ take on it (graphic colors and piercings), and today’s interpretation (metallic pigments, blocked brows, extreme contour). It ended up being an inspiring, referenced, but fresh mélange.

Andreas Kronthaler for Vivienne Westwood

Westwood is also a place where individual characters prevail over unified vision, so there were a bunch of different looks in the show. The red thread was the classic (and at the same time, punk!) skinny brow, eye contour, and glossy lips.

Ottolinger

For Ottolinger, we went for a super-fresh bronzed look, with baby-oil shiny skin, a glittery wash over the lids, eye contour, and sun-kissed, bronzy cheeks.

Thom Browne

I loved the idea of using the fairytale aspect of the collection, in terms of gold and glitter—but in a sort of avant-garde way, with spiked, expressive eyebrows, lips coated in metallic pigments, and dark, flicked eyeshadow. The look was further elevated by the graphic net veils models wore on top of their faces.