Isamaya Ffrench: Think Kink

In one lurid tableau, Ffrench as ‘The Fighter’ hangs tough, her contours obscured by a hand-sculpted, wire-net Giacomo Bevanati mask. Her lips are veneered in chrome. Her eyes are subtly silver, lit from below rather than above to appear shrouded in mystery. “The inspiration really came from that piece,” she says, referring to the mask. ‘The Abyss Flower’ blossoms next with a futuristic latex mask that clings to shimmering golden skin. ‘The Hero’ has bloody eyes, sparkling metallic skin and a burnished pout, as if she were a femme fatale after the kill, while ‘The Impassioned’, lacquered and aqueous, is almost carnal. “There’s an element of glamour to it, but it’s turned on its head a bit.” Bandaged in marred black and navy rubber, ‘The Brazen Goddess’, like a siren, beguiles with a crimson lip and a smoky eye.

In her portraits, with a “vintage [Steven] Meisel/ [Mark] McKnight type vibe”, Isamaya Ffrench manifests a mood, as opposed to a narrative. “I’ve been so much about lipsticks, mascara, highlighter… so I really wanted to create a lot more of a mood with this shoot. I wanted to look at other ways to use the Isamaya Beauty make-up products because they’re so versatile and I don’t want them to be limited to the imagery we have done before,” she says. “Metallics were paired with latex to create a strange sci-fi world, which I wanted to bring back to reality with very wet skin textures, bloody eyes, drenched lashes.”

As we chat, it’s a balmy day in early September; the afternoon sun slants through the heavy windows of her Shoreditch mecca. Having just returned from Prophesy, the avant-garde metal festival at the Balver Höhle in Germany, and a nearby nudist camp, she’s feeling revitalised. “It was just the complete opposite of what I do in my day to day [life]. You come back feeling so mentally refreshed that it gives you energy to then get back involved with the thing that you love doing. So I’ve come back and I’m doing the shoot now, and I’m in a much better headspace than just grinding, shoot after shoot,” she says. “I think people are so afraid of taking time out because the industry is so fast and demanding. But you’re doing yourself damage by doing that.” Ffrench is very candid when she speaks, musing over her prolific work with a humble smile and a laugh – she emanates an effervescent energy that’s contagious. “I genuinely feel like time off and doing things that are completely unrelated to work is where the magic happens in your brain. If you’re working back to back, it’s very hard for your brain to create space for new things, because it’s just consumed with processing what’s going on.”

Since dropping out of her industrial design degree at Central Saint Martins in 2009, on account of it not being “conceptual enough”, the 34-year-old has been caught up in a maelstrom of make-up bookings, reaping a steadfast reputation for disruption, wearable artforms and well… phallic products. In February, Ffrench released – there is no other way to put this – a lipstick that looked like a silver dick and balls. Dubbed Lips, the erotic range was an ode to alternative culture, borrowing from the fetish world and embracing the fantasy, experimentation and sexual liberation of all things aesthetically horny.

The Cambridge-born creative launched her revolutionary label last year with a kink-infused medley of glow serums, brow laminators, lip glosses and mascaras, cased in matt black vessels with wearable metal piercings and rings puncturing the packaging, and a shimmering eyeshadow palette based on BDSM classic the vacbed (a bondage lilo of sorts where you lie down under a rubber sheet, then suck out any air with a hoover until it’s tight as can be to the skin, with an air hole for the mouth, of course). She called it Industrial. Wild Star debuted next, inviting lip liners, lipsticks, highlighters and a pressed pigment palette to the make-up table for cowgirls and boys who are wild at heart. Taking a sustainable approach, all of Ffrench’s products are vegan and cruelty-free.

The Isamaya Ffrench brand is just as top-shelf as it is philanthropic; with every collection, it partners with a different charity. Ffrench worked with The Worldwide Tribe,“an organisation that helps create awareness of the refugee crisis, people that have had to flee their countries and have stories”. Her Wild Star collection raised awareness for the American Wild Horse Campaign, while Lips supports Planned Parenthood, advancing its mission to provide sexual and reproductive health care and sex education across the US.

This issue, of course, is about ‘wonder women’ – women who are driving change and guiding the way forward – but behind every leading lady is a coven of hellbent heroines. “Everybody who is a woman in this industry is inspiring,” she says. “Speaking to different charities or non-profits with every collection that we do, I feel like I’m not the wonder woman, but that everybody I work with is.” One ‘shero’ in particular has impassioned her: Game of Thrones actress Gwendoline Christie, a long-time friend. “We used to be in a performance company together before she got her big acting break in her thirties, which some might say is a late age to break into things in modern society, but she was one person who was so committed and it just completely paid off. I’ve always looked up to her because she’s always fought for what she is really passionate about,” says Ffrench. “And you know, she’s like six foot five, she’s very dominant physically. I can understand why it might have been hard for her to secure roles in such a commercial space. But she just fucking carried on fighting and now she’s one of the most successful actresses out there. I’ll never forget watching that journey and being like: wow, she’s so committed.”

Ffrench demonstrates that what is often considered ugly or grotesque can also be beautiful, or already is. She pushes the boundaries of palatability within the worlds of make-up and aesthetics. “Beauty, as a word, can be defined in the dictionary, but it’s very subjective and personal. Watching your partner give birth is beautiful, there’s beauty in nature, etc. I believe it is something that moves you. I read a quote: ‘beautiful things have limits’, but I believe there are no limits. When you look at the opposite of beauty – ugliness or creepiness, whatever – there’s just so much more to explore. That’s why I’m always quite drawn to things that are darker or have more of an unusual position in the world of beauty, because there’s just way more to explore and to feel.”

Ffrench has the Midas touch, attributable to her commitment to challenging perceptions of beauty. Inside her magnetic mind, fantasy flourishes. Behind her brush, the body becomes a blank canvas, her siren-esque creations the visual masterpiece. Isamaya Ffrench is the future of beauty.

Taken from 10+ Issue 6 – VISIONARY, WOMEN, REVOLUTION – out now. Order your copy here. 

@isamayaffrench @isamayabeauty
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