Morgane Martini talks wild makeup, Ashley Graham, and Marc Jacobs Beauty. 

&ldquo;Everybody got so bored! Four years of nothing, seriously?&rdquo; Morgane Martini, the France-born, New York-based makeup artist, is laughing at fashion&rsquo;s sudden obsession with wild &rsquo;80s makeup. It&rsquo;s a noticeable shift after years of bare skin, natural brows, and pressing your lips together for a subtle hint of blush &mdash; rather than using even something as basic as red lipstick. &ldquo;I never stopped doing makeup. Everyone did, but not me &mdash; and they all told me what I was doing wasn&rsquo;t cool,&rdquo; she recalls. &ldquo;But I asked, &lsquo;What&rsquo;s cool?&rsquo; I think what&rsquo;s cool is to express yourself and have fun with it.&rdquo;

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Martini (her real name), however, has always done her own thing. As a child on the French island of Corsica, she loved to paint. Realizing this perhaps wasn&#39;t the wisest career move, her aunt suggested she paint faces instead &mdash; and so Martini ended up in beauty school. &ldquo;Which I didn&rsquo;t hate,&rdquo; she laughs. &ldquo;It was just that it was totally unhelpful.&rdquo; Thankfully, rather than languishing, she quickly found work assisting the greats, like Lloyd Simmonds, and Pat McGrath, the latter of whom she did shows for six years. &ldquo;I loved it,&rdquo; she says of the fast-paced world of editorial and runway makeup. &ldquo;The weird thing about me is that I can go on and on, but I never get tired. I get tired when I&rsquo;m home and don&rsquo;t do anything.

It was during one of those moments of downtime, about a year ago, that Martini first started snapping the Polaroids that populate her <a href="https://www.instagram.com/morgane_martini/?hl=en">Instagram</a>, which have propelled her into the spotlight. In macro detail, they chronicle the looks she&rsquo;s created for friends (who also just happen to be models), including Lais Ribeiro, Constance Jablonski, and M&eacute;lodie Monrose. &ldquo;People were telling me to do more selfies, to post more of myself &mdash; you know, post a bikini picture here and there. That&rsquo;s not me: It didn&rsquo;t feel genuine.&rdquo; Industry types quickly took notice. They could see Martini&rsquo;s obsession with Guy Bourdin and illustrator Antonio Lopez from her bold lines and out-there color choices. And then, one day, Ashley Graham requested that they work together, in what has become one of Martini&rsquo;s most creative and enduring relationships. &ldquo;She lets me do whatever I want,&rdquo; she exclaims. Graham has evidently had quite the effect on her. &ldquo;She told me how she decided one day to embrace herself to the fullest and not compromise&mdash;you know what, take it or leave it, this is what I am.&rdquo;

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"If we’re not the trendsetters, then who are? If we’re not the creative voice, then who is?"

Embracing her most outr&eacute;, Helmut Newton&ndash;esque self has worked wonders for Martini. Shortly after she began working with Graham, she got the opportunity to do Bella Hadid&rsquo;s makeup for a triumvirate of covers in her customary style for Vogue Brazil. &ldquo;I mean, the reference was Veruschka, so now we&rsquo;re talking, this is my jam. And perfect timing: It was a September cover.&rdquo; As well as igniting Instagram, the covers caught the attention of Marc Jacobs, who swiftly signed her as Global Ambassador of Artistry, a charmingly grand title for the self-deprecating Martini.

&ldquo;When I had my meeting with them, I said, &lsquo;You should know one thing about me: I love to put a ton of makeup on and if you ask me to do less, it&rsquo;ll be hard.&rsquo;&rdquo; Luckily for Martini, that was exactly why they had called on her. &ldquo;They said, &lsquo;No, if you do less, we&rsquo;ll have a problem.&rsquo; So I thought, OK, I think we&rsquo;re going to get on,&rdquo; she says, now beside herself with laughter.&nbsp; She gathers herself momentarily, suddenly serious about her big role. &ldquo;If we&rsquo;re not the trendsetters, then who are? If we&rsquo;re not the creative voice, then who is? Being cool isn&rsquo;t about judging people, it&rsquo;s about commitment to your work.&rdquo; Truly, thank God for Morgane Martini&rsquo;s commitment to bringing a full face of makeup into the future.&nbsp;

How This Makeup Artist Made '80s Makeup Cool

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