French makeup icon Dany Sanz on beauty, drama and the art of being crazy.
Pagination
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"Zey want eyelashes like zat!” says Dany Sanz in a husky French accent. Sanz, a makeup artist and the creator of the professional makeup line Make Up For Ever, is describing customers who just can’t get enough when it comes to false eyelashes. Drama is a personal passion for Sanz. She is an artist whose roots are planted firmly in dark, dusty theatres (think cabarets, the Lido and the Moulin Rouge) and venues populated with “people of the night.” Actors, dancers and drag queens: These are her people.
Flirty, funny and very French, Sanz is an eccentric who is full of stories. Her path to moguldom began by accident. After studying fine art, Sanz, a sculptor and painter, was drawn into the world of theatre. She began by painting faces and, intrigued by the idea of skin as canvas, started experimenting with body painting. “I asked one friend ‘Can you take off your dress?’” she recalls mischievously. “I said, ‘I want to paint your body—it has more space.’”
Sanz’s body paintings got noticed, and she started getting booked to do fashion shows and magazine shoots. “I didn’t know what to call what I was doing,” she says. “I said I was a painter, but they said I was a makeup artist.” She also became skilled in special effects and worked on films. “It was the best moment to do crazy things,” she recalls. “If you were doing something crazy, it became fashionable.”
Learn about Sanz's beauty line Make Up For Ever on the next page ...
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