t first glance, Iris Law is the epitome of a Gen Z It girl. Her Instagram feed reads like an unfiltered (and undeniably fabulous) kaleidoscope of her life. But, like her fellow Met Gala attendee Emma Chamberlain, Law has eschewed the overly polished, Facetuned feeds that dominated the 2010s, for a visual stream of consciousness that shares everything from her freshly shorn loveheart buzzcut, to beach bar selfies and even super zoom shots of baklava.

Of course, the 21-year-old’s flourishing career as a model means there’s a few Miu Miu runway shots and magazine covers sprinkled throughout the candid beauty moments, but even these are authentic moments in Law’s fashionable life. In fact, she’s a self-confessed collector of said moments, sharing with ELLE UK that she loves finding inspiration in random places, capturing pictures and collating them to inspire her red carpet looks at a later date.

To anyone that’s familiar with the Brit (her parents are actors Jude Law and Sadie Frost), it’s clear she isn’t afraid of experimentation. Her appearance at Cannes last year, where she debuted a blonde buzzcut, proved that she’s not one to hold back when it comes to expressing herself. The same goes for her career, which has recently seen Law take a new turn into acting. When ELLE UK speaks to her, she’s fresh off the Cannes 2022 red carpet and already on her way to the premier of Pistol. That’s not to say that Law has left the fashion and beauty world behind completely, with her latest role as Dior Beauty’s UK Ambassador.

Speaking to ELLE UK, Iris shares the ways that beauty interplays with her life, from her everyday to her red carpet moments.

What role does makeup play in your everyday life?

“I feel like I’ve always used beauty as a way of expressing something, whether it’s a mood or expressing how I’m feeling, or what I want to portray or playing a character, and sort of using it to complement fashion and less as a means to change your face. I use it more like an accessory.”

What was the inspiration behind your Cannes look this year?

“Well it was really exciting, I worked with makeup artist Sam Visser – we’d been obsessed with this idea I had of using white eyeshadow for this under eye look, but once we did the fitting for my outfit we felt like the make-up we initially were going to do (a red lip and white under-eye) wasn’t right. Instead we just kept this lightness with a little white under and above my eyes.

I’ve wanted to slit my eyebrows since January when I was in Jamaica. I was really inspired by a lot of the kids there who had slits in their eyebrows and I really wanted to do it. This was my first time doing a red carpet with it, so we just kept the slits and defined my brows even more to make them stand out.”

 

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How has your relationship with your hair changed since you unveiled your buzzcut at Cannes last year?

“I was really ready when I shaved my head. I was super excited, I loved it from the get go and it was just really exciting to wear a haute couture dress with that shaved head. I feel like that relationship with my hair has changed since then – I really was so in love with the buzzcut and I didn’t I think that I was going to grow it to this length anytime soon and it’s kind of just naturally happened from various shoots and travelling.

I started off by doing short back and sides for one specific shoot and then it’s grown from there. I didn’t think it would ever get so long so quickly; I thought I was going to just keep re-cutting it. It’s exciting to have something different and it’s almost a pixie now.

I was playing with it when I got out of the shower last week and I styled it into these points and I was like, ‘Oh my god I’m obsessed, how can I make this more like red carpet and a bit less intense?’ Rio, my hairstylist who is just amazing, found a way to make it a bit less spiky and more so it looked kind of pulled back by the wind and then when he did those two little bits of the front I was just like, ‘Oh my god!’ I was so excited to wear it at Cannes.”

How has your approach to red carpet beauty changed over the years?

“I’ve always loved experimenting on the red carpet or at shows or events, but now it feels a little braver, and maybe more refined. I’m just figuring out that in-between stage of being really experimental and then also elevating it, which is what’s so amazing when you’re working with such talented hair and make-up artists. Having that relationship with them and discussing and figuring out something really exciting.

I have this app called Bazaart and I use it to plan all my looks. Let’s say I have a picture from a fitting, but then I have a picture of a bracelet I saw, or a hairstyle that I tried out on myself when I was in the shower, I’ll collage them all together to see if it all works together. Literally my pictures for yesterday were like, a blurry image of me from the fitting and then a cut out picture of my head with those spikes. I’m doing something really fun for my hair again tonight.”

What are your must-have beauty products you always take on the red carpet?

“I always have either powder or blotters because I get shiny so quickly, and I’ll always redo my lips. I don’t know how people apply their lips once, on my lips it’s as if it just disappears every few minutes. It never lasts so I always have to keep redoing them.”

How do you prepare yourself for a big event?

“I mean I love FaceGym if I actually have the time and I can plan to do that one or two days before, but I usually love using my jade roller and eye masks. I drink a lot of tea and I love running before an event because I feel like it gets all your water retention gone. You sweat it all out and you just feel really glowy and like blood is flowing and you’re energized.

I was saying the other day, I trained so much before the Met Gala and I felt so in control of my breathing and my body. It made me feel so much less nervous and my anxiety has been really good because of this all this exercise, which everyone’s always told me, but it took me figuring that out on my own. Now I’m into such a good workout routine and I’m so addicted to it because it helps my anxiety so much.”

Which eras are you inspired by when it comes to beauty?

“My hair [for Cannes] was a nod to my character in Pistol, Soo Catwoman, which is very seventies punk. I love the punk era. I love the old 2000s runways as well. There’s so much to unpack from each era, especially when you’re looking at runways. Sometimes there are two looks you wouldn’t even guess are from the same year.”

Get Iris’ Cannes Beauty Look:

“For Iris’ look on the Cannes red carpet we wanted to capture the essence of glamour that makes Cannes such a special place to be,” makeup artist and Dior Beauty Ambassador Sam Visser tells ELLE UK. “We opted for a glowing and illuminated eye look as the star.”

Below, read how Visser created Law’s Cannes beauty look.

This article originally appeared on ELLE UK.

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