The Dazed Beauty Community is our ever-expanding encyclopaedia of creatives and emerging talent from across the world who are redefining the way we think about beauty. From supermodels to digital artists to make-up prodigies transforming themselves in their bedrooms, these are the beauty influencers of tomorrow who embody everything Dazed Beauty is about. Discover them here.
“A cross between fiction and reality, disguise and embodiment, real and fake, cute and naughty,” is how French artist Loïse Hulin describes the pieces she creates. Working across mediums from art direction and set design to props and clothing, it’s in her experiments with prosthetic skin for designer Rohan Mirza that this interplay of opposing forces most clearly emerges – think football jersey numbers embossed into backs, zips sewn into skin, and plasters embedded into thighs.
Born in Brittany, Hulin moved to Paris to study clothing design before discovering her true interest while assisting sculptor Hugo Servanin. “Being left to my own devices for the first time without a school framework revealed my true desires without constraints,” she explains. Afforded with this expansive creative freedom, Hulin now creates looks that are as unsettling as they are captivating.
Using both handmade and digitally-designed elements, her work blurs the boundaries between reality and artifice. There’s the silicone clothing, like a pair of “big foot” trousers created with Mirza, or a jacket moulded into the shape of a toy bear, and the 3D-printed masks and body pieces. “I like to create a continuum of horrific visions between the gory and the touching, the gory and the fantastic,” Hulin says. Her perception of beauty allows her to create work that feels otherworldly while intrinsically human at the same time. “Beauty is the ability to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary and the extraordinary into the ordinary!”
We speak to Loïse about her journey into SFX and her artistic inspirations.
Can you tell us a bit about yourself and where you grew up?
Loïse Hulin: I work in SFX, art direction, clothing, props, and I do a bit of 3D and set design. I moved to Paris straight after secondary school when I was 19. Living in Paris had always been a dream of mine because I wanted to experience a city that never sleeps. I studied clothing design at the Duperré school for three years, but after graduating, I realised it wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do. I took a year off and I expanded my practice towards sculptural mediums made of silicone. Being left to my own devices for the first time without a school framework revealed my true desires without constraints. I found myself in a better position to pursue a master’s degree in images at Duperré, where I’ve just finished my first year. I still have one year to go.
What are you trying to communicate through your work?
Loïse Hulin: I like to create a continuum of horrific visions between the gory and the touching, the gory and the fantastic. My work includes both handmade and digitally designed elements. I like the idea of building up an inventory of fake, real injuries, so I collect my prostheses once they’ve been removed.
I’m interested in the shifts between the inanimate and the animate, and I try to make staged figures emanate a mysterious, magical power that conjures up our imagination and the world of fantasy. I like the puppet because it represents both a manipulated object, one that we can control, and at the same time the human form. So it’s the interplay between the animate and the inanimate, between children’s toys and magical objects that takes place.
What’s your earliest beauty-related memory?
Loïse Hulin: When I was younger, I was never very interested in beauty. I never saw the world of beauty as a possibility until about a year ago when I started getting interested in SFX. Since then, the idea gradually took hold in my mind. I still have a lot to learn about make-up, which is much further from me than SFX, even though they seem closely related.
Describe your beauty aesthetic in three words.
Loïse Hulin: Wonderful horror, #fun, magic
Which fictional character do you most relate to?
Loïse Hulin: I would say Coraline from Henry Selick’s film, because when I was younger I would have loved to discover a secret passageway to another world full of adventures as wonderful as they are terrifying. It depicts the adolescent’s quest from childhood to adulthood, which often comes up in my work. It inspires me from the imagination of childhood and our ability to create worlds. I’d also say the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland, because he’s so smiley, fun, goofy, and serious.
Who is your beauty icon or favourite look of all time?
Loïse Hulin: Lady Gaga
What is your current obsession?
Loïse Hulin: Alice Madness: Returns and apple juice straight from the fridge.
When do you feel most beautiful?
Loïse Hulin: I feel beautiful when I accomplish a project that has been in my head for some time. It’s the satisfaction that makes me feel beautiful because I feel proud. Often, we accomplish it together with my friends which is even better.
Are you optimistic about the future?
Loïse Hulin: Depending on the day and the subject, there’s a lot going on in the world right now that’s anything but reassuring. It’s hard to be optimistic when you see how humans can behave towards each other. I have to admit I’m frightened when you look at it from that point of view.
Tomorrow you wake up with another face of your choice. Whose is it and why?
Loïse Hulin: I’d choose Mila Jovovich’s face because she’s an icon of science fiction movies. That way I could be in The Fifth Element or Resident Evil, just to satisfy my younger self.
You have to replace part of your body with that of an animal or a mythological creature. What do you go for?
Loïse Hulin: I’d love to have huge wings like an angel or a cat’s tail because I love cats, even though I’m allergic to them. I could be a rabbit too.
As a warning to the other members of the resistance, your head is to be mounted above the gates of the city. How would you do your make-up that morning?
Loïse Hulin: I’d avoid death by moulding my own head and casting it in silicone to make it look like the ops got me.
