Behind The CHANEL Red Carpet Edit
LESSONS:
INSIDE THE MAKING OF
THE ULTIMATE EDIT
The products, the polish, the story, the scoop. On location at the Chateau.
- Written by
- Sarah Brown
- Photography by
- Vicen Akina
- Creative Direction by
- Cassandra Grey
When Cassandra Grey founded VIOLET GREY nearly one decade ago, she was a recent transplant to Los Angeles, whisked into the entertainment world’s swirl of glitter, glamour, and the special kind of practical magic known to those on the inside. LA is a company town, where the business is Hollywood, and by extension, beauty.
The city’s beauty practitioners—celebrated makeup artists, hairstylists, and skin whisperers—are easily identifiable thanks to the compact black rolling bag that is almost always gliding noiselessly behind them, wherever they go (hotel suite, sound stage, the private departure lounge at LAX). These are their kits. What’s inside? Cassandra Grey wanted to know.
Ask an artist, and you will learn that what is (very neatly organized) inside is a combination of literally everything they might need to create any look a celebrity, model, or photographer requests, while it is, at the same time, a hyper-edited mix of what physically fits in said bag. Each best-in-class item has earned its tiny piece of real estate. And should something better come along, it will be replaced. No glitz, no glory. No hard feelings.
VIOLET GREY was founded upon the notion of creating a revolving, evolving, streamlined Edit of exactly what is in the kits of the industry’s top pros: the most trusted products from the most trusted authorities. What do they use—on their clients, on themselves? What never lets them down; what do they simply refuse to live without? To this day, we need to know.
So, when we sat down to give a little tweakment to our edit of CHANEL essentials, who better to curate it with us than CHANEL’s own artists?
Over the course of many months, we brought together CHANEL's leading stars: We wrangled VG OGs Kate Lee (wherever you see Charlize, Kate is close behind) and Pati Dubroff (the woman behind Margot Robbie’s yearlong, larger-than-life premier and red carpet Barbie blitz), not to mention Cyndle Komarovski, fresh off the Pamela Anderson-for-Proenza Schouler campaign. We snagged Tyron Machhausen, a favorite of Zazie Beetz and Gracie Abrams, and Kara Yoshimoto Bua, a magnet for It-girls like Sofia Richie Grainge and Ji-young Yoo. Tasha Reiko Brown—known as much for her work with the guys (Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Foxx, Regé-Jean Page) as the girls (Alicia Keys, Whitney Peak)—and nail wizard Betina Goldstein were amazingly available when we called with shoot dates. Editorial legend (and Linda Evangelista’s artist of choice) Fulvia Farolfi always picked up on the first ring.
They Zoomed, FaceTimed, and texted in from press junkets, photo studios, and in some cases, vacation (thank you). They lent us their time, their talent, their uncompromising taste.
We call their expert selects The CHANEL Red Carpet Edit. These are the high-performance essentials that have won a place in their kits, and that we feel deserve a spot on your vanity. They are products for creating looks that are built to withstand a red carpet—and real life. For big nights and every day. It’s a hero Edit from a group of hero artists, curated exclusively for VIOLET GREY.
