Taken from the winter 2022 issue of Dazed. You may buy a replica of our latest issue here

When Ammy Drammeh met Michaela Coel on set for her Garage cover shoot, a distant reference got here to mind. It was a picture of 60s actress Shirley Eaton within the James Bond film Goldfinger, painted from head to toe in shimmering gold. She took within the actor’s cutting cheekbones, fixed poise and deep skin in opting to color her the identical color, as if foreshadowing the golden statues that might grace her palm the next 12 months.

“I don’t know if it’s correct, but I read the story that the make-up they used was really high on this poisonous substance since it’s a metal,” Drammeh remembers. “I believed, ‘Is that based on what they saw in Egypt, perhaps?’ I believed it looked so beautiful, but at the identical time, it could look amazing on a Black woman. I saw Michaela and thought she literally looked like a goddess. Why don’t we paint her in gold?”

Such is typical of Drammeh’s work as a make-up artist. It’s a testament to the appeal of her aesthetic, which she describes as “real, greater than natural”. “After I moved to London, the trend was natural – ‘no make-up’ make-up, ‘no hair’ hair, nothing,” she recalls. “And then you definitely had the opposite side, which was the other; super-glam, almost unrealistic skin with no pores, totally airbrushed. Sometimes [natural] could be beautiful; I just like the rawness of seeing the skin and real complexion. But additionally, let’s rejoice. Let’s use colors, a daring lip, a crazy lash: let’s express something. You don’t need to be natural to be real.”

The faces, personalities and essences of her subjects spring to life under her hand. A preference for sheened, raw skin and a give attention to color make her work consistently playful, very similar to her own warming energy that seeps through the decision after we speak one evening over Zoom. A longtime Dazed collaborator, Drammeh’s talent has seen her reach the faces of Adwoa Aboah, Debra Shaw and Harry Styles, alongside brands reminiscent of Gucci, Loewe and Bottega Veneta.

Drammeh, 37, was born and raised in Barcelona and has mixed Gambian and Spanish heritage. Coming of age within the early 00s, it was the R&B and hip-hop videos she’d watched in her youth that might formulate her aesthetic identity. She’d spend time watching Maxwell, En Vogue and Aaliyah on MTV, poring over their glistening skin, glossed hair and juicy imagery that defined the visual era. “It was so beautiful,” she gushes, “so chic, so elegant. That has actually played a task in how I see beauty and use colors and textures.”

She made her start in make-up at around 12 years old. A classmate brought a surprisingly highbrow gift into school, a Kevyn Aucoin book that Drammeh became captured by. “She was like, ‘You would like to borrow it?’ And I used to be like, ‘Yeah, why not?’ I took it home for per week or so, my friends would come around and I’d recreate the make-up looks that were within the book. I used to be doing that with my mom’s make-up bag, which had, like, five products. I don’t know the way! But I used to be doing it.”

She continued her practice before nights out with friends, end-of-year parties and performances. Encouraged by teachers who had noticed her interest, she studied cosmetology and moved to London in 2010 to launch her profession. What got here next was years of hustling, working retail and other jobs to afford shared apartments in her area of north London, where she continues to be based now.

As a Black artist within the make-up industry, Drammeh got used to being the one artist of color within the room. “It did feel quite lonely at times, you realize?” she says. “It’s sad but in a way you form of prepare for that. I remember doing this job a few years ago in London, and I had this palette with concealers and foundation. After I opened it I saw all the colors, and only two were almost empty – the 2 fairest tones. I believe that was telling almost about lots of the industry as in what [jobs] we’re being offered. If you happen to don’t have enough range of anything, how will I cater to people?”

Drammeh is further concerned with how fellow Black artists, specifically the influential predecessors from her youth, have been excluded from the narrative of artistry techniques despite pioneering lots of the circulating looks we see today. “Fashion took loads from [them], but without giving them recognition,” she says of creators like Eric Ferrell, artist to Aaliyah, TLC and more. “You see all of the leather suits, metallic make-up – to me, it just says R&B music video. They got here up with that, and we don’t know anything about these people; they’re unsung heroes.”

This 12 months, Drammeh was appointed as a world make-up creative partner at Chanel. In her role, she hopes to make use of her position to “broaden the conversation around diversity and inclusivity”. “I don’t want it to be gimmicky or due to profit,” she says. “I’m doing it because I need to supply consumers what they need. I feel like things are changing dramatically; you realize, I don’t have any issue finding different shades of foundation and concealer. But there’s still loads to do. People focus loads on complexion, but you furthermore may need a blush that goes with that, an eyeshadow, an eyebrow pencil that doesn’t look grey. I hope I could make it easier for everybody.”

In her artistry, Drammeh has a mess of stimuli: her commitment to diversity, inspirations sparked by the quotidian – buildings, paintings, the aunties she sees in her area of Tottenham – and the futuristic Black music imagery she saw in her youth. But all of that serves because the springboard for the way she uses her skills for rather more than mere aesthetics. “I’ve at all times been a carer,” she says, smiling. “Back in Spain, I used to work in a care home, in a hospital. Sometimes the transient is the transient, but I need to feel a way of who they’re, so that they could be comfortable and assured that I’m gonna do the perfect I can to make them look the way in which they wish to look. I believe that is how I can get the perfect of everyone as well.”

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