The artist ushering in the era of effortless (looking!) eyebrows takes us through her microblading philosophy and technique.
Meet the Microblading Artist Bringing French Girl Brows to New York
Since the rise of Instagram Face, the ideal brow aesthetic has pushed its way past unattainable and entered into intentionally superficial territory. For proof, look no further than the spate of eyebrow pencils designed to achieve a microblading effect. To be clear, the goal of these products is…simulate a semi-permanent tattooing procedure originally intended to mimic natural brows, but, like, appear to have paid for a procedure instead of having naturally-lush eyebrows? Got it. This is to say nothing of the plastic-inspired, plastered-to-the-forehead style of brow lamination, an actual semi-permanent treatment.
Either way, full is no longer enough. We’d like our brows to look fake, please.
It is hustle culture for the forehead. (Go harder than humanly possible!) It is internalized consumerism. (Don’t just buy the product, become the product!) It is aggressively American—and a little ringarde, no?
Enter Delphine Breyne, the française microblading artist bringing “French girl eyebrows” to the Upper West Side. “In the middle of the pandemic, I took the leap and signed a lease to open my atelier,” Breyne tells Vogue of her new studio, Delphine Eyebrow Couture. She designed the high-ceilinged, intimate-feeling space to be “a Parisian experience in New York,” a phrase that applies to her brow philosophy, as well.
Breyne takes the semi-permanence of microblading and shading and, in true French fashion, uses the tattooing techniques as tools for understated ease, rather than in-your-face effort. She believes that brows should be sisters, not twins; that results should draw attention to the person, not the procedure; and that a little purposeful imperfection goes a long way.
Still, Breyne’s method is more French couture than French insouciance. Custom-tattooing eyebrows is a bit like custom-tailoring a suit, she explains: The final product feels effortless to the wearer and looks effortless to the observer—but its creation is quite the opposite. It takes “patience to find the best solution, bespoke, for each of my clients,” she tells Vogue. A typical client will visit Breyne three times in total: once for a consultation, then for an initial session, and finally, for a six-week touch up. “I proceed very delicately, deliberately, taking my time as an artist to provide a result tailored to each person’s face.”
This story originally appeared on: Vogue - Author:Jessica DeFino
