Beauty

Valeria Orlando is Donatella Versace’s former makeup artist, the 2016 and 2017 New York Fashion Week beauty director. She collaborates with world-renowned fashion magazines in Western Europe, USA, South America and Asia, and works with photographers such as Mario Testino, Gian Paolo Barbieri and Stephen Klein. She has done make-up for Elton John, Madonna, Nicole Kidman and Lenny Kravitz. She has her own line of decorative cosmetics and is the founder of Makeup Academy.

Sicilian with Brazilian blood. Valeria was one of the star guests at the ASVOFF (A Shaded View on Fashion Film Festival) and with a team of 12 assistants prepared the make-up and hairstyles of the models who walked at the Balkan Fashion Week in Nu Boyana.

We meet at the Cinema Center Nu Boyana and we talk in a cafe, part of the London street decor. Vitosha Mountain looms above us, the sky has darkened, a storm is brewing and thunder is rumbling. Valeria’s voice, however, can be heard safely across two streets. Very loud, low timbre. Her hair is pulled back in an afrohair style, half red, half purple. She is not tall, but she is thin. There’s something of Cher in her radiance.