Makeup artist Georgi Sandev, has risen in the beauty and fashion industry with his bold, glamorous looks that are equal parts flirty and fantasy. Born and raised in Bulgaria, the creative took a fateful leap from former competitive ballroom dancer to a significant career switch and move to the US, working his way up the ranks to start assisting some of the biggest names in the business before breaking off on his own. Now with an impressive portfolio that includes collaborations with some of the biggest names in the business, like Luigi & Iango, Paola Kudacki, and Chris Colls, his work has been featured in numerous high-profile fashion publications, including Vogue, i-D, Interview, and Harper’s Bazaar. In a recent interview with Models.com, Georgi discussed his approach to makeup and his creative process, the importance of experimentation and pushing boundaries in his work, and how he’s quickly gained a reputation as one of the most creative and innovative makeup artists in the industry.
What was your initial relationship with beauty and fashion? Do you remember your first moments working in this industry?
I accidentally fell into the business. I grew up in Bulgaria and when I was a kid, the country was still going through a transition from socialism or communism, really, to democracy. When the Berlin Wall fell, that was 1989, and I was six years old. We were still under the Iron Curtain and didn’t have much exposure to the Western world and what was going on there. I remember there was only one fashion reporter on television, and she would always report from the fashion shows abroad, but there would be just one segment that you would have a season. Those images from backstage looked so different than anything else in my life. I grew up in a very non-artistic, pragmatic family and being an artist was never an option on the table or even spoken of as a potential career. I went to school, I was a good student, then I went to business school. In the meantime, while I was at school, I started ballroom dancing as a hobby.
In that community, partners very often help each other with hair, makeup, and outfits. It’s a very team player sport. I started helping my partner do her makeup and it turned out I was actually doing a better job than she was. Little by little, when other dancers from my dance studio would go to competitions, they would ask me to do their makeup because they liked how I was doing my partner. At first, it was just a supplemental thing to my competitive ballroom dancing hobby and things didn’t really happen really until I started traveling to the United States on exchange programs during the summer. The first time I came, I was 20, and then I came here three summers in a row. I was looking online for inspiration for makeup images, and I found this website, Makeup 411. I was at the time on the West Coast in Newport Beach, and one of the makeup artists on this website was really big in music and with celebrity clientele in the States, named Billy B.
So you assisted him or how did Billy help you in the long run?
I loved his work and I thought it was perfect for what I needed both for dance and makeup inspiration. He’s a great artist and I saw he had a blog, pre-social media. I knew he wrote back to his fans and I was like, you know what? I love his work I’m going to send him an email. I told him about myself and what I do then I attached a couple of photos on top of that. I was deliberating whether to send it or not the whole night and around 3:00 AM, I sent it. I woke up in the morning and had a reply and he was touched by my words and said, “I saw your images and I think you’re talented. If you feel it in your heart, you should try and do something with it. Maybe a great place for you to start is a company like MAC Cosmetics because they’re more than just a makeup brand – they actually invest in the talent.” We started actually writing to each other for maybe a couple of months. Then I found the nearest MAC Cosmetics store that was in the area and started chasing them for a job interview for about two weeks. I finally got a date, went there, and they hired me the next day. I went to see Billy as he was teaching a masterclass for MAC in Los Angeles and he invited me as his guest. I freelanced with MAC and I worked with them for a couple of months. Then I went back home to Bulgaria because I had to, as I was still a student and asked my friends if they knew anyone to start just doing some test shoots and to meet some photographers. Funny enough, one of the first photographers I tested with ended up being a commercially successful photographer in the country later on. In about a year and a half, I was starting to be booked every single day but that’s back home and it’s such a small market. I was just seeing that things are very behind and you could not compare anything that we were doing to what was happening on a global scale. I decided that if I was going to follow this path, I should step out of the borders of the country. I asked around as I wasn’t sure where to go between Milan, London, Paris, New York, and LA. I hadn’t been in this industry long enough to have any insight. Everyone that I asked told me if I want to work in fashion, go to New York. I signed up for a master’s degree, moved here with $2,500, and as soon as I arrived, one of the first things I did was apply for a green card, thinking if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be. Shortly after, I actually got it in three months.
How did you initially transition from working as a first assistant in New York to starting to work with people like Willy Vanderperre, Luigi & Iango, Collier Schorr, and so many other photographers that I could name?
Once I started working with Frances Hathaway in particular, it was a bit of a snowball effect. Frances had a great reputation with MAC Cosmetics and because of my relationship with her, they started hiring me on their Fashion Week teams as they would sponsor a lot of the shows. On those teams, they would always have famous makeup artists like Lucia Pieroni or Tom Pecheux lead. I started meeting people that way and they would ask me to work with them. I started working with Stephane Marais, Pat McGrath, Peter Phillips, and Diane Kendal. I moved to be Lucia Pieroni’s first US-based assistant because she was always between London and New York half her time. It was a convenient situation for me because I could still do my own jobs and assist other artists.
Do you remember your first major job?
My first job was Willy Vanderperre. I had started working with Peter Phillips and at the time, he was the creative director for Chanel Beauty and I was doing all the Chanel shows with him. I’m always very friendly and I would meet everyone who’s associated in any way with our work. Willy’s agents in Paris knew me, and I don’t know why they remembered me when that opportunity came, but one day I was in New York and I received a phone call if I can be on a job for Fantastic Man in two days in Paris with Willy Vanderperre as photographer and Olivier Rizzo styling. I didn’t tell them that I’m in New York, I just hung up the phone, checked the flights, and I called them that I could do it.
How did you first create your own signature style when it comes to beauty? Where do you draw inspiration from when you’re creating work or normally go to to be inspired?
I would say my makeup went from stage makeup when I was first starting to do ballroom dancing and then it went in a completely different direction. I would say now what I really love is finding natural beauty and enhancing that in everyone that I work with. It’s bringing what’s already there and highlighting it so it really stands out. I find myself also going through a more artistic space when we’re doing more creative work, but even then, I look for the beauty in it. For me, it’s really hard to do an odd, almost unpleasant, disturbing type of beauty. Whatever I do, even if it’s supposed to be random or unexpected, I need to see an element of glamour in it. I think what I want to evoke with what I do is this warm feeling like, wow, amazing, beautiful. I don’t want to be disturbing or questionable.
When I do makeup, it’s a process. I’ve been doing this for almost 20 years now and one of the most important things is connecting with the subject that I work with on a human level. When we have had a good, beautiful connection, I always do great work. Whenever there’s an element of distrust, I can never really fully give the person that I work with what I could give them otherwise. I think that’s why speaking about Luigi and Iango, in particular, our work together is so special because you can see empowerment in their photos and they just want to make a woman feel beautiful, desired, and special. Once you hear the first click with their incredible light, setup, and energy on set, it just becomes like a wave.
Can you share a particularly challenging moment in your career and how you approached it?
From the family side, there was a complete refusal to be understood or supported by any means. And if anything, they would try to sway me out of following beauty as a career. I understand it; parents only try to make sure you’re safe, and that you can make a living, but they only know so much. The unknown is scary. I found my way and found ways to just ignore them and just keep pushing forward. Even when I was in Bulgaria before I left for the United States, I had started working on one of the most-watched television shows in the country and that’s when for the first time, my parents actually shared with their friends that I was doing that.
Who are some of your favorite models to work with and why?
I’ve always been an admirer of the supermodel days, in the ’80s and ’90s, because it’s the time that I grew up. Some of the most beautiful moments in fashion have always been with Kate Moss, Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington, Tatjana Patitz, Naomi, and Linda. When I started working on sets with them, I was a bit of a fan. After meeting those really incredible women, being able to sit, connect, then create images with them was major.
Can you speak to the differences between being on set to red carpet creative moments? What’s your process for each and what fulfills you from both sides of the coin?
I would say I like both. At the time when I was doing shows, there was a lot of adrenaline, keeping up the pace, and having to do everything in no time. Sometimes with the least amount of time, you actually surprise yourself of what you’re capable of because you’re able to zone out, get in a meditative state and focused on what you’re doing. I think I’ve done some really good looks in a very short amount of time.
Sometimes you have this big planning process with exchanging images and inspirations, starting to prepare far in advance for it. Then sometimes, you really have no idea what’s going on. You go there, everyone’s late, and we have 45 minutes. You haven’t even seen anything. You just cope with it, do what you can, and you try to do your best. Red carpet can vary from having a very short amount of preparation to preparing as much as you would for a fashion show. For example, when I did Adwoa for the Vanity Fair Oscars, that was a really beautiful moment. If you actually go into the eye, there’s a very specific eyelash moment there. She always wants something a little bit unexpected, cool, and a little bit rougher around the edges. It stimulates me to use my creative side a little bit. I told her what was my favorite, and that was also her favorite and that was the process of us preparing and creating a look, not just getting together and just deciding something right there and then.
As far as success, how do you define success in your industry and looking towards the future, what’s next for you? What are you excited about exploring?
I had a hard time viewing myself as being successful for years, regardless of everything that I had done. I think it just has to do with my culture and the way I grew up. It’s very different than I think growing up in America, where you are being rewarded for even the smallest thing you do. I think it’s something that I’ve been trying really hard to overcome in terms of a personality trait that I have. I’ve appreciated what I have done in my life much more in the last few years than I have ever before. Some people might say you’re successful, but some other people might say, oh, maybe you’re not. I think a big measurement nowadays is people measure things in followers, likes, and clicks but I don’t think that’s really the true meaning of it.
You took a leap of faith to go into ballroom dancing, go into makeup for the first time, and moving to New York. What advice would you give to up-and-coming makeup artists looking to join the industry and take that similar leap of faith?
I’m just going to say, “Dear artists, the game has changed. Nothing is what it used to be. So be adaptive more than anything.” I would say look for what makes you happy, what inspires you, and what you think resonates with you. If you follow that path, no matter which way you go, it’s going to be the right way because it ultimately is going to work in your favor. Just be reliable. Work hard, then never stop dreaming.
“I don’t think people should limit themselves to a specific path. It should be about what really resonates with what you love to do.”
When I started in the industry, I assisted incredible artists to meet people, then grew with them along the way. Some of the people that were also assistants when I was assisting are now the driving forces in the industry. Look at Carlos Nazario, for example. We were both assistants at the time when we started and he used to work with Joe McKenna. When I first met him, we would go backstage when our bosses were deciding the fate of the commercial campaign or the cover that we were working on. Now with social media, maybe you don’t really need that path anymore because there are other ways to enter. I keep meeting young artists and see so many grow that have never gone that path. They’re doing incredible work and are having the exact same career and opportunities that some who did assist. So it’s not the only way. I don’t think people should limit themselves to a specific path. It should be about what really resonates with what you love to do. When you love what you do, then you will make it inevitably.
Final question: Do you ever pull out the ballroom dancing as a party trick?
One of my girlfriends calls me the Rollercoaster! One of my friends is Erin Parsons an incredible artist. We actually both moved together to New York at the same time and knew of each other, but we had never met. We finally meet and then started going out sometimes dancing. They all just charge themselves at me and I swing them around like we’re on the set of Dirty Dancing or something. It was really fun. I think I used to dance a lot more when I first moved to New York. Not so much anymore because I also haven’t trained in many years now, but I think I still got it!
Petition to bring it back!
