It’s late afternoon on the East Coast when fashion designer Raeana Anaïs calls via Zoom from her creative studio. The Brooklyn native sports shoulder-grazing hoops paired with a jumpsuit from her collection. She has cascading curls, dewy skin, and her signature red lip. “I love the idea of putting art on,” she says of the Études x Henry Taylor shirt she’s wearing, an idea that permeates her work and her personal aesthetic. Raeana, or “Rae” as she’s known among friends, is a creative and a student of nuance. This is most evident in her approach to fashion where she uses lighting, color, and texture to convey not just a mood, but an attitude — tenue. The foundation of her approach to style has its roots in beauty and the lessons in maquillage, which she learned growing up and watching the matriarchs of her family. Most notably, they taught her the art and transformative power of the red lip.
Raeana can trace her beauty origin story to when she was five years old. A child of the ’90s, she recalls watching her mother and grandmother dressing their lips in vibrant red and gold hues. With laughter and a hint of nostalgia, she confesses, “I definitely got in trouble for ruining [my mother’s]Fashion Fair lipstick,” recalling a time when her mom left her makeup bag unattended and she smeared a bright red lipstick just like Sephora’s“Catfight” shade, “all over [myself], the sheets, the bed, [my] brother…” We’ll chalk that incident up to her design chops beginning to take root at a young age, but despite getting into hot water for fashioning her childhood home into an art palette, Rae remembers the visual and emotional impact makeup had on her even as a child. “You stand taller,” she says. “You can be the most confident person, or a really shy person and you put on makeup and it’s like a superpower.”
Like most children, Rae loved to dabble in beauty, but it wasn’t until her early 20s that she “seriously wore a red lip,” a tradition she speaks of as a rite of passage — a practice passed down through generations. “We look at things our mothers [or] grandmothers did, and we put our own twist on it once we become women,” she says, and the corners of her lips curve into a smile, “I feel like I channel my mom and grandma whenever I have a red lip on.”
Rae likes to experiment with fashion but admits her beauty practices lean conservative. She loves glowing skin with a pop of color on the lips, and once she’s found a look she likes, she sticks to it. Though red lips are her go-to, the multi-hyphenate learned early on that red lipstick is not a one-shade-fits-all deal. Her skin is a warm mix of tawny and cinnamon, best complemented by cooler, blue-reds, a shade she doesn’t veer from often. When asked about experimenting with different hues of rouge, she covers her mouth playfully, remembering a time when she opted for an orange-red which, to put it plainly, wasn’t letting her “[zhuzh] the way I should be zhuzhed.” She’s got texture finish preferences, too: “I’m really into stains,” she notes. “I need them to be dry and very matte.” Citing Sephora, she references the lip she’s wearing on the call, a lightweight matte similar to those found in Pat McGrath Labs’ “MatteTrance™ Lipstick” collection, which ranges from blue-reds likeElson 013 to bold and fiery hues likeElson 2.
Red lipstick can be intimidating for novices venturing into the beauty world, but Rae argues reds are for everyone. It’s not a matter of whether you can wear red, but rather if you’ve found the right shade. I mention I’m partial to orange-reds with a satin-finish — like GXVE by Gwen Stefani’s “Anaheim Shine Clean High-Performance Satin Lipstick” in the shade Loara — which feels like a step up from my gloss girl days in the early aughts without compromising on shine. And she assures me, once again, it’s all about finding the shade that fits you.
Like many of us, these days, TikTok has Rae trying new things. For our call, she lined her lips with brown and buffed out the color for added dimension and “a little ‘90s vibe.” When I compliment her perfect application, she explains, “What makes a red lip for me is precision,” mentioning Rihanna as a beauty bible and the importance of clean lines, defined corners, and an angular Cupid’s Bow. The Dreamville creative notes, however, that precision isn’t the only secret to flawless application. “There’s a lot of prep that you need before [you apply] that lip,” she warns, adhering to a four-step process for flawless execution that begins with exfoliating her lips. “I moisturize, then blot, and then I put the lip on, because you have to [begin with] a smooth, blank canvas.” After years of practice, her methodology is solid, the lines of her lip color so clean they could be on display in the Louvre.
As a designer, it comes as no surprise that her commitment to detail extends to her beauty regimen. But, like most things in life, Rae’s path to finding her signature look was anything but linear. Having struggled with vitiligo as a child, she notes that, “makeup was a way for me to feel normal.” Adding, “I don’t talk about it often. It’s kind of like that thing you stash away.” We speak briefly about western beauty standards and our shared experience of idolizing the girl on the perm box growing up. Rae mentions her moment of reckoning, “I just accepted it. I’m never gonna look like this girl on the PCJ box.”
The confidence in her voice doesn’t waiver, and it’s evident that what was once a point of longing is now a strength. “I feel more confident now in my beauty and in my routine than I’ve ever felt in my life.” Today, her skin is clear and even toned, all traces of vitiligo long vanished, but the lessons remain. Rae credits the experience with making her “[lean] into my self-expression,” teaching her, “I can make beauty and that makes me happy.” It’s a turning point many young Black women face — the realization that while mainstream media and marketing may be slow to champion our rich skin, bone structure, and full lips, we are, nevertheless, beautiful.
As Rae boldly professes, “we make beauty;” how we go about loving and defining ourselves is up to us. And with confidence and the perfect red lip, let’s be honest: we’re damn near unstoppable.
