Inge Grognard

The Belgian makeup artist, considered a satellite member of the Antwerp Six, is known for her startling view on beauty that controverts modern notions of glamour.

A long-term collaborator of Martin Margiela since his studies at Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Grognard’s strong aesthetic has seen her work with brands including Haider Ackermann , Emilio Pucci, Vetements and Hood by Air. She is also Demna Gvasalia’s makeup artist of choice, having worked with Balenciaga for several seasons and walked in the Autumn/Winter 2017 show.

Grognard started her career in the 1980s, coinciding with the breakthrough of Belgian fashion designers. She was instrumental in crafting the visual language of the Antwerp Six, making valuable contributions to early fashion shows and editorial shoots. Her first makeup job was Martin Margiela’s school project, beginning a collaboration that would span 40 collections across 20 years.

Today, her dark, subversive take on beauty has been featured in every large fashion magazine, and has inspired a second generation of Belgian designers, including Raf Simons and A F Vandevorst.

Grognard frequently oversees the makeup direction in fashion shows, and has also lent her talent to a theatre production by the Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker.

She is married to Belgian photographer Ronald Stoops, whose work is inquisitive and hyper-sexual, and the pair often dedicate time to experimental personal projects. The two published a self-titled anthology of over 30 years of collaboration, focusing on non-commercial projects with like-minded creatives, as an antidote to their commercial work.

In 2013, the Antwerp museum MOMU included Grognard’s work and Stoops’s photography in the Antwerp Icons exhibition.

More recently, Grognard has collaborated with Mac Cosmetics for the Walter Van Beirendonck couture show, and appeared on the cover of Dust Magazine’s issue No. 11.