YSL Enlists Its First Trans-Masculine Face, Chella Man, For Beauty Campaign
Video screenshot via Chella Man
YSL Beauty has cast its first-ever trans-masculine model, Chella Man, to front an uplifting campaign for clean and green skincare and makeup products.
Man is an artist, model, and an advocate in BIPOC queer communities as well as disability awareness. As a deaf, genderqueer, trans-masculine, Chinese, and Jewish individual, he hopes to “continue pushing the boundaries of what it means to be accessible, inclusive, and equal in this world.”
In a new video for YSL Beauty’s Nu Collective campaign—which highlights diverse young beauty influencers who aren’t always cis-gendered women—Man describes his struggles with intense gender dysphoria and how art has helped him express himself in a way words can’t.
“My mind didn’t connect to my body,” he says. “Top surgery allowed me to make my body a home, and my scars will always remind me of this liberation… Where I lack the resources to explain myself through words, art was and still is my loophole. My scars are the things that make me who I am. They’re a privilege to bear. My scars are my signature.”
The artist is also seen donning jewelry from his own Beauty of Being Deaf line, which features decorative, accessible pieces like gold accessories that adorn hearing aids and cochlear implants, Dazed reports.
[via Dazed, video and cover image via Chella Man]
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