"I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way." Georgia O'Keeffe

Talent

DIANA AVEL

Make up

JASMINE ABDALLAOUI using CHANEL ROUGE COCO HYDRA GLOSS

Film

CLAUDIA ROSE

Photographs

BEC PARSONS

Styling

JESS PECORARO

Talent

DIANA AVEL

Make up

JASMINE ABDALLAOUI using CHANEL ROUGE COCO HYDRA GLOSS

Film

CLAUDIA ROSE

Photographs

BEC PARSONS

Styling

JESS PECORARO

DIANA AVEL with LOVEWANT BEAUTY and CHANEL ROUGE COCO HYDRA GLOSS | Interview Bartolomeo Celestino

"Lips are so expressive, they’re like a channel between your inner world and the outside world."

Diana Avel feels like a contradiction in the best sense of the word. Her image is precise and controlled. She comes across the camera with a cinematic, appeal, yet there's something deeply introspective beneath it. She belongs to a generation fluent in image-making, but what distinguishes her is that she doesn't appear consumed by visibility. She uses fashion the way some people use language: selectively and with intention. There is a certain old-world romanticism to her. The black tailoring, and the cool palette. The preference for mood over spectacle. Her aesthetic feels unfettered by trends and driven by atmosphere, recalling the women of European cinema who understood that mystery is not hiding yourself, but rather revealing only what matters. So what makes Diana compelling? Perhaps the tension between softness and discipline. She presents with confidence, but speaks about sensitivity. She is highly visual, yet deeply reflective. Her interview reveal someone fascinated by identity and creativity. The inner life, rather than simply fashion itself. For LOVEWANT, Diana represents a modern kind of beauty: intelligent, self-aware and instinctive. The kind of woman who understands personal style, and that style is not something you invent overnight. It is something you refine and deepen over time. Looking at her work, you get the sense that she is less interested in becoming someone new than in becoming more completely herself. That is a far rarer quality than influence.

DIANA AVEL wears CHANEL ROUGE COCO HYDRA GLOSS on lips

"An image makes you feel something; words help you understand what you’re feeling and why."

There is a moment in the interview when Diana Avel describes herself as an ocean: calm from the shore, but a few steps in, suddenly deep. It is the sort of observation that stays with you because it explains more than a biography ever could. She trusts her own taste. Someone who has managed to retain a sense of self while living in an environment that constantly asks for reinvention. For LOVEWANT BEAUTY and CHANEL ROUGE COCO HYDRA GLOSS, Diana speaks about self-expression as recognition. The slow process of understanding what feels true and what does not. She reflects on privacy, creativity, beauty and the emotional pull of colour with a level of self-awareness that feels increasingly rare. What becomes clear is that Diana is less interested in standing out than in remaining connected to herself. The black wardrobe. The lip liner. The carefully chosen colours that shift with her moods. These are not signatures so much as clues, small traces of a rich inner life finding its way into the world. Perhaps that is why beauty feels so central to her perspective. Not as transformation, but as communication. A gloss, a colour, a gesture. Small things that reveal far more than they conceal.

Bartolomeo Celestino

What does self-expression mean to you today?

Diana Avel

I don’t think self-expression is about being the loudest and most shocking version of yourself. It becomes more interesting when it stops being about trying to look unique for the sake of being unique. The people I’m most drawn to feel very natural in themselves, even if they’re evolving constantly. It’s about refinement and moving in alignment with who you are at your core. Noticing what genuinely resonates with you and having the confidence to follow that instead of constantly adapting to what’s expected of you. It’s trusting your own taste even when it doesn’t make sense to everyone else. The older I get, the less interested I am in trying to be interesting and the more interested I am in sticking to what actually feels like me. I think the people who leave the biggest impression have a very rich inner world and you can feel traces of it in everything they do. I’ve never really had a rebrand. I’ve unintentionally always stuck to my core style, gradually adding layers to it with age, but the foundation has stayed the same. If you look through old photo albums of me, you’ll find similar silhouettes to what I’m wearing now. I’ve also always been drawn to wearing a lot of black. A friend pointed out that it might be because I have a baby face and got sick of being called cute, so I subconsciously gravitated towards dark colours to look more intimidating. What I find interesting is that self-expression often works like that. Sometimes the things that feel most natural to us are revealing something before we’ve consciously figured out why. My simple answer is still that black looks good and nothing beats the feeling I get when I wear it, but I’m not convinced that’s the whole story.

Bartolomeo Celestino

How do you balance authenticity with the pressure of constant visibility?

Diana Avel

I think authenticity gets misunderstood a little when it comes to the online universe. People assume it means showing everything, but for me, authenticity is more about making sure what you do share actually feels true to you. I’ve never wanted to be an open book online just for the sake of visibility. I believe privacy is important. There’s also definitely pressure to constantly post, constantly react, constantly turn your life into content, and I think that can sometimes disconnect people from themselves creatively. I’ve declined many opportunities which look desirable on paper but were just not the right fit for me. I believe what you say no to is more important than what you say yes to in the current online space. I try to focus more on creating things that genuinely feel aligned with my taste, my mood, and my instincts rather than feeding the algorithm every second. Ironically, I think people connect more when something feels intentional instead of overexposed.

"There’s contrast in the way I present myself, and people tend to pick up on whichever layer resonates most strongly with their own perceptions, insecurities, or desires, so no one will get the same version of me, including myself."

DIANA AVEL wears CHANEL ROUGE COCO HYDRA GLOSS on lips

"It’s about refinement and moving in alignment with who you are at your core."

Bartolomeo Celestino

Do you think your generation communicates more through image than words now?

Diana Avel

Mostly yes. I don’t think it’s a bad thing necessarily, images can hold emotion in a way words sometimes can’t. That said I don’t think words have become any less important, there’s still a real hunger for language and for people who can articulate what the rest of us struggle to say out loud. An image makes you feel something; words help you understand what you’re feeling and why. I work in a very visual industry and have so far stuck to visuals, as I’m not much of a writer myself. However, some of the things that have stayed with me the longest have been sentences. A poem, a line from a book, an interview, any piece of writing that suddenly puts shape to feelings I’ve had for years but never knew how to describe.

Bartolomeo Celestino

If your personal energy had a frequency or atmosphere, how would you describe it?

Diana Avel

If I had to describe the atmosphere, the closest imagery I have in mind is stepping into an ocean that looks calm from the shore but a few steps in it drops steeply into the deep. I think there’s a calmness to me on the surface but underneath it there’s intensity, sensitivity, ambition, creativity, anxiety, romanticism, perfectionism all happening at once. My mind moves very fast; my thoughts are like a million tabs open at once. It’s a little chaotic in there, but I don’t mind it. I am grateful to be so sensitive, I don’t think it’s a weakness at all. If anything, it’s attunement, I notice misalignment quickly and I notice when something feels emotionally strange, forced or disconnected from who I am. I don’t think my energy is immediately readable, to me at least it feels quite emotionally layered. Some probably see confidence, some see softness, some see fun, some see nostalgia. There’s contrast in the way I present myself, and people tend to pick up on whichever layer resonates most strongly with their own perceptions, insecurities, or desires, so no one will get the same version of me, including myself. Even I get a different frequency of myself every season.

"It reminded me that self-expression is knowing who you are but also leaving room to surprise yourself every now and then."

DIANA AVEL wears CHANEL ROUGE COCO HYDRA GLOSS on lips

"The older I get, the less interested I am in trying to be interesting and the more interested I am in sticking to what actually feels like me."

Bartolomeo Celestino

Do you think lips can communicate so much without saying anything? Confidence, humour, tension, softness. Do you think about expression in that way? and if so does beauty, gloss, or colour ever shift your mood or the version of yourself you project outwardly?

Diana Avel

“Who am I without my lipliner/gloss” is probably one of the most common captions I’ve seen in the recent years. For a long while now lips have become a point of focus when it comes to makeup, and for a good reason. Lips are so expressive, they’re like a channel between your inner world and the outside world. Despite me wearing black a lot, I do love colour. I love painting and art; I get bursts of dopamine from looking at a beautifully mixed colour. People assume I don’t like colour because I wear a lot of black, but that’s not really true. I’m just incredibly particular about colour. Certain tones make me feel completely like myself and others don’t. I have a big canvas in my lounge room that I plan to paint over every few months whenever my mood changes, just abstract art that focuses on different tones, colours, and textures. The colour I surround myself with on a particular day, whether through clothes, make up or objects around me does influence my mood a lot. I’ve never really seen beauty as becoming someone else. It’s usually the opposite. Certain colours, textures, or makeup looks make me feel more like myself, not less. When I want to feel confident and most like who I am at my core I wear smudged black eyeliner and a cool toned complexion. When I want to let the world in a little more and feel more vulnerable, I strip it way back to barely nothing but a lip (always with a lipliner, I would never feel like myself without it). When I want to feel fun and funky I wear a blue eyeshadow, or even burgundy eyelashes more recently. Doing the photoshoot for LOVEWANT put me outside of my comfort zone in the best way. I can become quite rigid with my look at times, and it was interesting to see myself through the eyes and vision of someone else. It reminded me that self-expression is knowing who you are but also leaving room to surprise yourself every now and then.