For the Beauty Issue, Bazaar talked to four of the moment's most compelling models about their own philosophies of beauty. Below, Devyn Garcia on the power of keeping it real.
The most beautiful person I know is my mom. She loves using natural oils; she rolls them on and layers them. I don’t know if it’s her pheromones, but they smell so good on her. Any woody or beachy scent reminds me of my dad. Growing up in Miami he always wore one of the Tom Ford colognes with wood, and he smelled salty from when he went surfing.
I’m half Cuban and have a really small family. Nochebuena we celebrate; we do the whole cake with the baby Jesus inside and whoever gets the little Jesus has good luck. I love cooking with my grandma, we make malanga frituras. She was an aesthetician and has so many beauty things she swears by—iodine on little pimples coming up, she always gives me that.
In Miami Beach you're surrounded by beautiful people and the idea is you put the makeup on, pick the nice outfit, and get pretty to go out. And that’s amazing, but you at home after you just took a shower is already so beautiful. I’ve done shoots where they did pretty much no makeup and those are my favorites, when it's just you, raw—the person rather than the mannequin.
My favorite thing about myself is my skin. It does best when there isn’t too much going on, so currently my routine is cleanser to take off the grime, a moisturizer, and sometimes a vitamin C serum. And sunscreen, on good days. When I was a kid we only wore sunscreen to go to the beach. I do ice rolling and use my hands for a little massage every day. My mom showed me some face exercises to keep it tight. I’ll see her in the mirror and she’ll be stretching her eyebrows and squinting and I’ll be like, “What are you doing?” She’ll say, “I'm keeping my face younger.”
I love a jasmine milk tea before I go on set and stretch just to loosen the body up. I get a lot of anticipation right before I go on the runway. I tell myself, “Okay. Strong walk. Feel confident. You're beautiful. You're sexy. You’re tall, and strong, and elongated. Just look at the cameras and look through the cameras!” And then when I get there, I'm like, okay, blank; I don't know what I'm doing or what's going on.
I did an Alexander McQueen shoot where they put me in a red leather corset dress; I was obsessed with it, obsessed. But my favorite outfit ever is jeans, a tank top, and sneakers. I feel the most confident in that.
I don't want to say I get lost, but I do get ahead of myself sometimes when I'm working on these jobs with people who have a bigger reputation and models who are “the prettiest in the world.” I feel like I should put them on a pedestal and maybe put myself on a pedestal, but then I'm like, hold on, take a step back, everyone is still human. At the end of the day we all started as babies and we all die, and nothing comes with us once we pass.
When I feel really, really down, what helps me is eating a good meal and sweating, any type of sweating, like a sauna or a hot bath or a workout to just release something.
The most beautiful moment I had this year was meeting my partner in Paris. He lives there and I was there for Fashion Week. We met after I walked the Valentino show and he took me around the whole city on bikes. When he dropped me off he asked, “Can I kiss you?” I said, “Yes, I've been waiting.” It was such a magical movie moment.
Paris is one of the most beautiful places to me, also Chile, and Baja California, Mexico, and the Canary Islands. When I'm home in New York I love going to Domino Park in Williamsburg; seeing the water during sunset and soaking in the sun’s rays makes me feel really good and really myself.
Recently, I thought about getting a car, because back home in Miami you need a car to drive around, and just going for a drive and listening to music is one of the most calming things for me. My favorite artist is The XX. Every single one of their songs is my favorite. But honestly, I love sitting in silence too and just letting everything be present.
This article originally appeared in the May 2023 issue of Harper's Bazaar.
Hair: Esther Langham using Oribe; makeup: Romy Soleimani; manicure: Rica Romain for Mother Nailture; casting: Anita Bitton at the Establishment; production: Paige Phillips at Art + Commerce; set design: Gerard Santos; digital design: Perri Tomkiewicz
Video | Director/Producer: Joel David Ahumada, Assistant Director/PA: Shahid Barraza, Director of Photography: Dan Dai, Editors: Malique Daniels and Chris Green
Rosa Sanchez is the senior news editor at Harper's Bazaar, working on news as it relates to entertainment, fashion, and culture. Previously, she was a news editor at ABC News and, prior to that, a managing editor of celebrity news at American Media. She has also written features for Rolling Stone, Teen Vogue, Forbes, and The Hollywood Reporter, among other outlets.
