Jacques Burga
From a bold red lip to her essential wardrobe staples, multi-hyphenate Valentina Hites shares her secrets to timeless beauty.
With feminine silhouettes, braided coiffures, and feline flicks, Old Hollywood glamour is an enduring era that inspires many, from designers to content creators: high-shine finger waves, form-fitting dresses, and shimmery diamonds find their way onto the red carpet. Lady Gaga, Yara Shahidi, and Amal Clooney often evoke this spirit on the red carpet. Journalist Valentina Hites does the same, but in real life.
Hites is a journalist and creative director of ISSUE, a creative studio that works with brands like Chanel, Ferragamo, Yves Saint Laurent, Tiffany & Co., and Cartier. From a young age, she has always known she belonged in fashion—always collecting fashion magazines and books as a child. “[I used to try on] my mom’s heels and walk all over the house thinking they fitted me perfectly,” Valentina Hites tells Vogue Philippines. Her mom owned a clothing store in Santiago, Chile and she would stay there for hours watching the stylish and powerful women that entered the store.
Drawing inspiration from icons like Brigitte Bardot and Jane Birkin, Hites shines a spotlight on laissez-faire beauty. Her love and passion for film transcends into her everyday ensembles in the form of backless body-skimming dresses, tailored suits, and feathered frocks that are frequently found in French New Wave films.
Classic Beauty
A casual look at her Instagram account reveals that Hites is almost never without her beauty signatures: smoky eyes paired with nude lips, or a fluttery lashes and a bold red lip. For those looking to cop her full pout, she shares a beauty tip, a deviation from the gloss-and-liner combination: “I use a brown eyeliner in my lips, blending it also with a nude color inside,”
Even her skincare is classic, as she cites tried-and-tested products that include vitamin C, retinol, and sunscreen. “[I] always take care of my makeup before I go to sleep. I use a vitamin C serum and hydrating cream and I [also] exfoliate my skin once a week with retinol,” she shares.
Beyond just skincare though, she maintains that internal self-care is just as important, if not more so. “For me, it’s very important to connect with myself and [my] emotions,” she says. “I’ve learned so many breathing techniques that keep me stable. It’s about living [in] the present and [in] the moment. [As they say] ‘carpe diem.’”
Fashion Wise
A vintage collector who is obsessed with sheer dresses, Valentina raves about the ’90s and ’00s as the periods for barely-there dresses emphasizing Yves Saint Laurent, John Galliano, and Tom Ford as “masters.”
And while not one to shy away from body-baring fashion, Hites suggests backless dressing as an alternative to micro-minis. “If I don’t want [to] show too much leg like Mireille Darc in Le Grand Blond,” she says. “[It’s] all about the balance of looking sexy, effortless, but elegant at the same time.”
Another key wardrobe investment for those looking to cop Hites’ look: pointy leather boots, preferably from Tom Ford for Gucci or Sergio Rossi. She pairs them with Levi’s jeans (Hites is also partial to Isabel Marant’s denim) and a white button-down or t-shirt, giving the classic look “a sexy touch of drama.” Take it further and add a tailored jacket “with big shoulder pads of the Christophe Decarnin-Balmain era” and you can achieve a Hites-approved look.
From sultry costumes to envious beauty looks, French New Wave films inform her aesthetic heavily. She references Catherine Deneuve in Belle de Jour and The Hunger, as well as The Eyes of Laura Mars. For Hites, By The Sea starring Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt has been a style-heavy muse for the young journalist.
“The cinematic atmosphere, mood, colors, acting and styling were [an] exquisite representation of the’ 60s era,” she says. A style-conscious film buff, Hites creates cinematic fashion films for the biggest luxury fashion houses (Cartier and Chanel to name a few) in the hopes of mixing her three passions: fashion, art, and cinema.
“I’m a storyteller and I dream [of] telling fantasies and making the public part of it,” she shares. “It’s all about having a signature style and seeing what works [for] you.”
Photography by Jacques Burga. Hair by Leslie Thibaud. Makeup by Camille Arnaud. Production by Piergió Joremia Location: Studio Joremia, 18 Rue Domat, 75005 Paris.
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