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In 1981, American photographer Irving Penn trained his lens on a blue-eyed model putting in a contact lens. It was Penn's stylised snapshot that first led Fulvia Farolfi to set her sights on working with photographers. "It was this picture that started it all", says Farolfi by phone from New York's Southhampton, recalling the model's pearlescent green-gold eyeshadow. "I knew this was what I was going to do".

Farolfi was born and raised in Bologna, a city in Italy's north noted for its historic architecture. At high school, Farolfi specialised in science subjects including chemistry and physics; she also harboured ambitions of training to become a professional athlete, with 100-meter hurdles her speciality. All the while, make-up and its beauty-enhancing qualities left a lasting impression on Farolfi. "My earliest memory is of a gym teacher at middle school", she says. "She was a brunette with green eyes and she wore nothing but [a flick of] eyeliner, which had a shiny finish. I was mesmerised by this eyeliner".

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