For anyone who’s listening who might not have an encyclopedic knowledge of your career as I do, can you give a little bit of context to your origin story and how you first fell in love with makeup?
I always had an interest growing up. I was born and raised in the Bronx, a child of Albanian immigrant parents from Montenegro. Super old-school, super old-fashioned.
A super kind of also suppressed childhood, because I always knew I was slightly different and interested in things like beauty and supermodels and MTV and pop stars.
I always kept that quiet and to myself. I always had an interest in beauty, because I remember also when I was young watching my oldest sister, Vicky, apply lipstick before she went to school or she teased her hair.
I was always fascinated by the transformation aspect of that. There was something there that inspired me.
After high school, I went to Manhattan to look for a job. I stumbled across Sephora—which was the Rockefeller Center Sephora—and it was three stories.
Sephora was a new concept in the United States at the time. I remember walking in, and my mom was with me.
She immediately took me through the revolving doors and spun me back outside. She’s like, “No, no. This is not for you this place.”
I think she saw these guys that had makeup on, and she was like, “Oh, no, no, no.”
Long story short, I eventually got hired. I wound up even calling the headquarters in France to ask why wasn’t being hired. So I had an interview, and I got the job.
I used to stand by the door and hold baskets and say, “Welcome to Sephora. Welcome to Sephora.” All day.
This woman asked me, there was this gondola full of hundreds of lipsticks, and she was overwhelmed. She asked me to help her choose a lipstick, and for a second, I was like, “Oh my god, what am I going to do?”
Because I want to do it, but I’m not supposed to, because it’s not my job.
I specifically remember the color. It was this reddish, almost Benetint-y kind of shade. I gave it to her, and she tried it on.
She was just like, “Oh.” She goes, “I love this. Thank you so much.” That little experience, it was an epiphany.
It somehow gave me this confidence that I had never felt before in my life.
That’s it. This is what I want to do. This is my world. This is what I want to work toward.
Madeline Hill
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