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As I wait to speak to Jazzelle Zanaughtti from their home in New York City, the model/artist known more specifically on social media as @Uglyworldwide posts a video to their Instagram. In it, they’re perched on their bed, emotionally speaking to the camera.
“I feel like I can’t catch a f**king break,” they say while simultaneously crying and laughing. “But. But…”, they continue as they arrange an oversized, grey, elfin nightcap on their head “I did buy a really cool hat today.”
Zanaughtti, who goes by they/them pronouns, is not your average online fashion persona. Having amassed nearly 700,000 Instagram followers, the 28-year-old multidisciplinary artist creates escapist – sometimes illusionary – looks intended to challenge the beauty ideal.
“[For me] beauty comes in all different forms and sizes and places, and it’s not really something that can be defined. I guess, in a bit of a backwards statement, [I define] beauty by saying that it’s undefined,” they say.
There’s an irony in Zanaughtti’s alter ego, however, as they could not, in any way, be described as ugly. With flawless skin, a bleached pixie cut, coquettish eyes and the cheekbones of a young Kate Moss, their beauty is, in fact, quite classic. Perhaps this articulates their point even further, though, that beauty (and its antithesis) is simply a product of popular subjugation, and that none of it is really real.
Zanaughtti’s ‘Uglyworldwide’ brand is not anti-beauty, however, but rather set to push the boundaries of what one can do with the masquerade of fashion and makeup. Zanaughtti has used the platform to display everything from mesmerising silver bejewelled bunny teeth to bleached blue eyebrows to alien-core A.I. to crying tears of blood.
“I’m so down for anything,” they tell me. “I mean, I like to do everything with taste – but just general taste. It could be good taste, it could be bad taste. I’m down for the most basic look, I’m down for tacky, I’m down for crazy, I’m down for… I don’t know… even conservative. I can get into all of it. It’s just it has to have some type of feeling associated with it. It has to amount to something amazing.”
Most recently, Zanaughtti spent time at fashion month, attending shows including Area and Luar in New York in February, as well as the now famous Maison Margiela couture show in January (“[It was] the fashion I dreamed of as a child. The clothes, the hair, the makeup, it [gave] me hope for the industry,” they say) each time projecting an impressively curated, characterised look of their own.
“I love makeup and consider it a tool in my tool belt, [but] I definitely think for me it’s more about finding the character and leaning into the idiosyncrasies,” they explain. “For the [Luar] show I put on this big 3D, overdrawn lip. Technically, it was really good makeup, but my favourite part was this smile that I decided to put with it. [I did] the same smile the whole night. And for the Area show I put on, maybe, 12 pairs of lashes. It [looked] amazing… but I also couldn’t see it. I like to commit to the bit.”
Attending fashion shows and events, however, is only an aside to Zanaughtti’s career space. Perhaps most notable, is their connection to singer Rihanna – a serendipitous meeting seven years ago that developed into a unique collaborative working relationship.
“It still gags me. It gags me every day,” they say. “I first met her when I moved to New York in 2017. I was going to a casting and I [went] through the wrong door at Milk Studios. Theirs was a casting for a Fenty by Puma show and she [Rihanna] was just there. I was like, ‘I’m so sorry!’ But then we chit-chatted and I ended up doing that show with her, among a bunch of other projects.” Zanaughtti also released a capsule makeup line called Fenty Beauty X Jazzelle last year.
“I just really love and appreciate her as a person, and for being such a strong supporter of everything I do,” they continue. “It can be really hard out here, in this f**king industry, for people like me, and you really have to fight for everything you’ve got. So, when you have that co-sign from someone as influential as her, it really means the world.”
At 16, Zanaughtti dropped out of high school and a year later left home alone for Chicago. It became an era of experimentation and club-hopping for the teenager who had grown up as one of four siblings in the suburbs of Detroit. And though they credit their single mother with instilling in them their earliest impressions of innate beauty, it was their time in Chicago that was perhaps most life-changing.
“I was out and saw all of these beautiful freaks walking across the street from me. I was like, ‘Ooh, they look like the type that might buy me a pack of cigarettes’.” Zanaughtti laughs. “I walked up to them and they were just like, ‘Well, no, we won’t, but come talk to us’. They taught me a lot about self-expression, and what was beautiful. That was my life for a few years. But then it came down to the nitty gritty and I lost my s**t, I shaved my head. Then Nick Knight found me.”
Unbeknown to Zanaughtti, celebrated British fashion photographer Nick Knight had been following them on Instagram for a while. He approached them for a magazine project with Comme des Garçons and after that, life and work began to change. In addition to Fenty, the then 20-year-old went on to work with the likes of Nike, Gareth Pugh and Opening Ceremony. Despite the collaborations, social media remained Zanaughtti’s most accessible place for displaying their artistry. However, like many people who tussle with the ups and downs of a career in the digital sphere, its conflicting experience made for constant emotional perturbation.
“[There’s] this weird pressure around [social media] so I try to give myself as much of a break as I can to find my inner peace,” they say.
I enquire if it’s like when a hobby turns into a job? When the thing you once did with creative abandon becomes weighted by career expectations. Zanaughtti concurs. “You start to think, ‘Oh, is this the way that my brand should be?’ And suddenly you’re like, ‘What!? This used to be fun’,” they continue. “I’m not one to give too much of a f**k about anybody’s opinion in general but it’s ingrained into our heads. God, you can’t avoid it. [It’s like if] you post on Instagram and you don’t get as many likes or views as you usually would, even if you don’t care, there’s something in your brain making you sad about it.”
Obviously social media is a double-edged sword when it comes to building a creative persona, given that it’s both essential and mentally manipulating. However, as Zanaughtti points out, for all its faults the space creates a portal to places, people and attitudes that might once have been invisible.
“Social media, obviously it’s awful, but it does provide so much community for kids who don’t grow up in big cities or accepting families,” they say. “I definitely come from a background of being the odd one out, of not having too many friends and just always being a kind of weirdo. Of feeling like I didn’t have anybody on my side. So kids [today], at least they can see other people through these channels.”
This perspective, their ability to acknowledge the good with the bad, is refreshing and proof of a grounded maturity. Perhaps it also explains why they have begun separating their raucous on-camera life from their daily reality.
“Right now, I’m just kind of just settling into myself. I wear the same giant Balenciaga boots I’ve been wearing every single day since I got them a year ago,” they explain. “Literally, my toe prints have worn away at the inside of them. Then I wear a pair of oversized Telfar jeans and a black T-shirt. I’ll also either wear this big shearling coat [I have] or a really old Carhartt jacket I bought on eBay five years ago for $15. You wouldn’t even recognise me on the street. It’s very, very low key. I used to be somebody who walked around super loud in crazy colours but [now] I feel like there’s a time and place for that. I’m [just] trying to go about my day, be in my world and hang out with my dog.”
Taking on industries that have long been funded by a traditionalist view of beauty is a long haul. And while many brands have been making changes for the better, ensuring the move is less token and more organic is an ongoing battle.
“I do think we’ve come a long way, but obviously there’s always work to be done,” they muse. “Hopefully now there are a lot more people speaking up and using their voices, really fighting for change. I think it’s going to be a f**king never-ending battle, but it’s a battle we must fight.”
I assert that they are one of the fighters.
“Exactly,” they reply. “Don’t talk about it. Be about it.”
While fighting from the squares of social media might sometimes make this war feel like a lonely one, Zanaughtti’s knack for creating avant-garde inspiration and inclusiveness is something to be proud of.
“It’s a real honour to have some type of impact on somebody’s life, and I’m happy that I can bring some type of light into people’s lives,” they say.
This light will undoubtedly grow as beauty and fashion ethers exponentially evolve, making the possibilities for creativity from @Uglyworldwide unlimited. And while Zanaughtti’s life, like everyone else’s, is a constant mix of emotions, the low days only make space for reflecting on how far they have come – and how they’ve done most of it on their own.
“It’s crazy to look back on the journey I’ve been on,” they reflect. “It’s just been an absolute blessing every day, and I’m so happy for all the opportunities I’ve had and all the amazing people I’ve gotten to work with along the way. It’s obviously an uphill battle, but I’m very proud of myself. I’ve worked very, very hard to get here. I wouldn’t change a thing about how I got here, or some of the bridges I may have burned while standing up for what I believe in. I keep true to myself. Not a damn thing has ever been handed to me, and it’s still not.”
EXPLORE GRAZIA’s FULL PHOTO SHOOT WITH JAZZELLE AKA UGLY WORLDWIDE HERE.
CREATIVE DIRECTION: MARNE SCHWARTZ & DANÉ STOJANOVIC
PHOTOGRAPHY: TAREK MAWAD
FASHION DIRECTION: ANNA CASTAN
HAIR: JEAN-LUC AMARIN
MAKEUP: ANNA SADAMORI
MANICURE: NAFISSA DJABI
SET DESIGN: ISABELLE CLOTTEN
LIGHTING ASSISTANT: SANTIAGO HENDRIX
SET ASSISTANT: REKA GARDAI
FASHION ASSISTANTS: CHRISTIAN MARCHESICH & GABRIELA CAMBERO
PRODUCER: JOHANA V. DANA
TALENT: JAZZELLE ZANAUGHTTI / THE SOCIETY MANAGEMENT
TOP BANNER IMAGE: DRESS, ALEXANDER MCQUEEN, SHOP SIMILAR
