It’s an unusually cosy autumn day in Los Angeles, and Devon Lee Carlson is making the most of it, dressed in a pink hoodie adorned with small florals in her home tucked away in the hills. Her dog, Daisy, sits on her lap. Carlson’s face is bare, save for rosy cheeks – a signature almost as famous as her smile. For years now, the model and entrepreneur has been a fixture in the fashion industry. But as she enters her 30s with the company she started over a decade ago, her two dogs, actor boyfriend, every major fashion house knocking, and a summer that saw her walking shows in Paris, Carlson is as she’s always been: just a girl who’s happy to be here.
Devon Lee Carlson learned early that beauty could be performance. Growing up as a dancer, she remembers always being interested in the costuming part, including doing her own hair and make-up for competitions. “From kindergarten on, I wouldn’t let my Mum even do my hair. I always loved getting ready,” she says. Thanks to having a ‘young, cool’ Mum, her parents’ bathroom was never short on make-up, hair products, and fragrances to raid. She’d watch YouTube tutorials, every episode of the pageant reality show Toddlers and Tiaras, and saved her allowance to buy Giorgio Armani’s Luminous Silk Foundation.
In 2012, Carlson launched Wildflower Cases with her family after her mum began making custom phone cases for her daughters that were coveted amongst their friends. A year later, she began a YouTube channel with day-in-the-life vlogs and GRWMs, one of which has over half a million views. This early digital footprint, combined with an Instagram she started at 17 and close friendships with the likes of then-burgeoning model Bella Hadid, cemented Carlson as part of the new-age online fashion canon. But it’s her personal style, authenticity, and the candid way she connects with her audience – the way she somehow sells every aspect of her lifestyle with an effortless sincerity influencers today should study at school – that’s kept her there.
When a vlog was first sent to me in London by a friend in 2020, Carlson was still a relatively IYKYK fashion girl-model-entrepreneur. Now, she’s designed for Marc Jacobs and Reformation, starred in Balenciaga campaigns, walked for Coperni and Proenza Schouler, and worked with CHANEL, Saint Laurent, and Gucci. Her smile is so famous it was name-checked in Charli XCX’s Speed Drive, for which Carlson stars in the music video. A popular Wildflower case is a zoomed-in image of her grin. “My resting face is a smile,” Carlson says. “I used to be the only one who would smile. Then I got insecure about it. I was like, ‘Oh, fuck, am I supposed to be more serious?’ But when I started going to the shows, people would ask, ‘Can I get a smiling one?’ and I was like, ‘Oh, okay.’ I don’t think everything I put out is 100 per cent happy butterflies, but I don’t know. I’m just a happy girl. I’m literally a dog.”
There’s a warmth to Carlson that feels unshakeable, an ease that seems to come from knowing herself, and being comfortable in that. It’s sellable – which brands have noticed – and enviable, of course. But most of all, it’s refreshing. Carlson, and the way she exists in her own skin, feels grounded in a way that’s so often lacking in the industry and wider influencer space. Even when she talks about beauty, it’s less about perfection and more about feeling good in the version of herself she’s putting into the world. “‘I’ve always been pretty headstrong in terms of what I like and what I don’t,” Carlson says. “I didn’t get Instagram ‘til I was 17, so I had a pretty strong idea of who I was before I was even heavily on the internet. I think that definitely helped with my perception.”
In high school, Carlson started breaking out badly. “I just had acne that would not go away, no matter what I did.” After many failed attempts at fixes, she went on Accutane, which changed her skin and confidence. “I still deal with flare-ups,” she says, then lists a routine that shows the beauty obsessive beneath the carefree image. “You know when you get sick and you can feel it coming? I’m like that, but with my skin. I’ll double cleanse my face and double dose on benzoyl peroxide, morning and at night. If I do this and don’t wear any make-up, it usually goes away. If it’s really bad, you can get a cortisone shot or do laser genesis.”
Carlson grew up in Thousand Oaks, just outside Los Angeles, where leggings and Uggs were the uniform. Britney Spears and Miley Cyrus were major influences. “When the video of Miley smoking a bong got leaked, I cried,” she shares. She adored pop stars like Rihanna and Beyoncé, actors like Cameron Diaz and Angelina Jolie, the 90s supers. Jane Birkin and Betsey Johnson for always being themselves. “I liked people with strong personalities across the board. Women who weren’t afraid to be women.” Carlson remembers loving Kim Kardashian’s make-up looks when she was a kid. “I was obsessed with her eyebrows. I would take pictures of Kim Kardashian to get mine waxed. I’ve had basically the same influences in my life since I was a child. I’ve always thought strong women are the pinnacle.”
I tell Carlson I’ve lived in L.A. for three years, and, despite living on the opposite side of the city from the flashy clinics of Beverly Hills, have never been more aware of my physical appearance. “I think Los Angeles influenced me the way that where anyone lives, and what’s trending there, is a part of their ethos,” Carlson says. “But I’m not really adventurous beyond just trying to look like the healthiest, best version of myself. In L.A., you have a lot of access to make that happen, but – and maybe it’s because I was a little older when the plastic surgery trends were all happening – that didn’t really ever interest me.”
Part of what makes Carlson so popular is the inclusive way she behaves online: when filming vlogs, just as her audience is excited to watch Carlson give them a glimpse into otherwise closed doors, she, too, is excited to be there. At a Gucci event recently, her friend, who works for the House, told her, ‘You’re always the last one standing.’ “Most of the parties, or anything fashion-related to go to, I’m not thinking about when I can leave, or how much longer I have to be there. I’m making the most of every situation.” Still, she’s discerning about when to film and when to simply be in the moment. “A lot of it is being able to read a room. I get imposter syndrome all the time, hence wanting to document it and share it. But I don’t whip out my camera if it’s going to disturb the peace. Let’s let the moment happen. I hate when things are disturbed.”
Carlson has been seeing the same facialist, Sharlena Hassani, for a decade after trying to book an appointment with Hassani’s boss and not being able to get in. Now, Hassani is so renowned, she counts some of Carlson’s beauty crushes as clients. “I’m a rash girl, and she always helps me out right away.” Due to her temperamental skin, Carlson is picky about what she uses and notices that whenever she has to get her make-up done a lot, she’ll break out. “I always tell make-up artists not to use foundation because I’m scared they’re going to make me look cakey, and because I talk so much. I always avoid it near my smile lines around my eyes and mouth, especially.” A lot of the references Carlson looks to for beauty and make-up are from the 90s or the early 2000s, photos of models and actors who mostly weren’t ever super dolled up. “They let their skin look like skin. And if they had a breakout, they didn’t hide it. It was just kind of there. You’d still wear blue eyeshadow, but not completely covered up, and I think that ages better. The make-up looks I regret are always the ones where I’m covered in foundation, I’m like, ‘God, I look crazy’.”
Carlson’s day-to-day beauty routine is similarly simple, consisting of blush, lip liner (she has “around 200” of Make Up For Ever’s Anywhere Caffeine pencils), and, if she’s feeling like she needs something extra, brow gel. “I swear my skin secret is keeping a cream blush in your pocket and putting it on before you leave your car. It just makes you look alive.” Carlson’s friend recently asked who she was seeing for her skin and she said it was just the blush. They tried some then laughed, “They were like, ‘Oh, my God, yes, it’s the blush’.” She’ll sometimes use two creams and always sets them with a powder. “You gotta put some cream in there,” she tells me in a serious, life or death tone.“It will be life-changing.”
Skincare is very ‘less is more’, too. “I try to keep it simple. I don’t wash my face like crazy, unless I’m breaking out. I use micellar water sometimes just before bed, but I’m pretty relaxed about it.” But despite this no-foundation, low-key skincare regime, Carlson is adamant not to be labelled as low maintenance. “I mean, I was getting spray tans when I was in middle school. I love the pageantry of being a girl,”she says. “My friend and I always talk about how my dream if I didn’t have Wildflower would be to have a one-stop shop for prom. It would be full of prom and homecoming dresses that are all really cool, and attached to a hair and make-up salon. You can go there, you can get a spray tan, and your nails done. The whole thing.”
Despite avoiding lasers because a mystic once told her not to get them in the middle of an otherwise skincare-unrelated session, Carlson still finds ways to experiment. She does microneedling, has tried Aquagold, and salmon sperm. “I’ll try anything that’s hydrating, rejuvenating, or shrinking.” She did SoftWave this year and is waiting for the results to show. “Basically, what I’m trying to say is, I’m not a low-maintenance girl. I’m definitely high-maintenance to stay low-maintenance. I’m not like, ‘Yeah, I don’t wear any make-up.’ Like, no, babe. I’m like, ‘I’ve had three facials this week.’”
These treatments have increased as she’s gotten older, but at 31, Carlson is loving ageing so far. “I’m not really trying to prevent it. I’m just trying to do it gracefully. I look at older women, and I’m excited. I’m like, dude, I’m gonna be so awesome.” She knows sleep and water are essential. “It’s definitely scary to see yourself be affected by, like, drinking the next day. I’ve been getting a lot of under-eye bags I never used to get, and if I don’t sleep, I can see it on myself, which never used to be a thing. So, I think it’s more just, it’s inspiring me to take better care of myself. But at the same time, when I’m ready for the facelift, like, fuck it, I’m sure I’ll do it.”
The night before a big event, Carlson will use an expensive but effective CO2 mask. She’s also gotten really into body care – a thick moisturiser on neck and chest, Cyklar Body Oil Balm after the shower – and one non-negotiable: Patrick Ta’s Major Glow Balm, her most ‘life-changing product’ for a night out. “The recent Saint Laurent show, where my shirt is unbuttoned, that shiny glow on my chest,” she says, holding up her Instagram grid. “Same with Gucci in the pink dress. I’m completely covered in it. At the Venice Film Festival? You best believe. Head to toe.”
Carlson’s long brunette hair is almost as integral to her look as her smile is. For this, she thanks her dad. “I owe all of my nice locks to him.” Other than a brief stint of being blonde when she was 21, she’s always been brunette, trying every shade of dark tones that she could. Last year, her hair was markedly darker, almost black, than the shade she is now. She tells me Christine Silverman was colouring her hair – “she is best.” But to get it back to its medium brown, almost natural colour, with added lowlights, she went to Jacob Schwartz, a longtime friend, whose client list consists of Margot Robbie, Bella Hadid and Charli XCX. In an industry that rewards constant reinvention, Carlson’s refusal to chase trends feels quietly radical. As she talks, I catch myself deciding to also go lighter. It’s this indescribable trait that makes her so influential. “I do a hair mask here and love a gloss. If my hair feels like dingy, a clear gloss adds so much,” she says.
We’ve been talking for almost an hour and a half, a long time for any profile, let alone one almost specifically tied to one topic alone. “I could talk about this forever,” Carlson says. “All my best friends, all we talk about is, like, ‘I just did this. You guys should go do this’. We definitely want to share the wealth. Even my boyfriend, I’m like, ‘let’s get a skincare routine going’. Let’s all help each other look and feel our best. Because what’s the point of one person walking around looking great, and everyone else is not?”
Carlson is someone who embodies how we should relate to beauty today: she’s aware of its artifice, but still finds joy in it. Her approach feels collaborative, not competitive. She doesn’t gatekeep, and has no interest in pretending that being a woman is effortless. Instead of chasing youth, she’s focused on maintaining her sense of self.
The next day, while I’m writing this piece at an East L.A coworking space, my friend pauses as she walks past. “You look pretty,” she says. My face is bare, other than one product. “Thanks, I have blush on,” I reply.
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PHOTOGRAPHY Tatiana & Karol
FASHION Teanne Vickers
TALENT Devon Lee Carlson
HAIR Ruby Howes
MAKEUP Leana Ardeleanu
SET DESIGN Beata Duvaker
PHOTOGRAPHER’S ASSISTANT Wojtek Kacprzak
STYLIST’S ASSISTANT Isabella Orozco
PRODUCTION Deux Deux Deux
CREATIVE STUDIO & CAMPAIGNS MANAGER Olivia Repaci
