How can synthetic ingredients transform the beauty industry?

Francisco Costa The founder of pioneering brand Costa Brazil on how to complement fair-trade practices with biotechnology Writer

-  Mary Cleary

Imagine if you could recreate almost any substance using fermented yeast and sugar cane. Sounds impossible, right? According to Francisco Costa, the former creative director of womenswear at Calvin Klein and now founder of the beauty brand Costa Brazil, not only is it possible, he’s already doing it.

When Costa tells me this over tea in London, I’m inclined to think I must be misunderstanding. After all, Costa Brazil’s unique selling point is its use of natural Amazonian ingredients such as kaya, a skin moisturising superfood extracted from the pods of the sapucaia tree; cacay, a vitamin-E packed nut that contains retinol; and, most significantly, breu, a resin extracted from the almaciga tree that’s used to relieve anxiety and improve the appearance of skin.

Costa was born in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais and lived there until his mother’s untimely death in the mid-1980s, which spurred him to move to New York and study fashion. There, he took language courses at Hunter College during the day and classes at the Fashion Institute of Technology at night. After graduation, he quickly landed a position at Oscar de la Renta before becoming chief womenswear designer at Tom Ford-era Gucci, and then creative director of womenswear at Calvin Klein, where he released collections that honoured the brand’s signature ‘Calvin clean’ minimalism in a manner that was distinctly his own.