The women behind Bareface shaping beauty in the region for the past 25 years

Twenty-five years ago, Bareface consisted of a fax machine humming in a Dubai kitchen, a handful of photographs of an empty coastline, and two women, Justine Kirby and Venetia Maunsell, betting that the city could hold more than a stopover for London’s fashion crowd. What they built has been run, since 2020, by Vera Nur, who joined as an intern with no real idea what the job involved and never left. As Bareface marks its quarter-century milestone, the three women tell its story in their own words.

1997
KIRBY: Back in 1997, I came to Dubai with my husband because he got a great job opportunity. I’d been a model in London for ten years with a pretty leading agency, so I had a lot of experience, but I’d really come to the end of my modelling career. Within two or three months I realised that Dubai had massive potential as a shoot location. It was before the Burj Al Arab, before Jumeirah Beach Hotel. It was just large, expansive beaches. So I was in my kitchen, and I sent a few faxes to my clients in London. I went down and physically took some photographs, stuck them on a sheet, sent them by fax, and they said, great, well, if you can organise it. So that’s how it started. I was like a fixer and producer. I contacted airlines, hotels and locations, some would agree to barter deals – it meant I could fly crews out for less expense in return for credits in publications. It just snowballed from there.

1999
KIRBY: I met Venetia Maunsell because she was working for my husband at the time. Venetia was very much the finance and business brain. I was probably more the model management, the location-finding, people-oriented side. So, she was perfect, and we got on really well. We became partners in 1999, just doing production on shoots.

2001
KIRBY: It was during that time we were constantly being asked to cast models, find models, and there wasn’t really any real professionalism here, and there wasn’t a proper agency how I’d know it. So, we created Bareface in 2001, and took on our first staff.

Early 2000s
MAUNSELL: I was 23, maybe 24, and I just wanted to figure it all out. I taught myself the operations and processes side, the licensing, dealing with clients. Justine onboarded the models, found new faces, did the scouting. We taught ourselves, and I think that’s part of why Bareface is where it is – we didn’t have to do it the way a big corporate would. We could decide how we wanted to treat people. People started asking us for more than models – stylists, makeup artists, photographers – and over the next five years we developed all of those divisions. As Jumeirah grew, we worked closely with them as a preferred supplier facilitating their shoots.

Emirates Woman, April 2016

KIRBY: I would go back to London every summer for two months and go around all the production companies and say, come and shoot in Dubai. And they’d say, we’re not going to go and shoot in Dubai, women can’t do anything, no one can drive cars. I had to educate them and show them what it was actually like.

MAUNSELL: They were very worried about sending models to Dubai—there’d been bad reviews of what happened to people here. When they met us, they were like, Okay, we can trust them, our models will be looked after well. Then they’d start sending them, and we’d have them stay for two or three months.

KIRBY: I think Dubai did a brilliant job itself of marketing the country for tourism, alongside what we were doing. We were kind of right place, right time, as it grew together. And with us personally flying to these countries, meeting these agencies—two women—trusting us and knowing we’d look after their models, that was all based on feeling safe with us. Also from the early 2000s, Bareface’s talent began appearing in Emirates Woman shoots and covers, the start of a relationship between the two that has continued in the decades since.

2006
MAUNSELL: I had my first child in 2006, and at that time I decided to put a general manager in place, so I would work in the background. We’ve had different teams since, but all with the same values – that we’re people first, it’s about giving opportunities. Each general manager has their own style within that.

2009
KIRBY: I left in 2009, because of personal reasons, my children. Venetia Maunsell continued running things independently from there. To have fresh people coming in and running the agency over the years since – it’s only ever been a positive, exciting thing.

2014
NUR: The whole process for me was so exciting, and even the story of how I joined is a little bit ridiculous. I was interning for Grazia while finishing my last yearof studies, and I met their booker, Sarah Allen. I was so amazed by what she did for work, I was like, I want to be her. I barely knew what booking involved, but I asked her who she worked for, and she said Bareface. I decided, I’m going to work for Bareface, without having done any research. What struck me on their Instagram was how personable they were – birthdays in the office, farewells, funny moments. A business where you can see the people behind it. I started calling and hounding them and emailing them. I got an interview, showed up in flip-flops, and people were like, what are you doing, going to an interview with your toes out? I said, I will get this job, just leave me alone. They said there was no promise of a job, just an internship. I joined at Middle East Fashion Week, four days back-to-back of twelve to sixteen hours. I was thrown into the deep end, and I loved it. And then they ended up hiring me, which – I don’t think they had a choice, because I wasn’t leaving.

2020
NUR: I became general manager in 2020, and I’ve been leading it ever since. Once I joined, I saw the market opening up a lot more to different ethnicities, different looks, different body types. We started bringing in a lot of Latin American models, especially Brazilian, and at the same time we were heavily scouting locally too—Emirates, expat Arabs, South Asians—because there was this perception that modelling meant a bikini and a runway. There’s so much more to it. You could model for Emirates fully covered. We represent people from babies to people in their seventies.

Especially during Covid, I think we all had a chance to step back and think about what we wanted to leave behind, which direction we wanted to take.

2021
NUR: We decided to launch a project called TODAA – Talent of Determination and Alternative Appearance. The inspiration partly came from how the government here adapted the language, so you don’t say somebody’s handicapped, you say a person of determination. We saw this happening in Europe, and thought, nothing’s happening here, let’s push it and see how the market reacts. We had a casting for Huda Beauty, who were looking for one of their lightest shades, called Milkshake. We had a casting for four days and couldn’t find anyone to match it.

Then one of our bookers pointed out that we had a girl with albinism in the applicant pool – we hadn’t accepted her yet, because we were hesitating, thinking about what we could actually put her forward for. We don’t want to just take people on for the sake of it. But I said, are we open to casting her? They were so excited. We brought her in immediately, direct match, and she was in the campaign. We had another campaign with a local influencer and athlete who has Down syndrome, her name’s Clary – a beautiful Audrey Hepburn-inspired eyeliner shoot, one we’re really proud of. Then a few more with brands like Reebok. That’s something we took away from Covid – the inclusivity factor. That’s something that sets us apart, putting people first.

2023
Bareface partnered with the global inclusivity organisation Purple Tuesday and took part in Purple Tuesday’s Dubai event that November. In December, the agency launched Bareface Socials, a second Instagram account built around behind-thescenes content and its people-first culture.

2024
In February, Bareface’s TODAA division won the Special Project category at the Le Book Connect Dubai Creative Awards. Its long-running collaboration with Emirates Woman continued through the year with cover shoots in February and June and further editorial work that November.

Emirates Woman, March 2024

2025
Another Emirates Woman editorial followed in January, the latest chapter in a relationship between the two that stretches back to the early 2000s and has included shoots with brands such as Louis Vuitton, Dior Beauty, and Armani Exchange along the way.

25 years on
MAUNSELL: It’s difficult to know if there’s an actual pivot point. It’s not really. It’s almost like you do your thing every day, and as long as you stick to the values of it, you find you’re talking twenty-five years on, and you’ve still got people who love what they’re doing.

NUR: We haven’t had one pivotal moment, but it’s been a gradual build—new people coming in, new trends, new opportunities, and we adjust. We have longevity within the team, too. Our head of agency, Abid, has been here eleven years. I’ve been here twelve. Especially in Dubai, where that kind of longevity isn’t that common, we’re super proud. We’re women-founded, women run, a very supportive community, a very supportive working environment. It’s truly a place where people come first, whether professionally or personally.