Delphine Breyne
She Had Everything. She Left It All. Twice.
From French Model to New York Beauty Founder - Recorded at Cannes Film Festival 2026
"When doors close,
you knock harder.
And the right people appear
exactly when you need them."
""When someone sits in my chair after chemo, I'm not restoring beauty. I'm restoring confidence and self-love.".
"I walked Manhattan with a photograph asking strangers if they had a space that looked like my vision board."
"I left everything. Two suitcases.
That was it."
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At thirty-six, she packed two suitcases and moved to Miami alone. What came next was years of starting from zero: a sponsor who disappeared before the paperwork was signed, savings running out, English classes every night after castings, and a green card that arrived in six months when her lawyer had never seen one move that fast.
Then came the pivot. Twenty-four certificates in microblading. Nine months working for free. A vision board photograph she carried through the streets of Manhattan during COVID, asking concierges if anyone in their building had a space that looked like her picture.
They did. Delphine Eyebrow Couture opened in New York. Three months later, a beauty editor came in for her eyebrows and filed the story to Vogue.
But the chapter that defines her most is the one that followed: the women who came to her chair not for beauty, but through chemotherapy, alopecia, and cancer. And the docu-series, Heal avec Delphine, that grew from those encounters.
This conversation was recorded at Cannes Film Festival 2026, where Delphine was pitching the series to potential backers.
She held nothing back.
Most guests on Living the Dream chose the French Riviera as their second chapter. Delphine did the opposite. She left France.
The youngest of eight children in a small town in northern France, Delphine started modelling at fifteen after a local photographer made her portfolio for free. What followed was a twenty-five year international career, a seventeen-year relationship, and a house she had spent six years building.
As featured in:
Photos and visuals courtesy of Delphine Breyne. All rights reserved
More Women Who Bet Everything on Themselves
Delphine's episode is a bonus episode, and the first on Living the Dream featuring a guest who moved away from France rather than toward it. If her story of determination and reinvention resonates with you, you may also enjoy Catherine's journey from nurse to global entrepreneur based in Cannes, Flavia's work as a career and transition strategist, and Vicky's path to financial independence on the French Riviera.
Season Two: women who reinvented their careers on the French Riviera, is coming soon.
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