Renell Medrano Talks ICE Vol. 3, Hailey Bieber, and Where Her Magazine Will Go Next

After capturing the baddest, most fierce faces in New York City and Atlanta, Georgia, the photographer and artist Renell Medrano has gone all the way to South America for her latest issue of ICE magazine. ICE Vol. 3 heads to Rio de Janeiro for its first international edition, featuring a range of Brazil-based “ICE Girls” (most of whom were street-cast for the project, excluding, of course, cover star Hailey Bieber, who also just appeared on the inaugural issue of WYouth). Juliana Nalú, Tina Kunakey, Evellin Andrade, and Alicia Thompson also have covers alongside the street-cast models, who pose in front of breathtaking sights in Rio, from beaches to favelas and nightlife districts. The photographs capture a sense of sexuality and femininity the subjects wholly own themselves.

Below, Medrano talks with creative director and WYouth editor Ava Nirui about working with Bieber, what makes a true “ICE Girl,” and where the Bronx native will head for Vol. 4.

Ava Nirui: Hi!

Renell: Well, hello, sweetheart!

Ava: How are you?

Renell: I’m all right, just running around like a crazy person.

Ava: The issue is so fucking good. I was just reading through it.

Renell: You’re gonna gag when you see it in person. It’s huge. I don’t know how I shot that in two days.

Ava: Two days?

Renell: Two days in Brazil, girl.

Ava: Stop! You’re such a beast. Can you tell me about your casting process for ICE magazine? What do you look for in an ICE girl?

Renell: An ICE girl has always been about her energy and what she represents, what she stands for. I started off with street casting, because the people around me, where I’m from, inspired me in my work. I wanted to highlight all different types of girls, you know? Not just celebs and the models, just around-the-way girls, because what I was brought up with. I had a casting call in New York for issue one—

Ava: —With the giant lines down the block.

Renell: Yeah! That one. That’s what really started it. I wanted to have a platform where I could express myself and let the girls express themselves. It’s for the woman’s gaze, to be honest. Like, I don’t do this for the guys. It’s so cute, because the girls all become friends after the casting calls, after the shoots. It’s a community of girls, and they all want to be hot.

Ava: Have you made a lot of friends through this process as well?

Renell: Oh my god, 100 percent. Every time I do an issue, I just get obsessed with all the girls all over again. They all support each other, you’ll see them under each other’s posts, commenting. They’re just bros.

The celebrity thing is not—I won’t say it’s dead, but I just feel like there’s so much more.

Ava: You’re including real people, your friends, and your universe. In the Hailey story, it’s like you guys have been friends for a really, really long time. It feels authentic.

Renell: That’s who I am, that’s what my work is. Out of all the girls that I know in the industry, Hailey, to me, is an ICE girl—her attitude, her sex appeal. Also, she’s half Brazilian. People don’t even know!

Ava: How did her being featured in the magazine come about?

Renell: Hailey found out I was doing the Brazil issue, and she was like, “I need to be in it.” I was like, “Obviously!” You know me, I’m not the type to just be like, “Let’s throw a celebrity on.” With her, it just felt really natural. On set, it was just us being girls.

Ava: Why did you choose Brazil?

Renell: A lot of the girls were hitting me up, saying, “Come to Brazil, come to Brazil.” I’d never been, but I also know they understand Spanish. Since I’m Dominican, there was a familiarity; it felt like I was at home. And it’s always a thing that the girls are hot in Brazil. They just know how to turn it on. These girls that have never been shot before, I wasn’t guiding any of them, and they knew what to do.

Ava: The book has some super-sexy images juxtaposed against religious landmarks and iconography. Why did you want to put those two things next to each other?

Renell: Growing up being Dominican, my family was very religious. And it’s just funny—we’re super-religious, but then we have all this sex appeal, right? We try to separate those things so much that I just felt like, Why? I said it before: God is definitely a woman, for sure.

Ava: What was your inspiration for the graphic design and overall aesthetic of the book?

Renell: When I went to Brazil, it felt like such a raw place. It was perfect, but the imperfections there were what really inspired me; in D.R., it’s the same thing. The binding on the magazine tied it all together—the photos are precious, but the binding is still raw.

Ava: All the pages like feel like posters to me. They could go up on someone’s wall.

Renell: That’s the whole part of ICE mag. I always want it to feel like a collectible.

Ava: Last question: can you give us any clues on where you might want to go in the next issues of ICE? Obviously, D.R.

Renell: Well, D.R. I don’t want to do right away. I haven’t told anyone, but I think I want to do a “Daddy” issue, which is an issue dedicated to men—nine-to-five dudes, construction workers, behind-the-scenes guys, they all need love. Just for the one time!

Produced in partnership with the arts platform of WeTransfer, WePresent, ICE magazine is now available for free download in both Portuguese and English Editions. Limited physical copies are also available on icestudios.shop, in New York at Casa Magazines, Iconic Magazines, Soho News International, and at select international stockists.