9 posts tagged "Altuzarra"
Seeing Red
Last Spring, blue made a strong case for eye makeup color of the season, as liners and shadows in shades that ranged from aqua and turquoise to cobalt and navy turned up on the runways in full force. And it’s proved a hard habit to kick for Fall, too, as makeup artists like Diane Kendal and Hannah Murray have turned to midnight and robin’s-egg iterations of the hue at shows like Jason Wu and Topshop Unique, respectively. But there’s another color that’s staking a claim to the season, and it’s a rather unexpected one at that. “There’s a sort of seventies feeling to it,” James Kaliardos said of MAC’s forthcoming Rusted Red cream eye shadow that he blended onto lids backstage at Diane von Furstenberg, which followed a similar move by Charlotte Tilbury at Prabal Gurung, where she used the ruddy color to create a fresh, young, stained effect on eyes. In their more saturated outings, cranberry lids have showed up at Cynthia Rowley, courtesy of Romy Soleimani and her trusty compact of Stila Eyeshadow in Pigalle; at Altuzarra, where Tom Pecheux swiped MAC’s metallic raspberry eye shadow in Loves Lure underneath models’ lower lash lines for a “spooky” feel; and just yesterday at Gucci, where Pat McGrath borrowed a deep claret from Frida Giannini’s collection and turned it into a greasy, bold eye, replete with bleached brows for a molten finish. We have a feeling it won’t be the last we’ll be seeing of the color in Europe.
Sexy, “Spooky” Beauty Backstage At Altuzarra
“He respects women,” Tom Pecheux gushed when talking about Joseph Altuzarra. “His clothes are fashion, but wearable fashion,” the makeup artist continued, showering Altuzarra with accolade after accolade while describing his collection, a favorite stop for Pecheux in New York. “It’s very tailored mixed with a little craziness, it’s a little [Thierry] Mugler-ish, it’s very…Carine Roitfeld,” he finally relented. “You said it!” an excited Daria Strokous exclaimed as Pecheux applied MAC Mineralize Moisture Foundation and its Prep and Prime Translucent Loose Finishing Powder to pale out her skin following a moisturizing massage. How so? “You know how [Carine] wears those pencil skirts? I was shooting with her once and underneath was the sexiest slip, but no one sees it. It’s that kind of woman,” Strokous elaborated.
For Fall, Altuzarra’s woman was spiked with a touch of “spookiness,” according to Pecheux, which caused the face painter to play with a black smoky eye—another Roitfeld signature—while making sure it was not aggressive. Using the creamy onyx Oil Slick Black from MAC’s Fall Forecast Eye Palette, Pecheux diffused the pigment across models’ lids with his fingers so there were no hard edges, dragging it halfway underneath the lower lash line as well. To that, he added a metallic raspberry stroke of its Eye Shadow in Loves Lure, also only halfway to the inner corner, which had a bruised quality to it but was meant to create the illusion of madness, Pecheux explained. “It’s a little Belle de Jour fantasy,” he surmised, taking down lips with MAC’s Paint Pot in Tailor Grey.
Paul Hanlon added Patti Smith and Kate Moss to the inspiration list when describing his texturized, lived-in locks. “It’s a bit rock ‘n’ roll, like it’s a few days old,” he explained taking all the volume out of models’ strands with a cocktail of OSiS Schwarzkopf Grip Extreme Hold Mousse and its Buff Light Styling Cream, twisting as he blow-dried to further flatten the hair shaft. Then, section by section, he worked in OSiS Schwarzkopf Magic Anti-Frizz Shine Serum all the way to the roots for a “greasy’ effect that was enhanced by its BC Hairtherapy Oil Potion Finishing Treatment through the ends for separation. “It’s stringy,” Hanlon said imparting a bend to the mid-lengths with a low-lying elastic that he removed before the show started. “It’s the opposite of beautiful, rich, quality hair.”
MAC’s Latest Comic-Book Collab
MAC has established itself as a leader in the culture-crossing collaboration game. The makeup giant has turned Superwoman, Hello Kitty, Barbie, and Disney’s most venomous villains into cult-favorite lipsticks, blushes, and nail lacquers, inspiring other cosmetics companies to follow suit. Its latest coup is another comic-book classic: Archie. It’s not the fifties-favorite, freckle-faced redhead that inspired its new lineup of face paints and accessories, though; instead, Archie’s perpetual love interests, Betty and Veronica, play muse. As to be expected, there’s plenty of kitsch in the collection, which can be experienced through the cartoon faces and miniature hearts that adorn its uncharacteristically white packaging. But there are a few real makeup gems in here, too, namely the Eye Shadow X 4 palettes that made some high-profile cameos backstage at the Spring shows, albeit in covert packaging. Tom Pecheux used a mix of the warm tan Caramel Sundae, light pink Cheryl Chic, pale yellow Dreammaker, and cool-toned brown Showstopper, from the collection’s Caramel Sundae quad, backstage at Balmain, and the deep navy Ron Ron Run pigment from the Spoiled Rich quad added opacity to the navy stroke he famously scrawled onto models’ upper lash lines backstage at Joseph Altuzarra. There was nothing kitsch about that.
MAC Archie’s Girls, available through February 7 at www.maccosmetics.com.
Blue Is The New Black
Two weeks into the Spring shows, and there are two dominant decades from which designers seem to be culling inspiration, which has had a sweeping impact on backstage beauty looks as well. While New York’s collective homage to nineties minimalism gave us the simple, no-makeup makeup that threatened to cast a “contours, not colors” spell over the season when things first got under way earlier in the month, an undercurrent of support for the sixties has meant a renewed focus on last season’s eyeliner love, which has been reimagined with a surprising pigment preference: blue. It has come in bright shades of aqua at shows like Clements Ribeiro, where makeup artist Cassie Lomas channeled the “innocent beauty” of Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom with a slick of Bourjois Metallise Eyeliner Pencil in Bleu Clinqiant, and Moschino Cheap And Chic, where Hannah Murray gave psychedelia an “urban kick” by etching MAC Pro’s Ultra Chromagraphic Pencil in Marine beneath the lower lash line. “[Michael Kors] just wanted to do an eye thing,” Dick Page explained of his similarly hued “floating lines” at the designer’s show, which he drew in a banana shape through the crease. Predictable shades of black got more competition from midnight iterations as well at shows like Mary Katrantzou, where Val Garland fashioned an inky elongated almond line with a blend of MAC Lipmixes in Blue and Red, and perhaps most notably at Altuzarra. “I think it’s so chic,” Tom Pecheux said of MAC’s Technakhol Pencil in Auto-de-blu—”a royal blue,” he declared backstage at the designer’s show—which he brushed along upper lash lines to a squared-off edge. That right there is endorsement enough for us.
“Very French,” “So Chic”—And Approachable!—Beauty Backstage At Joseph Altuzarra
“I don’t want to create jealousy,” Tom Pecheux said backstage at Altuzarra, “but [Joseph's] definitely in my top three.” The famed face painter was so transfixed with the designer’s Spring collection, in fact, that recollections of the makeup test were a little fuzzy. “I don’t 100 percent remember [Joseph's] exact words [at the test] because I was hypnotized by his clothes,” Pecheux admitted. He did manage to retain a few key objectives, though. “We wanted the girls to be extremely sophisticated and perfect, but in a simple way.”
This translated into a classic Catherine Deneuve-meets-Yves Saint Laurent face treated with MAC Face and Body Foundation and emphasized with a “very French” accent in the form of a navy, not black, stroke of eyeliner. “It’s royal blue, and I think it’s so chic,” Pecheux clarified of MAC’s Technakhol Pencil in Auto-de-blu, which he drew along models’ upper lash lines. “No wings,” he reminded his team of the lines’ elongated ends, which he wanted to be straight rather than turned upward. “I didn’t want any retro feeling,” Pecheux explained.
When asked why minimalism is emerging as an early trend at the shows in New York, Pecheux noted that “you don’t want anything feeling too heavy, because life is anything but light right now,” referencing the American and French elections and the European financial crisis. “In a way, people want to do less.” Paul Hanlon was on a similar tip, as he became one of many voices to reference Helmut Newton’s special brand of nineties-era minimalism this week, which he mixed with clean, precise equestrian- and Japanese-inspired lines. “But it’s very simple,” the coiffing star stressed of the sleek side parts he prepped with Frédéric Fekkai Full Blown Volume Styling Whip, gathered into a low ponytail that he coated with its Sheer Hold Hairspray for a flat-lacquered effect, and wove into what he called a “half-bow,” not a bun. “A bun would’ve been a cop out.”
Hanlon concurred that requests for a certain kind of subdued beauty have definitely been bandied about by designers so far this season—which is a good thing for people looking for an entry point into the world of high fashion. “Sometimes, when there’s a reference in the look, it can be a bit untouchable; when it’s simple, it makes you believe you can be that woman”—a woman, it’s safe to say, everyone in attendance was envisioning themselves as by the time Altuzarra’s finale hit the runway.