10 posts tagged "Giles"
Fall’s Short Story
Last season, the chin-grazing crop wasn’t so much a trend as a phenomenon. Karlie Kloss may have gotten all the attention when she turned up to the Victoria’s Secret show in November, her mousy brown hair a few inches shorter, but Aline Weber, Ruby Aldridge, and Daria Werbowy had already blazed the edgy, chopped trail for Spring. It’s been interesting to watch hairstylists deal with models’ newfound affinity for short hair. For the most part, they have been content to let the girls with cuts walk without extensions, a rare move that bucks uniformity on the runway. But in a few other more telling instances, they have chosen to take everyone short—make that shorter. Following Guido Palau’s sprinkling of pixie dust backstage at Dior Couture in January, wispy boy cuts and shags have been making waves at the Fall shows. Ruby Jean Wilson started the season with a freshly shorn gamine style, while the shag that Palau gave British It girl Edie Campbell before the collections has not only earned her top billing at shows like Burberry Prorsum, Giles and Marc Jacobs but also inspired the army of impersonators Jacobs sent down his Fall runway. Add to this the floppy coif Swedish stunner Ellinore Erichsen sported at Christopher Kane and Sam McKnight’s recent masculine faux fringes at Clements Ribeiro, not to mention the shows’ overarching punk undercurrents, and there seems to be a new lustful length in town. We’ll see if it holds up in Milan and Paris.
The Carrie Diaries, Backstage At Giles
“The girl this season is more than a little Carrie,” Paul Hanlon revealed backstage at Giles, where the hairstylist was doing his best to conjure “something of the teenage horror genre.” Cue the long, witchy extensions that were also more than a little inspired by show opener, and longtime devotee of long hair, Kristen McMenamy.
Hanlon gave all forty-five models (except, of course, McMenamy) twenty-four-inch extensions, which he misted with water and divided into two impossibly long plaits to set a loose wave. Taking out the braids right before showtime and giving a few girls—Cara Delevingne and Janice Alida among them—oversize beanies, as has been par for the course this season, Hanlon was left with thin, limp, crimped strands. “This is not so much a hairstyle as it is an effect,” he explained.
The macabre feeling was echoed in the makeup, too. “This girl is Goth,” Lucia Pieroni deadpanned, revealing that Tim Burton was a big inspiration for the pale, luminescent complexions she built using copious amounts of MAC Strobe Cream. Hollowing out eyes with MAC Paint Pots in Constructivist, a burnished brown, and Stormy Pink, a pale lavender, Pieroni concentrated the pigment to the inner corner of the lid to create depth before blending it underneath the lower lash liner to give off the appearance of “a sunken shadow.” Leaving lashes bare and taking lips down with a touch of concealer and lip balm, Pieroni was content to dub her handiwork “beautiful Burton.”
“Grungy Girls” With Pink Pouts, Backstage At Giles
When designing a hair concept for any given show, Paul Hanlon’s points of reference tend to be varied. But more often than not, they coalesce at the intersection of “an eighties-nineties grungy girl who has stepped from one decade to the next.” And so it was backstage at Giles for Spring, where the coiffing star set to channel his now signature “skinny hair,” which was equal parts disheveled and undone.
Finger-combing Toni & Guy Label M Matte Paste through a low side part for a rough-dried effect, Hanlon mixed its Blow Out Spray with a bit of Sea Salt Spray for additional texture. On thinner hair, he worked its Smoothing Cream through the ends, tying lengths into a small bun, which he then removed to reveal a subtle wave. “This is a girl who will wear a beautiful ball gown but then totally forget to do her hair, so it looks cool,” he surmised of the designer’s woman.
Lucia Pieroni kept things duly casual, pointing out that her stamped-on, matte fuchsia mouths and luminescent skin were meant to resemble “makeup you can do at home.” Massaging skin with MAC Complete Comfort Cream, the face painter added highlights along cheekbones and eyelids with MAC Cream Colour Base in Luna and Hush, so those areas reflected “like lightning bolts” on the runway. Keeping London’s Spring lipstick revival alive, Pieroni slicked on a layer of MAC Lipstick in Embrace Me, a hot pink, which she dabbed over a layer of foundation and then powdered to remove all traces of shine. Nails were painted a similar color while brows were bleached or brushed up depending on the model (blondes got the peroxide treatment while brunettes remained true to their roots). That part is less likely to occur in the comfort of our own apartment; everything else, however, seems entirely doable.
Red Alert
While Lucia Pieroni’s subtle, wine-stained mouths and glossy flushed cheek combo backstage at Giles Deacon’s Spring show was our hands-down favorite beauty look of the season, turning the color up a few notches can be that much more impactful. How best to accessorize one of Deacon’s black feather swan headdresses? With a striking, retina-burning red lip. Here, Charlotte Tilbury paints a doozy of a pout onto Laetitia Costa for the May issue of French Vogue. It’s hard to look away, no?
“Tragic Beauty,” Backstage At Giles
The ponytail is having a strong showing for Fall. After backstage turns in New York at Anna Sui, Marc by Marc Jacobs, The Row, and Jason Wu, the simple style has been equally big in London, making appearances at Erdem and Jonathan Saunders. But the updo may have had its most fiery moment last night at Giles.
“[He's] capturing decaying decadence, something beautiful that has been destroyed by fire,” Paul Hanlon explained backstage of Deacon’s inspiration for Fall, which saw a series of the burnt fabrics from the runway revisited in the hair, courtesy of ribbons that had been cut from the same cloth—cream iterations for blondes and black for brunettes. “With couturelike dresses, the hair couldn’t be too theatrical, but the scorched ribbons connected this pure, innocent hair to each look,” Hanlon continued, coating strands with a combination of Toni & Guy’s Label M Leave-in Conditioner and its Sleek Blow Out Creme to weigh hair down while adding shine and separation. Tucking front sections behind the ears to impart a slight bend as they dried, Hanlon gathered lengths at the nape of the neck before securing with the custom-made accessories. “The trick to mess up the ponytail is to pull the band down and then push it back up,” Hanlon said, ensuring his signature undone doneness was in full effect. “It creates a bagginess.”
Lucia Pieroni found Giles’ muse on the set of Sleepy Hollow—”or maybe she has consumption?” the makeup artist joked. “She’s definitely looking worse for the wear. She’s smoked too many cigarettes and drunk too much booze—a tragic beauty.” Cue the requisite undereye bags, hollow-looking lids, and shiny skin, which Pieroni achieved with a healthy amount of MAC Strobe Cream and a blend of its multi-use cream pigments in Groundwork and Harvest, which were applied to eyes and lips to impart a “bruised” hue.