27 posts tagged "Luigi Murenu"
Backstage At Rick Owens, Red Lips To “Offset The Scary”
Rick Owens loves a red lip. “Somehow it transforms a woman into being beautiful,” the designer’s trusted makeup artist Lucia Pieroni says of the magic bullet of MAC Lipstick in Lady Danger that she has become accustomed to layering on top of a precise tracing effort of its Lip Pencil in Redd at Owens’ shows—a combination that has become a ritual here for the last three seasons. “It offsets the scary,” the face painter joked, referencing Owens’ woman for Fall, who wore a half- or full-face knit mask that sat on top of Luigi Murenu’s impossibly sleek twisted chignons and Pieroni’s impeccably perfect skin. There was one difference backstage from seasons past, though: Pieroni left brows unbleached at the only presentation that typically compels her to defy the “full, boyish brow” mantra that has become her calling card. “Normally we would get rid of them, but they’re under something that is quite hard, so we need to make sure [the girls] look gorgeous,” she said of models’ arches. But rather than etch big, lush brows as an alternative, Pieroni only lightly traced them back on so as not to overpower the masks, using eyebrow pencils that were one shade darker than the model’s natural color to remind the flock of editors and buyers that had assembled at the Palais Omnisport de Paris-Bercy that “there’s a beautiful woman under there.”
Braids And Black Lip Balm, Backstage At Pucci
Referencing old Helmut Newton photos, Luigi Murenu honed in on a “slightly Germanic but more modern” feeling backstage at Pucci, where he devised what will likely be one of the most readily copied hair looks of the season. “It’s less coiffed and more tousled,” the super-stylist emphasized of the long, slightly wavy locks that he coated with Phyto Professional Intense Volume Mousse and middle-parted before pinning a series of color-matched braided extensions a few inches back from models’ hairlines to resemble a coronet. “It can’t be perfect; then it will look too retro,” Murenu continued, jostling flyaways loose around the face and ensuring that the hair that hung down in the back was languid and slightly texturized.
Lisa Butler was also trying to avoid the dreaded R-word. Taking her cues from Peter Dundas’ collection, which she described as “quite structured,” the makeup artist decided to do “something different” in the form of a smoky lip and a nude eye. “Finally!” she exclaimed, reversing the makeup look at a show that frequently relies on sultry lids and bare mouths. Drawing on a “fat” brow, Butler applied very little base, which she topped with “pink-y, outside-y, baby cheeks,” alternating between MAC Cream Color Base in Coral and its Blushcreme in Brit Wit, depending on each model’s skin tone. “We’re trying to approach each girl differently,” Butler said, using mascara here and black liner pushed into lashes there. The one unifying factor was a custom-blended black lip balm that she created by mixing a hint of MAC Lipmix in Black with its Lip Conditioner. “It’s like these eighties Shiseido lipsticks that were very weak in pigment but gave a little bit of darkness,” she explained of the effect, which read as a barely perceptible soft, black-currant wash on on the runway. “Don’t start wearing black lipstick, though; it’s very unflattering,” Butler warned of taking the idea and running with it—in the wrong direction. Her washed-out incarnation, however, is certainly worth a whirl.
“Dark Romance,” Backstage At Gucci
“Dark romance” is how Pat McGrath described the beauty look backstage at Gucci, where the makeup artist’s signature bleached brow circa Fall 2009 returned to bring an “ethereal” look to Frida Giannini’s model brigade. “It’s a little Rossetti,” McGrath continued, referencing pre-Raphaelite poet, illustrator, and painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s frequently lip-stained portraits.
Accordingly, McGrath summoned the blackened cherry pout she did here two seasons ago, lining mouths with a deep bordeaux lipstick that she dabbed in the center with a bright red pigment topped with a bit of gloss. Blending a highlighted contour onto the top of cheekbones, she elaborated on why blocking out arches was essential to the look. “A red lip with brows tends to go more period. And with the romantic hair…” the face painter exclaimed, referring to hairstylist Luigi Murenu’s long, center-parted waves, which were treated to a dose of John Frieda Luxurious Volume Thickening Mousse and finished with two twisted front sections that were held together in the back with a sparkling hair clip, custom-made by Giannini for the show. “Make it look gorgeous,” Murenu directed his team. (Done and done.)
“Extreme” Beauty, Backstage At Viktor & Rolf
Stick-on makeup cutouts like the kind we’ve spied at Gareth Pugh and Fendi may seem like a newfangled trick to beauty novices, but Pat McGrath’s unimpressed. “We’ve been doing it for 15 years,” she said backstage at Viktor & Rolf, where she broke out bits of high-shine pink paper that had been traced and snipped into the shape of winged-out eye liner. “It’s something we came up with as a way to get an eye liner on quickly,” for, say, another sweltering backstage show in Paris where slaving over a precise pigment application is nearly impossible. To coincide with the designers’ “doll” theme for Spring, McGrath thought about what kind of makeup a modern Barbie would wear and decided it definitely wouldn’t be that sixties-era blue eye shadow-and-cat eye prototype. “It would be some kind of crazy angles or crazy color. The modern woman likes extremes,” according to McGrath, who was applying the paper pieces with glue over a brown smudged-out lid and adding both pink and black rows of false lashes for impact. Rosy, hot pink cheeks and a fluoro pink lip finished off the radical message to Mattel.
Hairstylist Luigi Murenu added to the modernization effort by bringing the “graphicity,” as he called it, with heavy, thick manes of pushed-back hair. “It’s dry, Victorian texture with an architectural touch,” Murenu said, coating strands with John Frieda Luxurious Volume Thickening Mousse, applying heat, imparting an “invisible crimp,” and brushing through for fullness.
“Ghostly But Still Glamorous,” Backstage at Rick Owens
Seeing as how that striking image of a matte red lip, bleached brows, and texturized sleek hair from Rick Owens’ Fall show is still burned into our brain six months later, the backstage scene for Spring drummed up more than a little bit of déjà vu. “He really likes a pale woman,” makeup artist Lucia Pieroni surmised of Owens’ partiality for blocked-out arches and extra-perfected, ethereal skin. “It gets rid of the features so the girls look more sculptural,” she continued of the designer’s preferred face-painting technique, pointing out that this season’s woman was slightly less “spooky” then she’s been in the past. “It’s really Art Deco goddess—almost like the woman on the front of a Rolls-Royce,” Pieroni explained, coating skin in MAC Pro Face & Body Foundation in White—a unique complexion enhancer that blends to a transparent milky finish, imparting an almost supernatural pallor. After patting a white matte powder around the outer corners of the eyes and on top of cheekbones where a highlighter normally would be to further the transparent quality of the skin, Pieroni devoted her attention to building a truly retina-burning red lip. “I’d call it a fiery orange,” she said, layering MAC Lip Mix in Red, Orange, and White onto mouths, a mixture that dried down to a velvety, flat finish. Paired with hairstylist Luigi Murenu’s complex updos that were one part twist and one part faux fade—sides were slicked down to create a masculine, almost pompadourlike top section that transitioned into a knotted ponytail in the back—the entire package was both otherworldly and dually chic. “It’s ghostly but still glamorous,” Pieroni offered.