139 posts tagged "Redken"
Wigging Out, Backstage At Jean Paul Gaultier
If you had a slight feeling of déjà vu upon seeing the spiky black wigs marching down Jean Paul Gaultier’s runway in additional shades of auburn, chestnut, and platinum blond, your mind was playing tricks on you. “It’s like a toupee or a bang,” Guido Palau said of the “patchwork” effect he was hoping to achieve with the deliberately cheap-looking hairpieces here, which were not to be confused with the similarly choppy, high-end crops he hand-dyed and -cut for Marc Jacobs last month. “A lot of people want to see short hair this season and most girls don’t want to cut it,” Palau explained of his recent reliance on wigs, which offer a temporary solution to the predicament. “It’s supposed to look like a girl’s hair that is colored and grown out,” he elaborated of the faux trims here that were meant to deliberately contrast with models’ natural strands where they met as a flat panel in the back. There was a slight nod to the eighties-era androgynous stunner Leslie Winer, although Palau was content to speak to the style’s “punky, boyish, concert-y” quality, which he fashioned using Redken Control Addict 28 High Control Hairspray.
“The brows really help balance it out,” he said of the way Lloyd Simmonds’ “masculine, yet feminine” makeup look complemented his coifs. “There’s a really dark frame to the face, so we needed a dark frame to the girl’s personality. You get a personality with a brow,” Simmonds explained, using a matte black eye shadow to fill in arches while keeping the skin fresh and glowing with YSL’s La Teint Touche Éclat Illuminating Foundation, and a little pressed powder to reduce the risk of shine. A light dusting of blush in shades of light rose and warm gold—”whatever looks good with [the girls'] skin tone”—finished the face.
A Page Out of Pat McGrath’s Silver Lining Playbook, Backstage At Dior
The idea floating around backstage at Christian Dior was the notion of “the ultimate Dior woman, seen through a futuristic eye,” according to Pat McGrath—or, more specifically, Raf Simons’ eye. “He wanted to play with the mouths and make them smaller,” McGrath explained of the designer’s request for “faded lips,” which she obliged with a deep fuchsia stain that was blurred around the edges with a finger-pressing of foundation for a “blooming rose” effect. “There’s a nod to the fifties,” she continued of the collection, which also happened to boast Simons’ particular brand of forward thinking that requires a dose of the here, the now, and the what’s to come. How best to translate that into makeup terms? With a classic cat-eye in an unexpected color and shape, shown here in liquid silver, which was not only drawn across the upper lashes into a flick, but also beneath the lower lash line, and in a small stroke on the inside corner toward the crease as well. “It pronounced the eyes more and gave them a new elegance,” McGrath said of the technique.
Guido Palau was hoping to bring an infusion of newness into the hair as well, which had its roots in fifties couture. “Raf wanted more of an uptown woman who was caught in the rain, but we didn’t want it to feel old,” Palau explained, giving the structured, wig-wrap-turned-twist silhouette a very Fall 2013 wet texture with Redken Control Addict 28 High Control Hairspray and its forthcoming Diamond Oil Shatterproof Shine serum. “I still wanted it to feel elegant,” he noted of the saturated style. Done, and done.
Four Makeup Looks Are Better Than One, Backstage At Lanvin
There was a push for idiosyncrasy over consistency in Alber Elbaz’s Fall Lanvin offering, which meant one uniform makeup look simply would not have worked here. “It’s strong but individual,” Pat McGrath explained of the—count them—four different faces she sent out onto the runway. “There’s a brow, a lip, a very graphic eye, and a smoky eye,” she pointed out, explaining that Elbaz chose the lips based on specific show looks and then McGrath just “mixed [things] up” after that. That deep, matte, fuchsia-laced sanguine mouth was the standout, though, if anything because it marked yet another appearance of the season’s statement lip, which has been overwhelmingly matte. “It just has been that way. People want that sophistication. And with the skin…” McGrath continued, referencing the similarly powdered complexions that have made dewy finishes look downright outdated. “Fashion’s about extremes,” she surmised.
Varied as it may have been, there was a collective sense of ladylike proportion to Elbaz’s clothes, which he deliberately threw off with chunky necklaces, menswear-inspired flat shoes—and a messy low ponytail “drenched” in shine, according to Guido Palau. “The clothes are quite ornate, so he didn’t want it to look too bourgeois,” Palau elaborated of why he kept strands purposefully easy, as though models had pulled them back themselves and, in the case of Kati Nescher and Suvi Koponen—the show’s opener and closer, respectively—topped them with a festive headpiece. Every girl got a hefty dose of Redken Shine Flash 02 Glistening Mist to create a damp texture before Palau applied a slick of its forthcoming Diamond Oil Shatterproof Shine serum. But he didn’t bother with extensions to achieve one consistent length. “The girls with the short hair are staying short,” he said, motioning to Catherine McNeil, Karlie Kloss, and Saskia de Brauw.
Sophia Loren And A “Crowning” Achievement In Beauty, Backstage At Dolce & Gabbana
There are few designers who are as unwaveringly loyal to their core house codes as Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, and like clockwork, their twist on classic Italian glamour was very much on view for Fall. “They don’t need to reinvent [their woman] every season, because they really understand how a woman likes to look,” Guido Palau said backstage. “They bring back all the little tricks to beauty that in years gone by we’ve thrown away,” he continued, working on a slightly deconstructed updo.
“It’s all things that really flatter,” Palau explained of the style’s subtleties while prepping hair with Redken Guts 10 Volume Spray Foam mousse and its Quick Tease 15 Backcombing Finishing Spray, which he spritzed onto the crown before adding a bit of height. Creating deliberately short center parts, Palau gathered two front sections that he crisscrossed in the back of the head as he swept up lengths into something of a free-form twist-turned-chignon. “It’s as if they did it themselves,” he suggested of the look, which was kept deliberately flat to create a specific silhouette. “If you have volume up top and with the bun, they fight each other,” Palau pointed out, affixing eighteen bejeweled, Byzantine-inspired crowns to the heads of select models, including Kate King, Bette Franke, Karlie Kloss, and Jasmine Tookes.
Pat McGrath got the same brief as Palau—which included nods to the gilded mosaic tiles in Sicily’s Cathedral of Monreale that were reproduced on a series of dresses—as well as the mention of Mr. Dolce and Mr. Gabbana’s “favorite” actress, Sophia Loren. The beauty icon’s face was pinned up all over the makeup area, her signature crimson lips and black cat-eye serving as the ultimate inspiration for McGrath’s own interpretation of the classic combo. “It’s quite different because there’s no highlight, no hint of blush, no contour, but it’s still very effective,” the makeup artist explained of complexions that were kept purposefully powdered and velvety with Dolce & Gabbana’s new Perfect Matte Liquid Foundation, rather than kissed with hints of pink and apricot blush, as is often customary here. Coating the inner rims of eyes with its Crayon Intense Eyeliner in Black, before drawing on thick flicks with its liquid Glam Liner in Black Intense, McGrath treated lashes to multiple swipes of Dolce & Gabbana Intenseyes Mascara in Black. Then she started in on those mouths, which were built more than they were painted. Covering the entire lip surface with Dolce’s Precision Lipliner in Ruby, McGrath blended a mix of its Classic Cream Lipstick in Ultra and Amethyst, thus fashioning a berry-tinged scarlet shade that she subsequently blotted and powdered for a flat finish. “It’s a real process,” she joked of the technique, although if ever the “anything worth doing, is worth doing right” adage applied, it’d certainly be here.
Backstage At Roberto Cavalli, “Tough, Boyish, Cool” Girls Still Reign
The makeup artist job at Roberto Cavalli has been something of a revolving door of late. The past three seasons have seen three different face painters take the reins backstage at the show, although the ever-present Cavalli girl herself—who will not be parted from her black eyeliner—has made the transition of power a relatively seamless one. For Fall, Lucia Pieroni was tasked with bringing her own spin to the house’s “sexy, punky” vibe, which resulted in an “oily eye”—not to be confused with a greasy eye. “I’m bored of greasy eyes,” Pieroni admitted.
Rimming lids with a black kohl pencil, she blended MAC Eyeshadows in Black Tied, a shimmering onyx, and Carbon, a matte obsidian, into an elongated shape underneath the lower lash line and on top of the lids. Adding multiple swipes of its Haute & Naughty mascara close to the lash line, she etched a taupe-y pencil along the inside of the eye to open things up. Then came the oily effect, for which Pieroni slicked on a new MAC Pro Eye Gloss prototype in Black Sea, a high-shine, glitter-flecked cream-gel hybrid that she blended to sheer perfection just before models hit the runway. “You can plunk it on, which makes it really thick, like tar,” she said of the multitasking product, “or you can fade it out so it doesn’t get everywhere,” Pieroni laughed, anticipating the pigment’s inevitable sticky aftereffects, as she toned down lips and patted MAC’s fortcoming Cream Eyeshadow in Oyster, a shimmering pearl, on the top of models’ cheekbones for a luminescent highlight.
Guido Palau was honoring the “tough, boyish, cool girl” code that has long ruled here as well, via wet hair that was molded to models’ individual head shapes. Blow-drying strands with Redken Shine Flash 02 Glistening Mist and its forthcoming Diamond Oil Shatterproof Shine Intense, Palau created severe center parts, which he flattened with his fingers and its Forceful 23 Super Strength Finishing Spray. “It has to be, like, a lot of it,” Palau stressed of the quantity of hairspray required to create the kind of reflective, damp surface he was after. “Using shine rather than dry [texture] feels much more luxurious to me right now,” he conceded of what has become one of his favorite looks for Fall—a sentiment that extended to the nails, which were given a clear, ultra-glossy finish courtesy of MAC Overlacquer.