23 posts tagged "Valentino"
Diane Kruger: Plaits, Please
Guido Palau’s ethereal coronet braids, seen on Valentino’s Spring ’12 and Fall runways, had us raving. Since those shows, creative plaits—from the face-framing halo to the artfully disheveled mermaid—have become an increasingly popular red-carpet option with starlets like Scarlett Johansson, Elle Fanning, Sienna Miller, and, most recently, Diane Kruger. After working a forties-inspired ‘do last week, the actress took a page out of Princess Leia’s playbook to turn on the Christmas lights along the Champs-Élysées. Wearing two loopy braided buns reminiscent of the Star Wars heroine and a Lanvin gilt brocade dress, Kruger looked holiday ready.
The Maud Squad, Backstage At Valentino
Sometimes, a model can walk into a fitting and immediately embody the feeling of a designer’s collection—so much so that they want the rest of the girls in the casting to look to just like her. It happened at Marc Jacobs last month and so it went today at Valentino. “We did the test on Maud [Welzen], and she’s got this gorgeous flush, so we decided to mimic her complexion,” Pat McGrath explained of the model that inspired Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli to keep girls looking “how they actually look” rather than do anything too over-the-top.
Essential to the idea was a cream blush that McGrath applied to the apples of cheeks, a soft brown shadow that she swept across lids and underneath the lower lash line, multiple swipes of brown mascara, and a very specific “fresh matte” skin. “A lot of people don’t want shiny faces anymore,” the makeup artist said, and by “people,” McGrath was of course referring to the laundry list of big-name designers that entrust her with face-painting duties each season (see: Giannini, Frida; Maier, Tomas; Prada, Miuccia; Elbaz, Alber et al.). “When you’ve got HD cameras and sweaty faces, it just doesn’t work,” McGrath rightly pointed out, explaining that she’s been making a concerted effort to powder complexions after she’s applied blush, contours, eyes, and lips for a velvet rather than dewy finish.
Guido Palau was also keeping it real, as it were, with “short side parts” rather than the super-deep sixties styles he’s been partial to of late. Prepping hair with Redken Extreme Anti-Snap Leave-In Treatment to add softness to strands, the Redken creative consultant created “messy knots” that he wrapped with lengths, leaving some ragged ends out for texture and covering the ears ever so slightly. “It’s classic and poetic,” he said of the look—”kind of like Bergman or the Italian Renaissance.” “Womanly” is another word he used, an adjective that couldn’t be more intrinsic to the Italian house.
Maria Grazia Nails It
It’s official: Valentino is ushering in its blue period, momentarily picking a palette of dark midnight blue, rather than the house’s signature red, for some of its more spectacular couture pieces at yesterday’s show. Also spotted on Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli’s runway in Paris: a complimentary slick of navy nail polish, sported by half of the design duo herself. While models wore a gray/mauve lacquer to compliment a stunning variety of deep blue somethings with the occasional brocade or floral silk thrown in for good measure, Chiuri painted her fingers a shade of rich blue-black, a near perfect match for the color of her super sleek jumpsuit. Because it’s all in the details, dear readers.
Keira Knightley: A Vision In Valentino
Keira Knightley may have taken a brief hiatus from big-ticket films—which is par for the course for someone with a successful trilogy of blockbusters under her belt (three of the seemingly endless Pirates of the Caribbean franchise) not to mention a number of indies (2010′s Never Let Me Go with Carey Mulligan was the last time Knightley made the red-carpet rounds)—but she hasn’t lost her knack for wowing on the premiere circuit. The British actress and Chanel fragrance face had the great honor of being one of the first to wear look 54 from Valentino’s much lauded Fall collection while supporting Seeking a Friend for the End of the World last night in L.A., and although Chanel celebrity makeup artist Kate Lee didn’t borrow Pat McGrath’s lilac and gray pastel contours off the runway, she gave Knightley a beauty look that still abided by the codes of the house that Maria Grazia and Pier Paolo have built, in that it was painfully pretty. Wearing a red floral branch headband and pinned-up ringlets, Lee used Chanel’s forthcoming Illusion d’Ombre in Abstraction—the pink eye shadow that Peter Philips debuted at Chanel’s resort show in Versailles earlier this month—and By Terry Rose de Rose cheek tint for a gorgeous sheer flush to ensure that Knightley was positively nymphlike. Welcome back, Keira; we’ve missed you. You too?
Backstage At Valentino, You Can Never Have Too Much Of A Good Thing
By all accounts, Valentino’s Spring collection was wildly successful; take a look at any red carpet from the last year for proof. And not only is young Hollywood clamoring to wear Pier Paolo Piccioli and Maria Grazia Chiuri’s beautiful dresses, they are duplicating the season’s corresponding runway hair and makeup, too. “It’s nice, isn’t it?” Guido Palau said of the phenomenon that saw his braid coronet from last October get its turn in the bright lights of the paparazzi flashbulbs. “It’s wearable hair,” he explained of the style’s appeal and the general direction he’s been taking things here.
Palau has another winner on his hands for Fall. “They’ve developed a sort of staple for their girl,” the Redken creative consultant explained of the design duo, throwing out adjectives like “beautiful,” “natural,” and “romantic” to describe their aesthetic. Citing the seventies as inspiration, Palau prepped hair with Redken Full Frame 07 Protective Volumizing Mousse to give it a little guts before he applied heat and crafted a precise middle part. Then, coating his hands with Redken Outshine 01 Anti-Frizz Polishing Milk, he created interlocking twists from the ears around the side of the head, pinning as he went, before joining both sides in a V-shape at the nape of the neck.
Pat McGrath revisited her successful handiwork from last season as well, concentrating her “pastel face-contouring” experiment to the eyes this time around. “It’s modern, iconic beauty,” she said, weaving a halo of “lots of grays, mauves, and a little bit of lilac” across lids, dragging it softly underneath the lower lash line for a subtle wash of color. “It’s a modern Penelope Tree or Anjelica Huston,” she suggested of the effect, building up top and bottom lashes sixties-style with CoverGirl LashBlast 24-Hour Mascara in black, and filling in brows a bit so they looked well-groomed. A touch of highlighter on the Cupid’s bow of lips added to the ethereal,”serene” quality she was after. Look out for the combination on the wire in the next few months, as any number of the folksy frocks from this collection are all but guaranteed to hit the 2012 premiere circuit.