8 posts tagged "Wendy Rowe"
Beauty Business As Usual, Backstage At Burberry Prorsum
Last season, Christopher Bailey and his trusted face painter, Wendy Rowe, served up a surprise for Burberry Prorsum beauty watchers the world over. After countless shows that featured natural skin and shaded lids, the duo executed a perfectly precise dark crimson lip for Spring. There were no such twists and turns backstage for Fall, although you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who cared. The casting here is so good that it was a pleasure to just sit back and watch as Cara, Jourdan, Karlie, and the show’s opener and closer, Edie Campbell, moved in and out of the makeup artists’ chairs.
“This season, the Burberry girl is a little bit sixties and a bit mod; she is very cool,” Rowe pointed out, adding a slight variation to the house’s traditional groomed and glossy theme with a layering effort of Burberry Sheer Foundation and its Fresh Glow to give complexions a lit-from-within quality. The golden touches woven throughout the collection inspired a gilded highlight on the inner corners of eyes and on the Cupid’s bow of mouths, courtesy of Burberry Lip Glow in Trench Kiss. “I want the lips to look succulent, like they have just been kissed,” the Burberry artistic consultant explained, slicking on an additional coat of Burberry Lip Mist in Nude Honey. Nails were given this season’s favorite, deep garnet manicure with two coats of Burberry lacquer in Oxblood.
Making a subtle change to the status quo, hairstylist Neil Moodie took last season’s tousled texture and blow-dried it into submission. “I’m going for a smoother finish than what we have done in the past,” he explained, gluing color-matched extensions into models’ manes and using a large round-barreled brush to curl the ends under. In keeping with the slight sixties feel, Moodie applied a pump of Moroccanoil Volumizing Mousse and back-combed strands at the roots, allowing them to settle for ten minutes before brushing them out again. “It’s enough to give the hair a little height at the crown,” he pointed out of the technique.
A “New Look” Debuts, Backstage At Burberry
The excitement level backstage at Burberry kicked up a few notches when Wendy Rowe picked up a bullet of red lipstick. It was as though time stopped, except for the singular, slow-motion movement of the makeup artist grabbing Burberry’s Lipstick in Siren, moving it ever closer to Constance Jablonski’s mouth. After many years of loyalty to an all-natural, earth-tone-only makeup palette, it appeared as though Christopher Bailey had decided to make a bold beauty move. “We’re doing a Norman Parkinson woman,” Rowe revealed. “She’s retro but also modern and has a definite forties look about her.”
The crimson pout was the focal point of the look, and Rowe ensured it wasn’t too done. “It needs to look sassy and sexy,” she insisted, applying the creamy scarlet pigment with a brush and blotting it as she went. “[The Burberry woman] is a bit cheeky and flirty this season,” Rowe continued, blending in the brand’s new-for-spring Fresh Glow Foundation, which she dotted with its forthcoming Illuminator.
“Natural and definitely not too glamorous” were the house codes that Neil Moodie abided by when it came to the hair, which he prepped with Bumble and Bumble Does It All Styling Spray and gave an off-kilter center part. Running a few sections through a curling iron to create movement through the lengths, Moodie finished things off with a touch of Bumble and Bumble Brilliantine on the ends of the hair for the appearance of a healthy, moisturized mane—wear and tear from almost two weeks of back-to-back shows not withstanding.
Town And Country Beauty, Backstage At Burberry
Christopher Bailey’s Burberry woman has a fairly consistent beauty look. Perfect dewy skin, sepia-toned lids, a nude-rose mouth, and some well-placed highlighted contours are par for the course here, and somehow, the winning combination doesn’t get old—even when it’s given a slightly more specific direction. “He wanted a girl who had been going out in the town all week and then retreated to her country estate for the weekend,” Bailey’s trusted face painter Wendy Rowe said of the “field and country” theme of the designer’s Fall collection. “She loves the excitement of city life, but she’s not afraid to get her hands dirty in the country.” So how does this translate in makeup terms? With a wind-blown flush and a modern update on the smoky eye, according to Rowe.
Using a palette of Burberry Eyeshadows that corresponded with the colors in Bailey’s clothes, Rowe traced its Dark Sable along the upper lashline to create depth before blending its Midnight Brown across the lid and pressing Mulberry, a burnt berry, into the crease. A few purposeful swipes of its Gold Trench defined the lower lashes. “There are no hard lines, none of the usual heaviness on the lid,” Rowe explained of the beautifully slept-in, diffused halo of neutral tones. The cold snap of a Yorkshire morning played across the cheeks courtesy of Burberry Blush in Earthy, and a mix of the brand’s Mocha Glow and Sepia Pink Lipsticks gave mouths a sumptuous, velvety finish.
Neil Moodie followed suit, “undressing” the hair rather than ramping it up. “She had a big blow-dry to start the week, but by the time she’s reached the country, it’s come undone and the waves have dropped,” the hairstylist elaborated, coating damp tresses with Bumble and Bumble’s Prep and its Thickening Spray before diffusing heat throughout the lengths and breaking up the ends with his fingers. A large curling iron added loose texture at random, while Bumble’s Brilliantine shine cream created additional separation and an expensive-looking sheen.
Burberry Beauty’s New Counter Culture
Burberry Beauty unveiled its first U.S. stand-alone counter at Saks back on Fashion’s Night Out in early September. Seeing as how we maintain a “below-14th Street-only” policy on FNO, we only recently managed to make it up to the Fifth Avenue location to scope out the new digs. Packed with essentials from the brand’s four major beauty categories—face, lips, body, and glow—it’s a decidedly good move for a company that’s poised to become a major player in the prestige cosmetics game. Inspired by the staple Burberry trench, the entire makeup line is meant to deliver a “natural look,” so eye shadows focus on gorgeous shades of khaki, taupe, gray, and brown, while lipsticks veer toward the tawny end of pink. It makes for a classic palette that never seems to go out of fashion, as evidenced by Burberry Beauty artistic consultant Wendy Rowe’s “back to basics” approach at Christopher Bailey’s Spring 2012 show. But Bailey and Rowe aren’t entirely opposed to pops of bright color, as evidenced by the batch of Lip Glows the duo has whipped up for the holidays. Available in three opaque shades including Ruby No. 16, Bright Plum No. 17, and Nude Glow No. 15, the emollient glosses glide on—and stay on. (They’ll hit the new counter in November.) Rowe is a big believer in multitasking makeup (she frequently blends Burberry’s Lip Cover in Nude Rose onto cheeks as well as mouths), and these glosses are similarly versatile. Ruby and Plum can double as cheek stains, while Nude Glow adds a wet shine to lids. Editor’s note: Burberry’s new Fresh Glow illuminator, which Rowe debuted during London fashion week, is a must-try. The rose-infused skin enhancer goes on sans glitter flecks and dries down almost instantly, adding an illuminating boost to any foundation.
Burberry Beauty Lip Glow, $27, available November 1 at Saks fifth Avenue.
Backstage At Burberry, It’s Beauty Business As Usual
“Classic Burberry” has long been the inspiration backstage at Christopher Bailey’s show, and his hair and makeup team, made up of Neil Moodie and Wendy Rowe, respectively, show up knowing that resistance to the plan is futile. What exactly is “classic Burberry” beauty? “The key word is effortless,” says Moodie. “So it doesn’t feel as though [Wendy and I] have been here at all.” Their presence was more than necessary, though, considering that the kind of deliberate ease they were after happens to be extremely hard to manufacture. Prepping hair with Bumble and Bumble Prep lotion and its Styling Spray, Moodie diffused strands so they dried with a natural texture. Then, using his WAM ceramic curling iron and a few spritzes of Bb Shine Spray, Moodie “tapped out a bit of a bend” through the ends so hair didn’t lay flat but rather appeared as though a gentle gust of wind had swept through it.
Rowe did her part to honor the house’s beauty codes by taking the makeup “back to basics,” with a fresh, light color palette. Mixing Burberry Beauty Sheer Foundation with its Fresh Glow illuminator for sheer, dewy coverage, Rowe added a “wash of color” to lids using its Eyeshadow in Taupe Brown and Almond, dusting a hint of the shimmering beige Pale Barley onto the inner corners to catch the bright runway lights. Lips were treated to a slick of a new-for-Spring lipstick shade in Tulip, a tawny pink, while brows were slightly sculpted to enhance models’ natural shape if they needed enhancing. Model and muse Cara Delevingne’s arches certainly did not. (“I was born with these massive puppies,” she joked when we inquired about her enviable brows. “I do them myself—no threading, just a little tweezing.”) To complete the look, Rococo Nail Apparel’s Ange and Vernice Walker were brought in to paint on a few coats of their new Nude Wardrobe lacquer line, which features six different neutral polishes that coordinate with a range of skin tones. It was—and always will be—a nail-art free zone.