No surprise that hair and makeup featured in runway shows varies from show to show and from season to season. When trends and themes change, the beauty portion is soon to follow, or vice versa. Some makeup artists can be given free reign by designers to determine what beauty look would befit the show's motif, while other makeup professionals are given with designers' predetermined and well-defined visions of how the beauty portion of the show should look in order to impart one unified theme.
Sometimes, however, the beauty and the fashion elements of a show directly contrast and compete with each other for an audience's attention, and the unifying message is hard to decipher.
The great thing about the fashion industry is its unofficial motto of 'anything goes', which makes it a joy to see the concoctions that creative professionals come up with when collaborating together.
For example, makeup artist
Stephanie Marais, told style.com that the makeup he did for Haider Ackermann's show was applied with the intent to invoke a sense of apparitions and irrealism. In order to communicate this theme, he wanted models' faces to have pale, ghostly casts to them. To capture such a look, he applied white clay masks to the models' skin and wiped - not cleaned - excess residue from the surface so as to leave a chalky dusting on the faces.
(image c/o style.com)
The 'anything goes' mentality of runway beauty allows for high drama and theatrics as well as more subdued looks that can easily be translated to everyday makeup. With fashion, one can indulge predilections for both fantasy
and reality; having the cake and eating it too. I love seeing an outrageous, exuberant, beautiful beauty look come down a runway and then challenge myself to restyle it so that elements of what made it great could still be seen for everyday wear.
After browsing through all of the runway looks, here are some of my favorite beauty moments from the fall/winter 2012 runway.
No. 1 -Multicolored lids at Roberto Cavalli
Created using a palette of Mardi Gras-esque emerald, purple and gold hues, the metallic luminescence of the colors made the models look lit from within. Pat McGrath, as usual, created a stunning tableau.
(images c/o style.com)
No. 2 - Sky blue eyes at Anna Sui
Ms. Pat McGrath once more utilized the power of pigment at Anna Sui where but a single color was used in order to create an upswept, modern, matte blue cat eye.
(image c/o harpersbazaar.com)
No. 3 - Blue mascara at Stella McCartney
The long azure-tinged lashes at Stella McCartney straddled the line between being understated and being dramatic. With a single punch of color amidst bare, dewy complexions, the lashes stood out. Perhaps the neatest thing about the single color that was used on all models was how universally complementary it was to the various skin tones and eye colors of the models. I'm so besotted with how easily the blue made every face look bright and clean that I've been searching online for blue mascaras for the past hour in an attempt to recreate Pat's handiwork.
(image c/o vogue.com)
No. 4 - Bejeweled eyebrows at Chanel
Peter Philips, Chanel's global makeup creative director, is the person responsible for creating the geometric, studded brows set amidst the perfect skin of the models at the brand's recent show. Philips revealed to Vogue UK that he created the glitzy look when Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld presented him with a sketch of how the models were to look in the show. The sketch showed a girl with minerals lined up on her face and so Philips created the bedazzled brows for his own interpretation of the image. I'd say it turned out quite well. So well, in fact, that I asked my managers if I could wear the look to work tomorrow, so inspired was I (For the record, I can wear this look to work)
(image c/o style.com) (image c/o vogue.co.uk)
