From fresh and clean to glam with attitude, backstage at New York Fashion Week (NYFW), models sported looks across the whole spectrum. Overall, beauty experts, and designers favored capturing the natural essence of each individual, but that’s not to say that there weren’t dark accents, bold makeup, and even hair standing-on-end.
No matter your preference, there’s a beauty look for everyone.
Image courtesy of KISS
Keeping it Fresh, Clean and Classic
Expressing individuality with beauty focused on skincare and healthy hair, this season was all about celebrating natural complexions and hair textures, with classic, subtle nails.
A nude, understated manicure that’s anything but boring is the epitome of demure digits. Lead Manicurist and KISS Brand Ambassador, Gina Edwards developed a ‘Smoky Quartz’ nail for Prabal Gurung.
According to Edwards, “This collection for Prabal was all about the light of hope, the festival of color and he wanted something that was soft, but still a statement for the nails. As you see the skin is glass skin, there’s no makeup, the hair is effortless, but we gave them a [beautiful] nail.” To create the look Edwards and her team Kiss Bare But Better Nails, filed into a stiletto shape and cured with blooming gel in stages. “A blooming gel allows any gel color to disperse and so you keep adding and cure it and then you go back in. So, some of it is dispersed in the nail and the other is more a little more vibrant …”
Image courtesy of David Kotinsky/GETTY Images
Backstage at Jonathan Simkhai, Christina Esposito, Molly Sim’s personal facialist and skincare expert with Sim’s line YSE Beauty, made sure all the models’ skin looked it’s best. Since skincare was at the forefront of many fashion-week shows rather than a full face of makeup, it’s no surprise that models were pampered with hydrating skin treatments.
“Overall, the YSE line, really puts focus on regenerating the skin,” explains Esposito. “This is a great way to prep your skin for luminosity.” For the show, models were given Overachiever Brightening Eye Masks, Xtremly Rich Hydration, and Skin Glow, which has SPF in it and gives models a photo finish. “They need to be plump and hydrated throughout the day and going under the bright lights and walking on the runway (and even the heat from whatever they’re using on their hair) is going to affect them so YSE’s Xtremely Rich is perfect for keeping them hydrated.” The beautiful clean skin paired well with TRESemmés ‘Tousled Tresses,’ giving models a runway ready look that was true to them.
Image courtesy of Janine Silver
The Edgier, Glamorous, Darker Side
According to MAC Cosmetics Lead artist, Yadim, “We’ve seen a little bit of a shift toward the sinister, with ‘” Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice” and “Wednesday” and we’re all kind of playing with our dark side; our shadow side and that’s coming up in beauty as well.”
Celebrity Stylist Mustafa Yanaz with TRESemmé, created for AREA not one, but two unique styles; the ‘Electric Pixie’ and the ‘Slept in Slick Back.’ “The collection is all about identity, if you look at the clothes, there’s fingerprints on the clothes … it’s beautiful. So, the whole idea is about identity, and I wanted to work on every girl individually,” Yanaz explains.
Image courtesy of Janine Silver
For girls with long hair, the goal was natural, lived in, not too perfect hair. However, for the girls with shorter hair, Yanaz wanted to incorporate a punk element by standing the hair up with TRESemmé Extra Hold Mousse and then he locked the look in with TRESemmé Freeze Hold Hairspray to make it stay.
“This season I see a lot of natural hair, which is cool as everybody has different hairstyles. Back in the day, they had one hair[style] which everybody had; long hair with layers. That’s it. These days you see short hair, mullets, shaved heads … and I think it’s great to work with every model individually.”
Yadim paired Yanaz’s hairstyles with three dark and surreal beauty looks. “Some girls will get a very rounded black, juicy, overly glossed lip, which is almost a little ode to like Leigh Bowery, ‘80s nightlife.”
Yadim explains, that the second look is a “very powerful glam moment which feels more Catherine Deneuve in the film “The Hunger,” and then [for the third look,] a couple girls are getting this very surrealist moment where we’re transferring these [fingerprint] tattoo prints … We wanted to bring that print onto the skin and face, so they are really going to be fully covered in the same print as the clothes and that’s the kind of large surrealism [we wanted to bring to life].”
Image courtesy of ZOYA
At Theophilio, Miss Pop, Lead Manicurist and ZOYA Brand Ambassador created 5 different looks on both the male and female models. “The look was glam rock for the nails, so we wanted to do a nail that felt great for that. Something sexy. I love an oval nail because it’s sexy but classy.”
To get the look, Miss Pop started off by applying ‘Wila,’ a dark black shade and topping it with either ‘Mimi’ a deep purple glitter polish, ‘Apple’ a bright green glitter, or ‘Kerry’ a yellow gold glitter. “If you want to give it extra ka-pow, you can take a makeup sponge and put the polish on the makeup sponge and then tap down to get even more glitter,” Miss Pop shares. “However, we wanted the black to come through more [for the show] so it’s more glam.”
Private Policy and Michael Fausto also created glam rock eyeshadow looks with shimmery shadows in different shades based on each model’s skin tones. These iridescent shadows showed yet another take on the darker, more opulent side of this season’s biggest trends.
Image courtesy of Janine Silver
For Those Who Can’t Decide:
Looking for the best of both worlds? Try a hairstyle that plays up your natural texture paired with a dark glittery eye or perhaps an updated French manicure such as the one at Naeem Khan by Pattie Yankee, with a neutral base and a touch of black on the tips.
Naeem Khan’s collection is a tribute to “Wicked” mirroring the characters from pure to wicked. “The nails are an ombré effect form light to dark that have been tapered off into a soft stiletto to make them pointier.”
Backstage the look was airbrushed on, but Yankee has a tip to recreate the look at home. She recommends painting a coat of a nude shade (at the show she used “Be Kind” from her namesake collection) and then a deep black such as “Fill the Void” also from her line, then dab a makeup sponge over it. You can also go back and put a little polish on the sponge, and tap that into your nail, but Yankee recommends starting with that base coat of nude and black painted directly on the nail for the best results.
Are you team clean or team punk glam? Or maybe you’re a mix of both! That’s the best part of beauty, you can always change it up!
—Janine Silver
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