FASHION Magazine

While the performances of Christian Bale and Melissa Leo are, deservedly so, sweeping the awards circuit and may do so again at the Oscars this Sunday, it’s the hair and makeup achievements of Leo’s Alice Ward and her seven scrappy daughters that I haven’t been able to stop lauding. A study in blue-collar beauty, the big hair and unflattering makeup was absolutely mesmerizing. Obsessed, I tracked down the head of the hair and makeup departments for the film: Johnny Villanueva and Donald Mowat—a Canadian—to grill them on the looks of the real life ladies from Lowell, Massachusetts.