FASHION Magazine

View the full backstage gallery from Pink Tartan Spring 2013 »

The inspiration:
Grace Lee, Maybelline New York’s lead makeup artist: “We did a statement lip last season, it was all about that oxblood red lip, so [Kim Newport-Mimran] wanted to do the opposite. They look über, über fresh. Nothing about this makeup is about strong features… it’s super sheer, super pretty, super fresh.”

Jorge Joao, Redken lead stylist: “It’s playful, something out of the ’60s—like how a little girl would want to push her hair out of the way. [The hair has] natural texture and an aggressive side sweep with the pin holding it into place.”

Top tips:
– The key to dewy skin is moisturizer—and lots of it! “It’s almost like she’s marinating in it!” said Grace Lee of just how much she applied to Charlotte Free, Maybelline New York’s international spokesmodel. Lee also used Maybelline Dream Fresh BB Cream in place of foundation to add further glow and hydration.

See the full backstage gallery from Jeremy Laing Spring 2013! »

While the details on Jeremy Laing’s Spring 2013 collection echoed the ’90s, the beauty was tinged with elements from the ’70s. “Jeremy wanted the girls to look really handsome and sort of have this ’70s-eqsue feeling,” explained Greg Wencel, Cover Girl makeup pro. Also at play was a mix of textures: glossy eyelids contrasted with matte skin, which had been prepped with Cover Girl + Olay Simply Ageless Serum Primer ($18, well.ca) to keep shine at a minimum. Instead of eyeshadow, Wencel used Cover Girl Cheekers blush in “Iced Cappuccino” and “smoked it out on the eye and under the eye socket.” He then used the same blush to sculpt a high cheek bone but diffused it for a soft, modern effect. Because lashes and brows were left bare Wencel added some dimension to the eye with Cover Girl LiquilineBlast in “Brown Blaze” ($10, well.ca), but applied it by putting the product on the back of his hand and picking up some of the pigment with a fluffy brush. The final step was glossing up the eye with a dab of clear Cover Girl WetSlicks lip gloss ($7, well.ca) for what Wencel called “a ’70s high gloss shine.”

See the full backstage gallery from Sid Neigum Spring 2013! »

“It’s more about a mood than a theme,” said M.A.C makeup key Melissa Gibson of the beauty look for Sid Neigum’s Spring 2013 show. Featuring a strong eyebrow, smoky eyes and matte skin, Gibson referenced Helmut Newton and “Cindy Crawford in the ’90s” as inspiration. “It’s not just a heavy black smoky eye…there’s an edge to it, the fleck of grey metallic in there brightens it up for spring and summer.” To build this graphic-yet-soft look, she used a mix of three M.A.C eyeshadows–“Carbon,” “Print” and “Typographic” ($18 each, maccosmetics.com)—diffusing the pigment across the eye and blending out any straight lines. Fluidline eyeliner in “Blacktrack” ($18, maccosmetics.com) was also diffused at the lashline and lashes were curled and given two coats of mascara for extra drama. But it was two winged-out lines across the brows that completed the look, which was a last minute addition from Gibson: “At the end I threw on that eyebrow and that did it!”

See all the backstage pics from Chloé Comme Parris Spring 2013 »

It was dewy skin like we’ve never seen before for Chloé Comme Parris Spring 2013, where the theme was California’s Venice Beach and models looked like they’d just emerged from the water. “It’s all about layering different kinds of textures to create this really beautiful, metallic skin,” explained M.A.C makeup key Melissa Gibson. To start, she used M.A.C Cosmetics Mineralize Charged Water Face and Body Lotion ($40, maccosmetics.com) followed by Studio Finish SPF 35 Concealer ($22, maccosmetics.com)—though dabbed only where necessary. The almost supernatural glow, however, came courtesy of Mineralize Skinfinish in “Soft and Gentle” ($34, maccosmetics.com) which Gibson generously applied with a brush “literally all over the face.”

See all the backstage beauty photos from Jean-Pierre Braganza! »

If you’ve been working on your braiding skills, good news! The popularity of plaits will continue through Spring 2013—however the variation shown at Jean-Pierre Braganza brings a whole new level of complexity to the style. Featuring a stark middle part and two braids—one interior, one exterior—the double look was described as “pretty, but weird at the same time” by Pantene Pro-V consulting stylist Justin German. After prepping the hair with Pantene Pro-V Normal to Thick Straighten and Smooth Crème ($6, at drugstores) he separated a section of hair at the crown for the interior cornrow braid, which ran down the back of the head.

See more backstage pictures from Rochas Spring 2013 »

The bold red lip at Rochas Spring 2013 has quite the enchanting quality to it. The shade? A deeply pigmented rosebud red. The texture? Perfectly matte. Paired with a fresh-faced no makeup look it’s the sort of colour that shows just how much influence a well-done lip can have. (Anyone who’s ever thrown on her favourite lipstick in place of doing any other makeup knows this trick well.) Makeup artist Lucia Pieroni used two different Clé de Peau lipsticks to create the velvety look for Rochas, applying “R1,” a blue toned brick-red shade first and then layering and “R2,” a cherry-red colour, on top. However, the almost vibrating lip colour has another trick: hot pink blush. According to Into The Gloss, Lucia Pieroni finished the look by brushing on pink pigment. She started at the centre of the lip, blending outward with a Q-tip, which both enhanced the matte texture and added depth to the colour. It’s a different take on the two-toned lip that’s been popular the last few seasons—less colour blocking, more multi-dimensional. Lucia Pieroni called the final colour “beetroot berry” and we’re just going to go ahead and rename it our favourite lip colour for Spring 2013.

All eyes are on Milan now, but let’s not forget some of London Fashion Week Spring 2013’s best in beauty. Most refreshing was the influx of bright lips, an area of the face that didn’t get a lot of play at New York Fashion Week, where the general trend was minimal makeup and manicures—nude polish dominated as did completely bare, buffed-to-shine nails. In fact, backstage in the Big Apple makeup artists often skipped putting pigment on the mouth entirely opting for clear gloss. (One of a few notable exceptions, the matte raspberry lip at Jason Wu was awesome.) When they did pull out the colour, they applied it to the top half of the face: take Dick Page’s green and blue over-the-eye arches at Michael Kors, and Tom Pecheux’s abstract smears on lids at Peter Som. But, where New York left us wanting for bold, colourful lips, London made up for it in spades. Even bare-face-loving Burberry Prorsum busted out the rouge lipstick, hopefully a sign that lips won’t be silenced from here on out.

See our top 5 makeup looks from London Fashion Week Spring 2013 »

Remember when makeup artist Francois Nars created 65 different looks for the Marc Jacobs Fall 2009 show? Well, that didn’t happen this time around at New York Fashion Week Spring 2013 but some designers did decide to deviate from a uniform beauty statement, creating a few different looks for one show. Here’s our rundown of the best double takes from backstage:

Alexander Wang
Though Guido Palau gave every girl at Alexander Wang a tight, low ponytail, the accessory that ran down the centre part differed—a glow-in-the-dark adhesive strip on blondes and a black one for brunettes. The fair-haired set also had a different experience in the makeup chair: Diane Kendal bleached brows and created luminous skin, while their dark-haired counterparts had strong brows and matte skin.

Read on for multiple looks from Anna Sui, Michael Kors and more! »

Backstage at Rodarte, I bumped into former FASHION cover girl Jessica Stam, who opened the show. I almost didn’t recognize her because of her raven hair, which she switched to a few months ago for the Met’s Schiaparelli and Prada exhibit. The shade really seemed to suit the “modern medieval” look and severe side parts Odile Gilbert crafted to appear as though models had shaved one half of their head. “I did it [again] a week ago,” Stam said of her new colour, leaving out the part about it being a cover up for a dye job gone wrong.

“I always love a greasy eye,” said Dick Page, backstage at Marc By Marc Jacobs describing the punked-out makeup for the show. “I guess [for this look] I’m pre-empting the morning after, because if it’s pre-destroyed it can’t go bad, you already know it looks like shit,” he further explained. His greasy-eye-making product of choice? “I use a stupid-expensive lip balm from Shiseido. What I like about it is that it’s got a little pink in it.” There’s a worn-in tube of Shiseido Benefiance Full Correction Lip Treatment ($38, at department stores) on his makeup table that verifies his love for the product. For Marc by Marc Jacobs, Dick Page layered the slick balm over top of beige and black cream eye shadows on lids and upper and lower lash lines.

While the trend so far at New York Fashion Week has been minimal makeup that wasn’t the case at Peter Som. For starters, rainbow-hued extensions (dyed the day prior by colourist Aura Freidman) were tucked randomly in hair, styled by Eugene Souleiman. On the face, Tom Pecheux also wanted randomness and he used his finger tips to apply colour on the eyes, with the goal of looking like a child’s painting. Finally, you know how we feel about French manicures at FASHION. (If not, let me bring you up to speed: ewww!) But when done right (i.e., no acrylics and no white, squared off tips) we can get behind the style. A perfect exception-making example: the creamy orange and mint combo that used two out of the three shades from Zoya’s custom nail polish range for Peter Som.

Read on for more backstage beauty at New York Fashion Week »