Paris Fashion Week SS12: Backstage Beauty

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Vivienne Westwood

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Vivienne Westwood The Westwood look was as crazy and creative as you\'d expect from Dame Viv. The make-up was inspired by an 18th Century painting of a lady but Val Garland wanted to create a very childlike interpretation of that so she used lots of different colours - pink, yellow, gold, orange - to create a doll-like, haphazard make-up.

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Vivienne Westwood

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Vivienne Westwood The models\' skin was turned porcelain white with MAC White Face & Body Foundation ad MAC Modern Mandarin Blush (a bright orange) was used on the apples of the cheeks. On their eyes, she used MAC Ochre Colour Corrector from lash to brow and then painted MAC Gold Pigment mixed with Water Mixing Medium through the crease and through the eyebrows. MAC Chrome Yellow eyeshadow was added under the eyes on the inner and outer corners and MAC Genuine Orange Chromographic pencil was applied in the centre lower lid, with MAC Orange eyeshadow on top. The Gold Pigment was used again under the eye, with each make-up artist doing it slightly differently to highlight the unique shape of each model\'s eye. On the lips, MAC Vino Lip Pencil was used all over to create a rounded shape, the MAC Full Cover Foundation in White was whisked over the top with a fan brush and the high points of the lips were accented with Gold Pigment. Not exactly the kind of make-up you\'ll want to recreate for a night out perhaps... but all the more fun for it!

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Vivienne Westwood

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Vivienne Westwood Hair at Westwood also combined the idea of an 18th century painting with the idea of childlike naivety. Hairstylist Sam McKnight created about 5 different versions of the look, which all involved messy knots and braids, teased heavily to create wisps at the front. He used Pantene Aqualight Nourishing Mist before styling and then created a deep side-part from front to back. One side was plaited loosely, and the other side was pulled into a high pony and then plaited also. He used Pantene Repair & Protect Serum on the ends of the plaits, teased them, ann then knotted them together before finishing with Pantene Classic Hold Hairspray. Like the make-up, it\'s probably a catwalk-only look but for a Vivienne Westwood show, this was actually pretty wearable hair!

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Vivienne Westwood

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Vivienne Westwood About five models at the Westwood show had a totally different make-up - bright blue graphic shapes drawn onto lips, brows and beneath their lips to creat a kind of warrior look. Make-up artist Val Garland told me they\'d been inspired by black and white photos of wood carvings and want to create something that looked very strong and powerful and picked up the cobalt blue colour used in Vivienne\'s collection.\r\n

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Vivienne Westwood

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Vivienne Westwood To create this second look, MAC Marine Ultra Paintstick was painted under the eyes to create a graphic 60s shape and MAC Electric Eel Eyeshadow was applied on top of the Paintstick to set it and add extra intensity. The same Painstick was painted onto the brows, creating clean, acute, square box-shapes. Again Electric Eel Eyeshadow was applied on top, and the same two products were used on the mouth to draw a squared-off shape that left the outer edges of the lips bare. Pretty fierce, no?!

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Vivienne Westwood

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Vivienne Westwood Fabulous manicurist Marian Newman did incredible nails for the Westwood show. She used Minx nail appliques in a range of colourful patterns - a cute bright floral and a cool abstract one that looked a bit like an oil slick with swirls of rainbow colours were two of my faves. But instead of applying them perfectly, Marian wanted the nails to look like a child had done them so she applied some of the transfers a bit further up the finger, as though they\'d slipped off the nail. Then she added lots of sparkly coloured gems and added splodges of nail polish in orange, blue and red - as though a kid had been messing around with some nail varnishes while her mum wasn\'t looking. For the models\' toes, Marian used the same Minx appliques on all of them - the Gunmetal Gradient ones (on the far left of the picture) which are clear in the middle and then tun to a dark grey towards the outer edges of the nails. She gave me a set of all the patterns to try so I\'m desperate to experiment with them!

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Kenzo

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Kenzo The Kenzo make-up referenced the 80s - a heathy, big-eyebrowed woman with brown to contour the eyes. Peter Philips used Chanel Ombre Essentiel in Mahogany on the eyebrows because he said powder gives the brows that 80s quality, whereas pencil would make them too 50s. He used the same mahogany eyeshadow to contour the eyes, then curled the lashes and added black mascara to the top lashes, mainly at the roots for definition rather than to add length. On the lips he used Chanel Lipliner in Desert, a beige brown, and then Chanel Rouge Allure in Curious to create a tonal browny lip.

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Kenzo

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Kenzo The Kenzo hair was really easy and summery - a beautiful loose braid with a centre parting. Hairstylist Anthony Turner used TIGI Your Highness Root Boost and then gave the girls a strong centre parting an blueshift their hair straight. He tucked their hair behind their ears but left out the front pieces so that as the girls walked, the front parts would float. He started the braid about halfway down the back of the head and once he\'d finished it, he pulled it apart so it looked more undone. Easy and gorgeous!

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Issey Miyake

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Issey Miyake The Issey Miyake look was catwalk beauty at its best - totally unwearable, impossible to recreate but absolutely stunning. The whole show was about flowers, buds and blooms and the girls wore headpieces that looked like petals so hairstylist Eugene Souleiman had the idea of making the hair into the shape of a tulip bud (as you do!) It was very conceptual hair but really beautiful - perfect sleek cone shapes with a small section left loose at the back likes hanging leaf.

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Issey Miyake

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Issey Miyake It was incredibly complicated to create but to give you a rough idea, he blow-dried the hair using Wella Professionals Start Up, put the top section into a pony (leaving halo of hair loose t the front) and pulled it through a doughnut ring which gave the structure for the cone shape. Then he used pieces of the pony to cover the doughnut, stretching the doughnut forward so that it graduated smoothly from the forehead. The halo of hair that had been left at the front was used to create the sleek surface of the cone, saturated with hairspray and set with a diffuser. On some girls the end of the ponytail was left hanging down at the back but keeping close to the back of the head, like a trailing leaf or petal. The finished look was spritzed with different colours to enhance the impression of petals - some girls pink, some gold, some blue. It\'s probably not a look to try at home but it was hair as an art-form - probably the most ambitious look of the season!

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Issey Miyake

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Issey Miyake The Issey Miyake make-up was also all about flowers with a gorgeous fuchsia mouth, inspired by the graduated colour of a tulip petal. The skin was gorgeously natural, with just a tiny bit of MAC Select Civet Concealer where needed and MAC Metal X Eyeshadow in Fusion Gold used to highlight the cheekbones. This same eyeshadow was used on the centre of the eyelids so that ad the girls blinked, it would catch the light. It was also used to highlight down the centre of the nose and just above the Cupid\'s bow. No mascara was used so the eyes looked very stark, with all the ficus on the lips. To create the gorgeous fuchsia mouth, makeup artist Lucia Peroni used MAC Pro Lip Pencil in Process Magenta on the inside of the lip, softly blended out to almost nothing at the edges of the mouth (like the graduated colour of a petal). Then she used MAC Fuchsia Lip Mix just in the middle if the mouth and just before the girls went out to the runway, she dabbed a tiny bit if MAC Clear Lipglass onto the Cupid\'s bow and the very centre of the bottom lip to catch the light.

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Stella McCartney

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Stella McCartney \'It\'s all about fresh, gorgeous beautiful Stella girls,\' Pat McGrath told me. \'We\'re just warming up the cheeks with a little pinky blush, using a nude brown shadow around the eyes, grooming the brows and brushing them up, and using a little brown mascara and lip balm. It\'s just about them being themselves and beautiful.\' So very Stella.\r\n\r\nHair was also beautifully simple: \'I\'m not inventing the lightbulb,\' hairstylist Eugene Souleiman told me, \'but you don\'t need to.\' He said he wanted to get rid of the hair and make the girls a bit more chic and polished. To do that, he took the top section of hair, clipped it out the way and then sprayed all the underneath section with hairspray and pulled it into a pony. On the top section, he then used Wella Professionals Velvet Amplifier to give it a more \'real\' texture than the sides and underneath, before pulling all the hair into a bun. \'I wanted the top to have texture and then the sides to be really sleek. It\'s a very simple look but there\'s a subtlety to it with the play on textures.\' We like.

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Giambattista Valli

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Giambattista Valli Make-up at Giambattista Valli was almost non-existent - it was just about boyish beauty and gorgeous skin, with no contour and no blush. Make-up maestro Val Garland used MAC Matchmaster Foundation followed by MAC Prep & Prime Finishing Powder. Then the models had just a touch of MAC Studio Fix Lash in black on their top lashes and a smidge of Lip Conditioner on their lips. Simples!

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Giambattista Valli

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Hair by Orlando Pita had two different textures - a slicked back top section with an almost wet look, and then softer from the mid-lengths to the ends. Hero products of the day were L\'Oreal Professionnel Tecni.art Fix Design and Fix Max.

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Pam Hogg

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Pam Hogg Punk queen Pam Hogg is one of the most original and creative designers in Britain so the look at her show was always gonna be an interesting one. Terry Barber certainly didn\'t disappoint on the make-up front - he gave the girls a playful strip of grey through the eye, adding one false lash in the centre of the eye to emphases the vertical plane even more. \'The whole show is an homage to Paris and the theme is Notre Dame,\' Terry told me. \'It\'s like light coming through a cathedral window and casting a shadow on the girls\' faces,\' He used the same matt grey on the lips (MAC Eyeshadow in Copperplate) and added beauty marks in various different sizes and colours - dark brown but also teal and grey. Totally fashion-fabulous.

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Chloe

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Chloe The Chloe look was just want you\'d expect - gorgeous healthy hair, glowing skin and chic caramel tones in the make-up.\r\n\r\nEugene was doing the hair and they had to wash the models\' hair backstage (using Wella Enrich Volume Shampoo and Conditioner) to get rid of any product from previous shows as he wanted their hair to look really clean and healthy. They left the girls\' hair pinned up until just before the show because it was so hot backstage, the shape would drop instantly otherwise (this pic is when it was still pinned up). The look was hair loose though, softly tonged to give it just a bit of shape and gently parted in the centre. \'It\'s just what you\'d expect from a Chloe girl really,\' said Eugene. \'Sexy, natural, done but undone, movement but no movement. It\'s very cool, glamorous and easy-looking - like French Vogue fashion girls basically.\' The kind of hair we all want then.

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Chloe

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Chloe Lucia Peroni was heading up the Chloe make-up and as you\'d expect, it was cool, chic, healthy and fresh. \'She\'s the kind of girl who doesn\'t need much make-up\', Lucia told me. She used MAC Face & Body Foundation in a super-sheer veil all over the face and then used a caramel tone to create a shadow around the eyes (MAC Paintpot in Grounwork for blondes and Constructivist for brunettes). MAC Plushlash Mascara in Black was used very thinly on top and bottom lashes and Mineralize SkinFinish in Medium Deep was buffed onto the fronts of the cheeks - not to make the girls super-tanned but just to make them look healthy. Fusion Gold Metal X Eyeshadow was then applied to the cheekbones, temple, nose and Cupid\'s bow to give the skin a sheer golden highlight. To finish, a mix of MAC Lipsticks in Myth, Fresh Brew and Patisserie was pressed onto the lips to give a subtle tint of colour.

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Emanuel Ungaro

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Emanuel Ungaro Charlotte Tilbury did gorgeous make-up for the Ungaro show - a beautiful glossy teal eye with a sunkissed glow on the skin and a smattering of freckles. \'The colour on the eye is like the graduated deep blue of the sea,\' Charlotte told me. \'I imagine her in Capri so the blue is inspired by that and she\'s been on the beach so her skin is very healthy and sunkissed.\'

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Emanuel Ungaro

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Emanuel Ungaro To create the sunkissed skin, Charlotte used a few drops of MAC Face & Body Foundation in C5 on any of the girls that were looking pale. Then she used a little MAC Mineralize Skinfinish in Dark to add a touch of tan to the nose and across the cheeks, highlighting the cheekbones with MAC Cream Colour Base in Luna.

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Emanuel Ungaro

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Emanuel Ungaro To do the eyes, MAC Technakohl in Auto de Bleu was used around both the upper and lower lids and inside the lower lashline. A darker blue pencil (MAC Eye Kohl in Blooz) was then used to define the lashline and black pencil (MAC Eye Kohl in Smoulder) was added right by the roots of the lashes. MAC Gloss Texture was added on top to give the colour a stunning wet look. The lips were toned down with concealer and the the look was finished with some cute freckles across the nose and cheeks, drawn on with MAC Lip Pencil in Hodge Podge.

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Emanuel Ungaro

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Emanuel Ungaro The Ungaro hair was very simple and summery - a low loose pony with the kind of cool-girl texture we all want. To create it, the hair was blow-dried with Bumble & Bumble Prep and Bumble & Bumble Thickening Spray, using a flat brush. A cloud of Bumble & Bumble Surf Spray was then used to mattify and add texture. The hair was side-parted to give it a bit of structure and tied in a low loose pony with a little piece left falling on one eye. \'She\'s a very modern stylish girl who\'s done her hair herself.\'

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Sonia Rykiel

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Sonia Rykiel The Sonia Rykiel hair was all about an amazing blowdry - slightly 40s and slightly 70ish, with a deep side-parting and a large black barrette about an inch above one ear. Hairstylist Guido Palau used Redken Satin Wear 02 Blowdry Lotion to give the models\' hair a really smooth blowdry. Then he created a deep side-part and spritzed on Redken Hot Sets Thermal Setting Spray before curling hair with a 1 inch iron and pinning it up to set. Then the hair was undone and brushed out so just the ends had some curl and the rest of the hair was just smooth and bouncy, with a chic barrette on one side. Gorgeous!

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Sonia Rykiel

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Sonia Rykiel Dick Page was the head make-up artist at Sonia Rykiel and he created a beautiful, simple monochromatic make-up. He used the same tone on the eye and the lip - a dark concealer used all around the eye with no hard edges, finished with a little brown mascara. He used a bit of peachy bronze blush on the girls\' cheeks and temples just to brighten the skin a little and subtly strengthened the brows, brushing them upwards but leaving them a bit scruffy. \'This make-up doesn\'t change the girls\' faces\', Dick told me. \'It just enhances their features and creates a beautiful monochromatic effect.\'

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Yoji Yamamoto

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Yoji Yamamoto The Yohji Yamamoto hair was fabulous - Victorian inspired but taken to a whole different level! Hairstylist Eugene Souleiman said he wanted the girls to look a bit like the first pilgrims that landed on America - prim and hard. The hair was also very elaborate though - at the front, the hair was parted in a V shape and then at the back the girls had sleek ponies but the middle and top of the head was adorned with incredible teased rolls of hair. Some of the girls had three rolls, some had two - apparently Yohji told Eugene to freestyle it! One girl had two rolls in a Y shape (Y for Yohji, natch!) Catwalk hair at its best... The make-up by Pat McGrath was just as bold and graphic. She gave the girls a strong violet plum mouth in a really precise shape, teamed with highlighted skin and contoured eyes to create a modern, futuristic look.

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty:

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty The Haider Ackermann hair was very androgynous - the girls were meant to look like young aristocratic boys who\'ve been to a club and been doing something they shouldn\'t. \'They\'re the kind of privileged boys whose pictures you see in the Sunday papers\', said hairstylist Eugene Souleiman. He created a contrast between very sleek shiny hair at the sides of the head (slicked back to make the girls look like they had short hair) and then quite foppish hair on top with a dry \'unhealthy-looking\' texture. \'It\'s about restriction and anarchy\', Eugene told me. \'They look like boys who\'ve got plenty of style and privilege but they\'ve also got attitude. It\'s very nonchalant - they\'re not trying too hard\'. To create the look, he used Wella Professional Stay Styled hairspray to create the sleek part of the style, spraying it close to the head to saturate the hair and get it perfectly smooth. Then on the top part of the hair, he used Wella Professional Ocean Spritz and Wella Create Character Spray to create a dishevelled texture, using straightening irons on the front sections and then working his fingers through the hair. \'I don\'t mind if the girls mess it up a bit when they get dressed for the runway - that\'ll make it look even better,\' Eugene told me. Beautiful rich-boys going through a rebellious phase - I can get behind that.

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Haider Ackermann

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Haider Ackermann Stephane Marais was leading the make-up at Haider Ackermann and as with the hair, it had a very androgynous feel. \'It\'s about poetry and thought - they\'re tortured, heavy souls\', Stephane told me. He created a make-up with lots of mystery and magic - glossy, dewy eyes, almost bare skin, no mascara and nothing on the lips.

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Haider Ackermann

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Haider Ackermann On the eyes, MAC Eyeshadows in Mulch, Concrete and Shale were using to create shadow on the eyes and then MAC Pro Mixing Medium was used in top to give the lids a glossy, transparent look. The models\' cheeks were sculpted with MAC Cream Colour Base in Tint just beneath the cheekbones to give their faces a slightly haunted feel. As Stephane put it: \'It\'s very hypnotic and sexy. If they stare at you, you\'re in trouble....\'

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Costume National

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Costume National Costume National was really soft easy and pretty this season. The make-up brief was very fresh, no make-up make-up so Mathias van Hoof just used a little MAC Studio Finish concealer where the girls needed it, a bit of taupey grey eyeshadow to line and shade the eye (MAC Eyeshadow in Bark) and then a little black mascara at the roots of the lashes. He wanted to give the girls a bit of a rosy cheek but couldn\'t find the right shade so he used MAC Lip Mix in Crimson mixed with a bit of Vaseline just on the apples of the cheeks. Lips were kept soft and pretty with MAC Lipstick in Hue - a gorgeous nudey pink.

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Costume National

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Costume National Hair at Costume National is always quite architectural - clean but with a bit of a twist. This season it was much softer though - there were lots of pinks and transparent fabrics in the collection so hairstylist Paul Hanlon wanted to reflect that lightness in the hair. He told me the inspiration was an old Helmut Land show from about \'94 and a pic of Kate Moss with a bit of a crimp in her hair. \'It\'s not a full-on crimp\', he told me. \'It\'s more like the crimp\'s worn out - like a girl\'s crimped her hair and then her mum\'s told her she can\'t go out like that so she\'s had to brush it out. To create the look, Paul gave the girls a side-parting on a slight diagonal so the style looked quite madculine fron the front. Then jused a tailcomb to weave the hair (like when doing highlights) and then crimped just that section so that it gave a softer effect. As soon as he\'d crimped it, he ran a flat-iron straight over it to take the edge off and make the crimp look like it had worn out. \'Using the straightening iron takes the volume out of the crimping and makes it softer so there\'s just a hint of texture.\' He told me the only two products he used were TIGI Queen For A Day Mousse to pump up the hair but keep it really dry, and L\'Oreal Paris Elnett Hairspray to finish. The girls\' hair was tucked behind their ears and kept clean off the shoulders, then slightly messed up just before the girls headed out to the runway. Love!

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Costume National

Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Paris Fashion Week SS12 Backstage Beauty: Costume National To create the look, Paul gave the girls a side-parting on a slight diagonal so the style looked quite madculine fron the front. Then jused a tailcomb to weave the hair (like when doing highlights) and then crimped just that section so that it gave a softer effect. As soon as he\'d crimped it, he ran a flat-iron straight over it to take the edge off and make the crimp look like it had worn out. \'Using the straightening iron takes the volume out of the crimping and makes it softer so there\'s just a hint of texture.\' He told me the only two products he used were TIGI Queen For A Day Mousse to pump up the hair but keep it really dry, and L\'Oreal Paris Elnett Hairspray to finish. The girls\' hair was tucked behind their ears and kept clean off the shoulders, then slightly messed up just before the girls headed out to the runway. Love!