Backstage Beauty: Real Women Walk the Runway at Marc Jacobs
Marc Jacobs is like the M Night Shyamalan of New York Fashion Week: His show always includes a surprise twist. This time, he chose to cast mostly unknown models, many of whom had never ever walked a runway. Then, he added two girls to the show who weren't even models at all-just cool chicks he plucked from the streets of New York to walk his famous runway. (We'd like to know which streets those are so we can start hanging out on them and wait for our MJ discovery moment.)
Backstage, we asked hairstylist Guido why Jacobs went with unknown beauties. "When you don't recognize the faces on the runway, there's more of an anonymous feel to the show," he said. "You really just focus the clothes." Makeup artist François Nars added, "Marc wanted an intellectual type of beauty for this show. These girls aren't glamazons-they're a bit more special and unique. You're able to get a sense of their personalities."
Nars then explained that Jamie Bochert-a pale, willowy girl with elongated features who looks like the love child of Cher and Patti Smith-was Jacobs's favorite girl of the show. The designer asked Nars and Guido to base all the other models' hair and makeup on Bochart's easygoing, East Village-girl look.
For Guido, this meant trimming all the girls' hair so it fell just below the collarbone, then he worked a little Redken Fabricate 03 Texturizer through damp hair and let it air-dry.
Related: 37 New Hair Ideas for 2010
For the makeup, Nars created a look that he described as "slightly worn off, as if the girl slept in her makeup after a night out and this is what she looks like the next day." He used his fingers to apply and then smudge the makeup colors so they looked a bit faded. He used a pale lilac shadow on the lids (Nars D. Gorgeous), black eyeliner (Nars Eyeliner Pencil in Black Moon), a peachy cream blush, and a pale peachy-coral lipstick (a discontinued Nars shade that Jacobs himself brought to the hair and makeup test. Wanna bet it's brought back to stores?). Then, to shake things up, Nars used old tubes of mascara that had dried out a bit to make the top and bottom lashes look purposefully clumpy for that out-all-night, haven't-yet-slept effect.
Messy never looked so cool.
Photo Credit: WWD
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