Fashion shows

Fashion show secrets: gaffer tape hair spray



Here’s a little backstage beauty nugget I found out recently. See that backstage beauty station? See those hairspray-like cans wrapped in parcel tape? That’s a little known secret of fashion shows. When big beauty brands sponsor shows, they want their and only their branding in the backstage shots. So MAC doesn’t want a stray Lancome mascara wand in view at a MAC-sponsored show and Toni & Guy doesn’t want a can of Elnett upstaging its products if it’s paying for exclusive endorsement. All well and good, but it seems there’s an understanding that sometimes X product is the only one that will do for X star hairdresser. So the solution is to cover it in gaffer tape to disguise the branding. In fact, some say that Toni & Guy’s black-clad Label M product packaging was so designed to mimic the gaffer-tape look I just described. Who knew?

[Image: Grazia Daily/BaByLiss]



Ebay launches House of Holland online pop-up shop



Last season Topshop took the chance to turn London Fashion Week into a shopping opportunity. This season, Ebay is jumping in with an online pop-up shop to support Henry Holland. As part of the British Fashion Council’s Fashion Forward initiative, Ebay is supporting Mary Katrantzou, Louise Gray and House of Holland with sponsorship, as well as live-streaming their SS13 shows on its Style Collective blog (where – ahem – you can also read some of my fashion musings). As a logical tie-in, it’s also selling an edited selection of House of Holland AW12 on Ebay.co.uk from today until 18th September, with each purchase sent out with a pair of Henry Holland’s phenomenally popular tights.

Gotta say it, this is a great example of 360° thinking; a neat way to bring the buzz of LFW directly to fashion-hungry shoppers while driving sales to Ebay and House of Holland. OK, you can’t buy the SS13 collection straight off the runway (to my knowledge) but maybe we’ll get that by next season.

Will you be buying?



Nail news: New Essie colours, tastemaker nails by Killer Colours, Sophy Robson’s InStyle column, Chanel’s vending machines, NYFW nail mania



ESSIE’S NEW COLOURS
Essie’s Fall 2012 collection is about to drop on BeautyBay.com. My favourite shade is this bewitching bottle green called Stylenomics, which will look gorgeous against any shade of pink. The cube of four minis will retail at £11.95 and the single bottles £8.50

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INTERVIEW: Natalie Joos for Coach, plus her thoughts on casting, street style and the politics of New York Fashion Week



The last couple of months has seen a tipping point for multi-skilled digital creatives luxuriating in the limelight. Garance Dore has just collaborated with Kate Spade, as well as penning her first Vogue Paris column, as well as modelling in the Net-a-Porter campaign. (more…)