Over the counter couture beauty
The Chanel and Dior AW14 couture collections were so different from each other although they both referenced the past to inform the future. The other thing they had in common was youthful hair and makeup. Chanel’s wayward ‘eighties boy band’ hairpieces (above and below) stole my attention from the clothes, giving the outfits an energetic attitude alongside equally youth-centric Sharpie-pen eyeliner flicks. (Full disclosure: I had a major backcombing habit in my teens.)
At Dior (below), I loved the very simple long hair and silver lined eyelid effect, courtesy of creative-and image director, Peter Philips who, of course was formerly the go-to make-up guy at Chanel.
Phillip always does interesting eyes, often using gold or illuminating textures for an ethereal effect. (In fact, he spent the previous weekend cutting seventy pairs of mirror-like adhesive eyeliner strips to affix to lids.) Where the clothes were grown-up and polished (towards the end – those sublime coat-trouser-poloneck combos), the beauty look really helped to make this feel casual and accessible, yet totally aspirational.
These make-up looks are a breeze to emulate, and (relatively) affordable too which means that although few of us can buy the outfits, we can all ‘get the look’ from our nearby Dior beauty counter. The latest rumour is that Dior will be selling a consumer version of the silver eyelid strips in time for the Christmas season. (On a side note, this peek into Peter Philips’ beauty kit is quite the eye-opener… Hello Body Shop lip scrub!)
[IMAGES: Thibault Camus/AP; Sam McKnight/Instagram; Romina Shama; Dazed Magazine/Jacques Habbah; Buro247]