About Face

A commonality among women who work in fashion is that it’s rare to find one who wears “a full face.” (Of makeup, that is.) The assumption is that the individual is working for the clothes (and what surrounds them — designing, styling, shooting, critiquing, etc.) but doesn’t quite need to engage in the “full look” so empathetically. Maybe this is why design houses (e.g. Chloé, Thakoon, MBMJ, Erdem) leaned heavy on a fresh-faced, light-to-no makeup look for their Spring collections. At Marc Jacobs, in fact, there was nothing more than expertly applied moisturizer.

But just because some runways boasted the cosmetic equivalent of “normcore” didn’t mean makeup artists were out of a job. At Preen, the models were dappled with pencil-drawn freckles.

And then there were eyebrows; who knew they could be manipulated so expansively? The world’s most famous ones — Cara Delevingne’s — were bleached at Givenchy. At Miu Miu they were erased then drawn back on, while at Rodarte, they appeared to be pierced. At Dries Van Noten, strips of gold were faux-tattooed to his models’ lips to look like lip rings. At Dolce & Gabbana, wine-painted pouts remained a focal point.

Of course, though, makeup will never be ignored. We love it, we need it, it reminds us we’re in control. At Saint Laurent, Louis Vuitton and Chanel, eyes were rimmed in black. At Chanel specifically, not every model in the line up was marked, but a few had their lids dusted with a multicolored tie-dye powder. Cool.

At Rochas, the eyes were dotted, and above the lashes at Fendi were statement-making lines of frosted blue.

Lids were lined with strips of pink satin at Dior — half moons of designer textile rather than pigment or eyeshadow, which was the most ingenious interpretation of the month’s underlying wink to the viral hashtag #nomakeup. Satin’s a fabric, after all, and during fashion week, we wake up for the clothes.