Posts Tagged ‘London Fashion Week’

As the fashion parade move onto Milan, lets have a look at some homegrown beauty trends. London and New York shared a lot of similarities in the beauty stakes, but London took first place with its cool British edge.

Plaits were used on a variety of catwalks in London but Danielle Scutt and Ashish did it best, putting a slight twist on the everyday style. Scutt toughened up the soft makeup with an armor-tight French plait, while Ashish went whimsical with a windswept braid, pink glitter on the lids and sharpened it with black lipstick. French plaits are difficult to do to yourself, but using the Davines Texturiser beforehand helps keep the sections in place while you twist them together. It really helps hold the messed up, tousled style too without looking too grunge.

The essence of cool at LFW is always Christopher Kane and Burberry, classic styling and always effortless. This year both ofthe top designers focused on a youthful and pretty look with velvety skin. Burberry opted for a tulip pink lip while Kane had a natural taupe on the lids and a pink stain on the lips.

The perfect foundation for the natural looking makeup is Perricone MD’s No Foundation Foundation, a lightweight coverage that also makes your skin to glow through naturally. To keep the skin velvety like the Burberry models, dust on some 3 Custom Color Translucent Face Powder to mattify.

Meanwhile at Giles, the girls were made to look like they’d all been enjoying a little tipple before the show. Cheeks were wine flushed and the lips were ‘red wine’ stained with the rest of the look kept simple – gorgeous! Erdem also sported a red lip this season in the form of a bright red lipstick to ‘show that the Erdem girl is wearing her heart on her mouth instead of her sleeve.’

Stain the lips and cheeks with Besame Cosmetics Enriched Lip Glaze in Cherry Red by dabbing and blending with fingers to create a light colour. Then blot the glaze onto lips to create the stain. To be an Erdem girl, pick up the 3 Custom Color Century in Red Palette to create the perfect red (in fact you can completely hedge your lipstick bets with this palette!).

Worn in looks are always a must in London; no one does the grunge look quite like the British. Roksanda Ilinic and Holly Fulton lead the way for the grunge revival but made it a little more polished and worn in. Ilnic took its main influence from Kate Moss in the 90s for a polished ‘day-old’ look while Fulton made the models into ‘trashy lush girls’ with worn in eyes and feathered brows.

Holly Fulton was all about smudged smokey eyes, it couldn’t be easier to recreate this look with the Stila Smudge Pot in Black – use your fingers to apply it all around your eye and then blend it out. The Ilnic eyes featured a good dose of eyeliner too, the Balm Pick Up Liners are perfect for defining the eyes and creating the little feline flick.

It wouldn’t be Fashion Week without a few unique hairstyles – the most fun of the looks came from Mulberry while Topshop Unique went all Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra. The extra large Bardot-inspired beehives at Mulberry were modernized with candy coloured extensions – go big or go home! Meanwhile Topshop Unique covered the front of the models’ Alexander Wang style hair with gold leaf to create the ethereal look as influenced by Liz Taylor’s version of Cleopatra.

The Mulberry beehive involves a lot of backcombing (and a little help from extensions) to create the gigantic look; prep hair with the Davines Texturiser then after styling set with Davines For Wizards No7 Crystal Fixactive Lacquer.

Eyes were the main focus at Fashion Week, the easiest of facial features to accentuate and create a whole variety of looks with. Unconditional created dramatic bronzy eyes, Vivienne Westwood Red Label changed her models into neo-neon nymphs while Marios Schwab opted for fuzzy feline eyes.

To get the dramatic bronzy eye, layer the lid with Illamasqua Liquid Metal in Enrapture and smoke it out around the edges with some of their Pure Pigment in Fervent. Create the feline eyes from Schwab with the Prestige Cosmetics Liquid Eyeliner in Black to get a precise line on the top and bottom lashes.

Cate Sewell

Cult Beauty’s Olivia Inge caught up with Erin O’Connor at London Fashion Week where they chatted fashion, beauty and Boris Johnson.

The circus that is London Fashion Week kicked off, for me (pictured right), with a show working with a dear friend, Alexia Somerville – High Voodoo Priestess and stylist extraordinaire – at Beach Blanket Babylon in Notting Hill, designed by Soro.

After graduating at St Martins, Soro (pictured left) went to work at Vivienne Westwood with Murray Blewett, Viv’s right hand man, as his mentor. He excelled at pattern cutting and design. His clothes are beautifully made in luxurious silks and jersey, the colours fun and sexy.

Soro, 26, has been commissioned by the National Ballet of Zurich to do the costumes for Stravinsky’s opera “Firebird”. So in keeping with this theme, Soro’s second show was based on “In the upper room” a ballet by Twyla Tharp.

The hair was done by the lovely Bed Head crew (see Darth hairdrier technique on right!!). We were each given a unique do based on the different characters in Soro’s mind, the make up had a doll like feeling – lots of blush, baby blue eye shadow, some girls had false eye lashes, some were left natural. I have noticed designers are opting more and more for individualised beauty looks, rather than the traditional generic, one size fits all that usually gets sent down the runway.

After the drama of Alexia’s missing phone (its as bad as losing your eyesight at fashion week), I jumped in a cab and headed over to 180 The Strand to the On/Off space where a number of shows and presentations are being held.

The indelible and kind Pshemko, hairdresser and all round lovely Polish man, invited me to watch Ramon Gurillo, a Spanish knitwear designer.

Amber Le Bon (pictured left in white) opened the show just as Suzy Menkes took her place in the front row. Amber’s beautiful and long tresses were shamelessly messed up, fly away hairs floated as she sauntered down the long white catwalk. The girls rocked a healthy glow, shine was kept to the brow, cheeks and body while the eyes were a smokey grey, the lips, nude.  Simple yet stunning. Johnny Sarpong, sometime hairdresser to Sienna Miller and Brad Pitt and the curator of hair for the show, gave me the low-down on his favourite products (video interview to follow).

Pam Hogg was the next show on my agenda and one that I was thoroughly excited to see. I love her mad space suits, the brilliant Barbarella inspired glam looks (see catwalk images below) and her music – Pam is a hot DJ on the London circuit.

Her show was held in an underground car park just off the Strand. As we wound our way underground, I spotted the glittertastic Jodie Harsh (pictured right with me), sporting some divine Terry de Havilland wedges teetering down the steep hill. Jodie walks with more swagger than some models.

Peaches (pictured right looking enthralled with the whole proceedings), Boy George, Paul Simonon and Stephan Jones injected some razzle dazzle into the front row. The show was electric. The hair was BIG and Mad Max like. Lips ruby red, blue eye shadow, strong sculpted eye brows and powdered skin.

The clothes weren’t much of a break from her last collection, but strong anyway. The girls looked like outer-space angels, with disgustingly high platforms where the heel had been scooped out. They must have been killers to walk in, some girls managed it, some didn’t.