Cut-And-Paste Makeup And “Aerodynamic” Hair, Backstage at Fendi
September 22, 2012
Peter Philips likes to think outside the box. The makeup artist known for his way around a perfect complexion and a gorgeous rose-petal pink or red lip is just as often referenced for mixing makeup mediums—an embroidered eyelash here, a precious gemstone brow there. Blame it on his art school education. At Fendi, it was the latter inclination that, er, stuck. “The idea was to use colors from the collection, and the best way to do that is to use the actual collection,” Philips said as he glued pre-cut fabric strips onto models’ lower eyelids.
“It was a bathing suit,” Philips explained of the neoprene swatches in peach, teal, royal blue, neon orange, tan, and yellow that he placed beneath the lash line in a three-part system: “There is black on the bottom, pointed outward,” he elaborated, followed by a color strip in the middle, and a shorter, brighter piece on the inner corner. “After rehearsal, I noticed the blue really worked,” Philips said of why most models ended up with the same royal blue center. Otherwise, faces were left bare to appear “more young and playful” and less “theatrical”—a directive that came right from Karl Lagerfeld, who dropped by to pay his respects. (”I didn’t want to interrupt you; I just wanted to say hello,” the designer said to Philips in passing). Never one to miss a nail opportunity, Philips added to the season’s neutral polish palette with a nude-salmon varnish, the result of Chanel Le Vernis Nail Lacquer in Ming, a warm, shimmering pink, mixed with white and a few drops of its Mimosa, a sunny yellow.
The same pastel colors could be spotted in a range of embellished headbands that Lagerfeld made for the show to accessorize Sam McKnight’s “sharp, aerodynamic” updos. “It’s not soaking-wet,” McKnight explained of what he ultimately deemed a “malleable, sea-wet” texture, the result of strands that had been prepped with Frederic Fekkai Marine Summer Hair Beach Waves and divided into four sections. Creating a flat bun in the back to remove excess weight, McKnight folded hair over from one side followed by the other, which was twisted and pinned down. Having left the top section free, McKnight ultimately rolled that backward, attaching it to the finished coif. “There’s about 40 pins in each girl,” he estimated, “so we’re not advising them to go to the airport anytime soon.” Zing!