The relaxing, calm and soothing vibe in the backstage area at Chloé. Ahhhh. Photo: Vanessa Craft

The backstage tents for the Chloe show may have been a swarming hot mess, but the beauty look for fall was sophisticated, controlled and didn’t involve a single person elbowing you in the kidneys. High five.

The beauty look for Chloé Fall 2013.

Hair stylist Anthony Turner created low slung, simple pony tails with side parts. While getting jostled by camera crews and international media, he told me he felt the beauty focus was a slight departure for the design house. “It’s a little bit different to what I think of as the ideal Chloe woman, which to me is this soft, very natural feeling,” he said. “This season she’s a bit stronger. Words like androgyny, strength, power — that’s where we were heading.” Turner used Tigi Root Boost to prep hair and then finished with old school Black & White hair pomade. “It’s boyish hair on a girl,” he said, admitting he enjoyed the idea of using men’s products to create the sleek style.

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The beauty look at Gareth Pugh. Photo by: Nicole Comeau.

British designer Gareth Pugh’s fashion and beauty direction is always a head trip in the best possible way. Basically, you need to suspend any preconceived notion of what “wearable” or even “trendy” means, because you’re simply not going to see anything else like it ever again. It’s enough to just come away feeling completely transported and moved.

Here’s six things I learned backstage at Gareth Pugh:

1. Your hair can be worn as a scarf. Both warm and cost effective.

Photo by: Vanessa Craft

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The theme for Michael Kors’ fall/winter collection was “urban survival.” Kors told WWD that he was inspired to explore the sometimes inherent tension between athleticism and luxury after he had to slum it at The Mark hotel during/after Hurricane Sandy. If you read my “Day in the Life” blog series (part 1, part 2 and part 3), you’ll see why this survival theme resonated with me. I’ve put together a photo essay of my adventures from the backstage to the front row. (Okay, it was the third row, but you get the idea.)

 1: I love it when there’s clear signage! (For someone who is direction-challenged, this is appreciated. Greatly.)

2: Model watchers can always catch snaps of their fave runway stompers as they mill about outside the tents.

3. Before you enter the backstage area, you first sign in at a press table. They give you a badge and then you walk by burly (imposing—but usually friendly) security guards. (This fella wouldn’t let me take a photo of his face. I decided it was best not to press the matter.)

4. It’s always a bit of a zoo backstage, so my first goal was to find the hair and/or beauty command centre and look for my intended interview subjects. In this case, it was Dick Page (for makeup) and Orlando Pita (for hair). Here’s Pita putting the final touches on one of the male models.

What did he do for the women’s hair? Hint: It involves material he purchased in a sex shop. Check it out.

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Hooded eyes and “eroded nails” backstage at Alexander Wang fall/winter 2013/2014. Photo by ImaxTree.com.

It’s day three after my manicure, and let’s just say my nails are no longer looking as polished as I’d like. The good news? I’m right on trend, according to Jan Arnold, nail designer and co-founder of CND. “For today’s show, we used an ‘erosion’ technique,” she explains backstage at Alexander Wang. “The goal is to make the nails look a little weathered—like this is a girl who really lives life. I’m calling it the enigma trend.”

To create the look, Arnold says they went for a monochromatic matte finish with a gradient of sandstone hues. The polish—Impossibly Plush—was applied to the nail with a fan brush. (The technique is to apply the polish from the side of the nail to the centre.) Next, she added Speedey Top Coat, and, when the nails were dry, she used the CND Glossing Buffer to remove the shine and give it that eroded finish. “The shape is androgynous because Alexander didn’t want it overly sexy or feminine. He wanted it to be functional. It also works well with the textures in the collection, in particular the brushed wools that look slightly worn.”

 Click through for more backstage beauty highlights at Alexander Wang. (Hint: Cognac-inspired ponies!) 

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Backstage beauty at Altuzarra. “She’s kinda of spooky looking, which is why I love it!” explains makeup artist Tom Pecheux.

Whether it’s Jason Wu’s “extreme femininity” or Altuzarra’s “fiercely feminine silhouette” the style maven’s fashion and beauty mandate for Fall 2013 is clearly to “take no prisoners!” But that doesn’t mean she’s overly aggressive, explains makeup artist Tom Pecheux, backstage at Altuzarra. “The look is strong—in fact it’s quite spooky, but it’s not aggressive or mean.” He created his spooky muse using a M.A.C creamy charcoal, metallic shadow on the upper eyelid and a raspberry/pink shade under the eye blending it from the outside to the middle and down. “You don’t know if she’s completely mad, or she’s coming back from a great evening out. It’s Belle de Jour with a touch of [Helmut] Newton.”

Tom Pecheux backstage at Altuzarra.

What’s the story behind that hair? Click here to see what unexpected glitch the hair team had to contend with…

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 Makeup look created by Melissa Gibson, senior artist with M.A.C Cosmetics. Nails by Miyuki Nakatomi/Tips Nail Bar.

How gorgeous is this beauty look from Sid Neigum Spring 2013? The sultry black eyeliner reminds me of Brigitte Bardot, while the ultra defined brow and lightly contoured cheek give it a  modern twist. Doesn’t it make you want to put on a striped Breton shirt and break a heart or two?

Let’s also have a moment for nude nails—which are having a moment of their own.

Click through to check out the face chart and behind-the-scenes makeup artist instructions….

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Greg Wencel, CoverGirl makeup pro, works his magic on a model backstage at Jeremy Laing.

Jeremy Laing first showed his Spring 2013 collection at New York Fashion Week in September, so for his encore presentation at The shOws last night, makeup artist Greg Wencel and hair artist Justin German were charged with taking the original beauty look and giving it a special Toronto twist.

Let’s listen in on how they did it:

MAKEUP LOOK: Greg Wencel, CoverGirl makeup pro

Designer inspiration ”Jeremy wanted it to look quite lived in and handsome. He didn’t want them to look too princessy, or too done or too glam.”

Creating the look “We left the brows and the lashes bare. We combed clear mascara through both to get rid of any unruly hairs and to give them a little bit of definition. On the eye, we used Iced Cappuccino blush underneath the eye and the brow bone. Then we put a clear gloss on the eye—we just pressed that onto the eye with our fingertips. We used the same blush on the cheekbones. We wanted it to be tone on tone—soft focus. We wanted to give the cheeks definition without competing with the eye. Using the same colour softly draws your eye to the eyes.”

Fresh touch ”I think it has a little bit of a ’70s feel, but what makes it modern is the lack of lashes and the lack of a defined brow. Also, the blush—it reminds me of the ’70s too, that high sculpted cheekbone, but because it’s not as angular and it’s not as harsh, it looks more modern.”

HAIR LOOK: Justin German, Pantene consulting stylist

Designer inspiration ”The thing about Jeremy—his stuff is simple but it’s modern. It’s not fussy. [The clothes] go with this look, because it’s linear but it still has a modern edge.”

Creating the look “On either side, we’re doing a two-strand twist instead of a corn row—when you twist it, it looks like a rope, like a coil. Then we gather them at the bottom with a simple ponytail down the back. For product, we’re using a Sebastian Moldable Shine Wax, because it’s a little bit greasy—almost like a pomade, old school. At the last minute, we’ll use a matte putty, so [it will look] more edgy but not greasy. I like the look of the shiny and the dry together.”

Pony up ”[The look is]  a twist on the ponytail. The ponytail is it in the centre of the head one year, then it’s low, a deep side part, a high ponytail. The low pony is classic. Braids have been around for so long, so it’s  a nice twist to make them… twist.”

German’s all-time favourite pony look? “I always love me a good old-fashioned high ponytail. Kind of Madonna-ish. Tight, tight head and really hot.”

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Image courtesy of IMAXtree.com.

It’s never good when the white noise of backstage (a veritable hum of hairdryers, chit chat and cell phone ring tones) suddenly goes silent.

At Phillip Lim 3.1 Spring/Summer 2013, Brit hairdresser Paul Hanlon (dubbed the Ryan Gosling of hairdressing due to his affable demeanor and good looks) was hard at work his creating the intensely teased, bedhead ‘do. Even before the power went off, it was a pressurized environment. The call all makeup and hair teams hate to hear, “5 minutes to rehearsal!” had just rung out down across the messy, crowded aisle of workstations. And then, suddenly silence. Don’t you love how I’m dragging this out like I was witnessing open heart surgery during a electricity failure?

Though I had been hovering nearby watching Hanlon work under a dense, rising cloud of hairspray, when the lights went out I beat a hasty retreat. Let’s put it this way: Watching such a hugely talented artist interrupted from his work when under tremendous stress, watching him rush around frantically trying to restore the electricity, a glaze of panic-sweat beading on his forehead and the occasional swear word being barked loudly towards the ceiling was too much. I liken it to seeing your dad cry for the first time.

I hit the catering area and stocked up on Madelines.

Read more of Vanessa’s NYFW dispatch….

The beauty look at 3.1 Phillip Lim.

All spectacle aside (the power eventually did go back on, and disaster was averted), the beauty look for Phillip Lim 3.1 was one of my favourites of the week.

Francelle Daly, who used NARS makeup to create the lash-heavy look, summed it up as “a very modern rocker chick, with elements of early Kim Gordon (Sonic Youth), Lita Ford, Joan Jett. A tiny bit of sunkissed bronzer, a matte bronzer– as if she’s been at a music festival all day. It’s a fun effortlessly ‘rocker’ look.”

Image via IMAXtree

It’s been an interesting week so far in New York. We’ve had bloody nails, Edie Sedgwick inspired beauty workstations and even guinea pigs on street corners.

(Really. Guinea pigs. I don’t even question anything I see in this city anymore.)

When it comes to makeup, the Spring/Summer shows tend to be when bold pops of colour show up everywhere, from lips to cheeks to eyes.

Yet, we’re seeing a serious wave of bare faces (Narcisco Rodriguez), nude lips and nails, and even skin is stepping up in a starring role. I think this return to simplicity is a fantastic trend –it seems very fresh and ahead of the curve to scale things back sometimes. But, that doesn’t mean we should go without colour. Nuh-uh.

Thank goodness for the inimitable Donna Karan sent her girls down the runway at Donna Karan New York with a seriously bright beauty message.

MAC artist Charlotte Tilbury described it like this. “We wanted to do something that would be a strong juxtaposition to the collection,” she said, referencing the colour palette of dreamy creams, blues and greys in Karan’s clothes. “We’re using this magenta eye, which is created with a really bright pink/purple lip liner, and we’re drawing it in a straight line across the eye. It’s a modern shape, quite wide in the center, quite square. Then and then underneath there’s a blank space in the inner corner of the eye.”

Tilbury and her team also used a bright pink pencil as “a mascara, painting the lashes bottom and top. Of the overall message, Tilbury was philosophical. “I feel like bright colour done in modernist ways is very interesting right now,” she said. “It’s a strong look and it encapsulates the season.”

Key product: MAC Lip Pencil in Magenta

Backstage image courtesy of ImaxTree.com.

Tom Pecheux had the following to say about the soft, elegant look he created using Estée Lauder at Derek Lam today.

“The look is very, very, very pretty. Very transparent. I wanted to recreate the feeling of the light of the sunrise on top of a lake. That’s why I wanted the aqua colour. It’s all very subtle, a very luxurious makeup. You know, the most luxurious women are the ones who don’t try too hard. You try too hard, it looks like you’re having a panic attack. This makeup today, it doesn’t hide or create a different personality.”

Key product: Pecheux used Estée Lauder Advanced Night Repair, a skin serum, mixed in with two new eyeshadow pots (out in Spring 2013) to create the transparent eye look.

Now, onto more important news!

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