NYFW S/S 2011: MAC for Kimberly Ovitz

I got to New York yesterday, and kicked my week off with (what else?) a fashion show. Well, the hair and makeup, anyway. (Getting permission to go backstage and watch the preparations and getting permission to watch the show are, as it turns out, two totally different things.)

I was surprised by how incredibly calm it was backstage at Kimberly Ovitz. Luc Bouchard was the lead artist for MAC, and he and his team were giving the models perfected, very nude faces (colorless brows, colorless lips), with two strong black triangles just under the brow — ”warrior-like,” Luc said. He said that Kimberly Ovitz’s collection incorporated a lot of squares, and they wanted to keep that geometric theme in the makeup look.
I asked Luc how us mortals could translate the look into everyday life (yes, being surrounded by 7-foot-tall models is getting to me). He noted that, even without makeup, you already have a triangle-shaped shadow under your brow. To make an “everyday fierce” look, you could use a softer color (fawn, taupe, brown) in that same triangle pattern. Alternately, if you wanted to open up the eye, you could “erase” the shadow, putting a light flesh-tone, or even white triangle there.
The triangles were made with MAC Paintsticks (I’d guessed Blacktrack, but he said that would dry too quickly). He also mentioned that any mistakes were cleaned up with a little Fast Response eye cream on a q-tip. That’s the second time an artist has mentioned moisturizer-on-a-q-tip to clean up mistakes. Luc said that using a makeup-remover-soaked q-tip was too damaging; it broke down more of the makeup than you really wanted to erase.
Marco Santini of Ion Studios was directing the hair team. The girls had their hair flat-ironed, pulled back, and hairsprayed (so as to create volume at the roots), then “woven” in place behind them. Marco called the look “soft goth,” a brushed back look that’s not perfect. I asked Marco how regular women could wear this look, and he said that he felt it was already street-ready.
Here’s a look at the finished models, in the clothes. These images are from Style.com: