We may have traveled all the way to the Brooklyn Navy Yard for Alexander Wang’s Fall 2014 collection, but we may as well have traveled many years into the future. For most shows we tell you how to “get the look” off the runway, but unless you want helmet hair and dyed-to-invisibility brows, this probably isn’t a look that translates to the street.
Getting a moment with Guido from Redken is like getting a moment with the highest hair guru there is.
“Alex showed me the illustrations of the designs and the hair was drawn on,” said Guido. “So it was kind of taking from the drawings and how we draw hair. So I wanted it to feel very fake and unreal. It has a little weird boyish thing, but it’s also futuristic. We wanted it to feel very pulled together in a simple way and not feel too normal.”
Indeed, the highlight of the show set in a sort of industrial factory scene was when models with hair sprayed even more dramatically to a black matte lacquer circled a platform on the set which began to rotate to dramatic effect. It did not feel “too normal.”
“The thing feels very kind of stuck on,” said Guido. “We used two key products, Control Addict and Shine Fast.”
As for working with Wang, Guido testified, “He’s always great fun, we have a lot of laughs. He just tells me his inspirations and drawings and he shows me the set and the idea of building the character. When you know somebody, I’ve known Alex a while now, you feel really comfortable.”
Rather uncomfortable for some models was the process of bleaching their eyebrows! That’s right, the main statement of the beauty look were the disappearing eyebrows. Of course, the NARS Cosmetics team put a little more into it than just that.
“The brows give it more of an edge, more impact when they’re on the runway,” explained Diane Kendal. “Alex always likes his girl to be quite weird and strong, and there is a futuristic element.”
With such statement-making hair, the makeup was very toned down, very neutral. It almost played down the models’ beauty rather than playing it up.
