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Today inside the Opéra Bastille, Dries Van Noten put forth a display primed to dazzle a certain sort of beauty lover—the kind that goes weak at the knees for ’80s-era Shiseido campaigns conceptualized by none other than Serge Lutens, who was being name-checked left and right backstage amid the pre-show chaos.
“The inspiration was the amazing images Serge Lutens created in the late ’70s and early ’80s,” explained hairstylist Sam McKnight, before adding with a grin, “We’ve taken a little bit of license.” Considering that a nuanced, more-is-more beauty approach has always been right at home inside the Belgian designer’s world of kaleidoscopic luxury, it was no surprise the results were met with rapturous reception.
After lengths were parted neatly and slicked down on the head to close-cropped effect, McKnight went in with a monochrome set of marabou feathers, cast in shades of crimson, fuchsia, violet, or lime green, applying them at the roots and plastering them into place with blasts of his Modern Hairspray. “They blend right in!” said McKnight, while affixing scarlet feathers into Sara Grace’s part. Underneath the electric roots, makeup artist Inge Grognard administered two-toned swathes of vibrant color across the eyes, smoking them out in rounded wing shapes. Each look was completed with a stain of deep red, plum, or jet-black on the mouth.
Holding up a mirror to the rich layerings of prints and textures, there was no rhyme or reason to the jolts of color accents—as such, it was in perfect harmony with the collection’s bold decadence.