.jpg)
The tragic news of Karl Lagerfeld’s passing, which broke just days before Fendi’s Fall 2019 show, was bound to cast a shadow over Milan. For one of the final collections overseen by the legendary designer, the Fendi family delivered a moving tribute to their creative director of 54 years, evoking his spirit in gestures both great and small. Nowhere was that more beautifully clear than with the models, whose hair and makeup were an elegant nod to the man in question.
“The look at Fendi was slick perfection, just as I hope Karl would have loved,” said hairstylist Sam McKnight, who worked closely with Lagerfeld for years. Chiefly, there was an elegant version of Lagerfeld’s calling card: a short, low ponytail, secured stiffly at the very nape of the neck with a blast of Hair by Sam McKnight’s Modern Hairspray. On top, McKnight sculpted a “glossy architectural swirl” that dipped onto models’ foreheads with a mix of L’Oréal Gel Glue. It was his nod to the ’30s, the decade that Lagerfeld was born.
Faces were kept quite clean, save for a few classic embellishments by makeup artist Peter Phillips—a classic red lip, a black wing. A few models wore large tinted frames that sat low on the nose bridge; paired with those low ponytails, the homage was unmistakable.
