Senior Mac Artist, Lesley Keane from Dublin, who has worked with everyone from Kanye West to Agyness Deyn, presented the Spring/Summer trends for ’09. And she came bearing good news.
Lucky for some, pale is actually the new tan. I kid you not. This is not my attempt at mocking you blondes, you can put down the Johnson’s holiday skin. You win this round. In a presentation of the four major trends this S/S, it appeared that the Tendertone collection involved a lot of natural, country girl looks. “Think- Tess of the D’Urbervilles having just run through a field”, said one MAC artist. While I’d rather not ( I’ve read the book, and she KILLS someone), I can see where he’s going.
This S/S, makeup is all about skin looking like skin. Milky translucency, gleaming natural skin, but with that airbrushed quality. Muted tones, neutralized shades …think corals and stony colours. Anything that was once harsh and neat has become softer, sophisticated and more haphazard. Less is more. Healthy barefaced chic takes a lot more effort than it may seem, and it takes a lot of makeup to look like you aren’t wearing any at all. So for the recessionistas who think this means less makeup ergo less spending-scratch that thought.
For those of you not bent on baring it all, you haven’t been left out in the cold. Lesley Keane demonstrated for us one of her looks from S/S 09’s Black to earth. Black is back,for real this time. If you’re just as fed up with perfectly liquid lined eyes, slash any photo of Amy Winehouse’s eyes ever taken, then you’ll be glad to know that neat is out and smudged is the way forward. Gone are hard lines and harsh edges, we’ve been encouraged to “get messy” within the realms of structure. “Think- doing your makeup and then standing over a kettle”, said Lesley Keane.
I tried this when I got home and burnt my face, but each to their own. Slept- in eyes, graphic, constructionist shapes, 40s lips and wet wet wet. Not the band, no. Lesley Keane touched on a few up and coming trends where what used to be matte has been replaced with wet look effects. Dewy, moonlit skin, cream eye shadows and wet look powders have taken the place of the powdered matte look. It’s about accentuating the natural beauty of the individual, so that she (or he, let’s be honest) still shines through the makeup. This is good news, for those of us confident enough to actually want to look like ourselves. If this isn’t the case (and therapy isn’t an option) then let me introduce you to trend magnifiqué- artiface. This collection of products is created for the daring artiste, avant garde effects fused with colours you wouldn’t normally use: “hospital blues”, greens and lavender, at times even mixed together. Control your gag reflex, it looks better than it sounds.
