Nothing short of a gold metal was the missive that make-up artist Peter Philips shared backstage at Dior Haute Couture on Monday outside the Musée Rodin. To him, that meant gilded beauty was as sparkling (and “sweaty”) as the micro-pleated lamé gowns and chain-embroidered bodysuits on the runway. Just as the upcoming Olympic and Paralympic Games Paris influenced more than the date of the show (typically held the first week of July), they shaped Maria Grazia Chiuri’s inspiration for the collection, which arrived as a tribute to athletes “whom, from antiquity to the present day, have overcome prejudice and obstacles to ensure a level playing field in sports contests,” the show notes read. Under camera flashbulbs and runway spotlights, models appeared to be ”glorified sweaty, so we call it glowy,” Philips joked of gleaming skin and gold-dusted eyes.
Up until just a couple of days ago, the gold-dusted eyes he created with soft sweeps of Diorshow 5 Couleurs in #539 Grand Bal could have been blue. “She had a few elements and a colour reference of blue, and then she had a few gold references,” says Philips of ideating over WhatsApp with Grazia Chiuri. Then, last week, she went for an homage to the winning medals her modern muses will be competing for in the City of Lights: “She said, oh, I think I go for gold,” said Philips of creating a “sporty and pure” look that skipped the contouring and mascara that Grazia Chiuri often avoids for “beautiful glowy skin with a golden eye.”
Philips created a glossy base with lightweight Dior Capture Totale Le Sérum on models (“it’s not too strongly perfumed, so they are not intimidated by it”) followed by Dior Capture Totale Hyalushot massaged under eyes and onto lids, and the new Dior Forever Glow Star Filter for “a beautiful glowy finish.” The golden eyes, he brought the metallic shadow (in the bottom right corner when you’re looking at the palette) from lash to brow, letting the dust fall where it may. With the darkest shadow, he used a flat brush to “push it into the roots of the lashes, so the lashes look a bit full because Maria Grazia doesn’t like the mascara texture, so I always trick her a little bit.” It’s not supposed to be perfect glam, after all. “Maria’s style is always very wearable and very woman-friendly,” Philips explains. “It’s not to impress, it’s more to seduce.”
Hair stylist Guido Palau could be heard calling out “more wet look!” to his team in the adjoining tent space. Hair was being doused in Zara Hair Wet Look Mousse, then loosely braided and sewn into place for tousled plaits. “We’re sewing in a mess,” says artist Shamicka Williams, who works with Palau on braided looks each season. “We don’t want it to look like a braid at all” though, she says. Instead, it should appear as if “you just came out of the water — we don’t want it to fall straight, so we are sewing it to make the mess stay.” They “do look goddessy in a weird way,” Palau says of models in their final looks with this kind of too-cool-to-care hair. “I think people might start thinking, what is it with wet look hair?” he admits. “I think it’s the idea that you can wear these really beautiful couture gowns that Maria Grazia designed and have this ease to it that really makes these clothes look so effortless and beautiful.” Even with advanced techniques utilizing needles and thread instead of rubber bands and bobby pins, it looks unbothered. And after decades of crafting couture moments, Palau understands what works on and off the runway: “ I always say with beauty, the biggest luxury is ease.”