The fashion beauty pack
Our appetite for beauty shows no signs of slowing down, thanks to a new crop of unlikely aficionados.
Since vacating her long-held post as creative director of US Vogue, Grace Coddington’s first project wasn’t a fashion collaboration. Instead, with the help of Comme des Garçons, Coddington conjured up Grace by Grace Coddington, her own interpretation of a classic rose scent, and proved that for a woman whose career has been well and truly steeped in fashion – and whose daily beauty regimen is little more than a signature red lip and a spritz of fragrance – beauty was calling her name.
Everyone, it seems, wants a slice of the beauty pie: in the past 18 months, Miu Miu, Alaïa and Proenza Schouler have all announced their first forays into the fragrance market, and Gucci has recently expanded from a fashion and fragrance empire into a fully fledged cosmetics powerhouse. But it’s not only luxury fashion houses turning their attention to all things beauty. Interestingly, while each of the Kardashian-Jenner sisters are inarguably bankable, it was Kylie Jenner’s app that soared to the top, with more than 1.7 million downloads in the first week alone. And what was the app about? Her chameleonic beauty look, of course. A scroll through Jenner’s Instagram feed sees her hair transition from wavy black to brassy blonde to washed-out pink to shoulder-length black to pastel pink … and that’s just the past six weeks.
Surprisingly, the desire for beauty goes beyond even the celebrities themselves. We are, it seems, ultimately engrossed in how Kim Kardashian styles her textured, wavy lob or which specific shade of mulberry lipstick Rooney Mara is wearing on the red carpet, so it’s only natural we go straight to the source. Enter glam squads, the newest phrase in the beauty vernacular and one that collectively represents the small army of hairstylists, make-up artists and, in Kylie Jenner’s case, wig experts, whose business is getting celebrities out the door and onto a red carpet. “They [the Kardashians and Jenners] are really the first celebrities that have made pseudo-celebrities out of their glam squad,” says Jenner’s hairstylist Jonathan Colombini, whose own Instagram following continues to soar with every hair-centric selfie Jenner posts.
Hairstylist Jen Atkin, who depending on the day of the week forms part of either Khloe, Kim or Kourtney’s beauty crew, attests that her success and reach has shifted exponentially in recent years: her social media portals are the millennial equivalent of a portfolio. “Great hairstylists who may not have had a platform to showcase their work are now being photographed or tagged in celeb posts, and I’m so fortunate that my clients all encourage my growth as a stylist,” she says. And growing she has done. Atkin most recently launched OUAI, a range of hairstyling products that aim to marry efficacy and ease while decoding the saturated hair marketplace. “Hair care has become so serious. With OUAI, I wanted to create a line for real life, for real women,” says Atkin. Everything from the product descriptions (#hairgoals, #Ouaiaddicted) to the snappy Instagram tutorials play right into the hands of the millennial consumer.
Although the world of beauty has always been aspirational, there’s a grassroots approach – results-driven, easy-to-adopt, foolproof products – that has grown organically through social media platforms and the new beauty experts who are tapped into the consumer’s ever-changing needs. Atkin’s friend and fellow beauty entrepreneur Emily Weiss, founder of cool-girl beauty website Into The Gloss, is leading the charge. “What Emily is doing is so innovative. As a former beauty editor, she has such a unique perspective in the beauty world and is able to connect with consumers in a relatable way,” says Atkin. While Into The Gloss’s Top Shelf interviews, a deep-dive into the beauty cabinets of everyone from French doyenne Catherine Deneuve to supermodel Jourdan Dunn, are witty and raw (Gwyneth Paltrow admitted she doesn’t know how to apply make-up and her hair is “coarse, damaged, dry”), the real point of difference is it is a relatable, best-friend style of content.
Weiss has since created Glossier, a make-up and skincare line, which has a similar laid-back aesthetic: Balm Dotcom, Boy Brow and Generation G tap into the fuss-free, on-the-go beauty movement gaining momentum. “We engage our community at every step of the way. For us, there is a big difference between making people feel involved and actually involving them. Our brand and our products resonate because we are literally creating it with our community,” says Weiss, who was named one of Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2015.
“WOMEN HAVE BECOME THEIR OWN BEAUTY EXPERTS”
The upsurge of underground make-up brands such as Urban Decay – those that have a place in the kits of professional makeup artists or seasoned beauty buffs – are trickling down to the average consumer. We’re all backseat beauty buffs, thanks to YouTube vloggers (themselves beauty junkies turned entrepreneurs) teaching anyone with a smartphone how to contour, get a flawless complexion or master a winged eyeliner. “I think women are more educated than ever about products, ingredients and efficacy. All of the information is right there for you to discover online, so women have become their own beauty experts,” explains Weiss.
Similarly, the mere fact that we know make-up trailblazers like Charlotte Tilbury, Lisa Eldridge and Pat McGrath by name only further cements our enthusiasm for beauty right now. A short time ago it was only eager beauty editors who darted backstage to see the inspiration behind the beauty look that had just made its runway debut; now consumers too care as much about the artistry as they do the artist.
McGrath, the most prominent backstage make-up artist of this generation (she worked on no less than 20 shows for the autumn/ winter ’16/’17 season, including Dolce & Gabbana, Valentino and Versace), is tapping into this shift by bringing her backstage knowhow directly to her diehard fans. Our first taste was Gold 001, a limited-edition, intensely gold pigmented make-up pot that made its debut just days after being used on the lips of models at Prada’s spring/summer ’16 show – and sold out in a similarly rapid fashion. Since then the make-up maestro has launched a further six products that all followed a similar business model: create only a limited run of unapologetically hued products, drip-feed the launch through Instagram, keep consumers wanting.
Whether intentionally or not, McGrath’s far-out colour range lends itself perfectly to social platforms like Instagram. In the same way that a fashion-folks monochromatic wardrobe has been replaced in favour of a more Insta-friendly colour palette, products that pop out of a phone screen ultimately win in the world of 21st-century beauty. After all, Instagram and Snapchat are the beauty industry’s equivalent of street style: the brighter, louder, more way-out you are the more likely you are to get noticed.
Likewise, the fashion pack knows that a definitive beauty look will get them noticed. Take Anna Wintour’s bob, which has become as synonymous with her overall character as her statement sunglasses; Susie Lau’s instantly recognisable top knot and blunt fringe; Irene Kim’s hyper-coloured tresses (unsurprisingly, she was quickly tapped to be a beauty contributor for Estée Lauder); Fernanda Ly’s poker-straight bubblegum pink mop, which made every fashion editor double-take when she strode the runway for her debut season; or English model Ruth Bell, who allowed the hairstylist on the set of an Alexander McQueen campaign shoot to shave her mid-length blonde locks into a number-one buzzcut. Needless to say, her career skyrocketed as a result.
Beauty brands are realising that if their looks are interesting enough, they will get talked about, ’grammed and snapped. It’s also why on the runways this season beauty is no longer playing the role of second fiddle to fashion. At Balmain, the talking point wasn’t so much the selfie-worthy pieces that strutted the runway but “hair swaps” – brunette models sported blonde wigs and vice versa – with a snap of Kendall Jenner and Gigi Hadid’s trading tresses arguably the most memorable image from fashion month. In the interest of suspense, the wigs were a teaser for Balmain Hair, which has been dabbling in the hair space for years, creating wigs, hairstyling products and hair tools, but is only now capitalising on the fact that its products lend themselves to the social cosmos, especially with besties like Hadid and Jenner donning them. Suddenly, beauty was what everyone from magazine editors to fashion buyers was dissecting post-show.
Beauty is also wielding its power at a retail level. Net-A-Porter launched a succinct beauty edit in 2013 and now stocks more than 120 brands handpicked for their cult status. Interestingly, while online beauty retail is booming, bricks-and-mortar boutiques are seeing a similar expansion pattern. Dior opened three stand-alone beauty and fragrance boutiques in Australia in the past two years, with plans for more, while Chanel has 11 boutiques here, with another to open in New Zealand this year. And beauty aficionados who previously stocked up on supplies on overseas jaunts (a particularly beauty-obsessed friend would buy a year’s supply of Givenchy’s Long-Wearing Fluid Foundation on her annual European trip) can look no further than Sydney’s Pitt Street Mall or Melbourne Central for the beauty mothership Sephora.
Australian-owned niche hotspot Mecca Cosmetica has seen the beauty boom first-hand and responded by opening an additional 18 stores in the past 18 months across its three retail channels: Mecca Cosmetica, Mecca Maxima and Mecca at Myer. “I see the appetite for beauty in general as incredibly exciting, from the interest in niche and emerging brands to the influence of social media creating true brand buzz and product sell-out moments, to the cult of beauty vloggers and our ongoing YouTube obsession,” says Mecca Cosmetica founder Jo Horgan. “Feeding that interest – and fast – has been challenging for Mecca, but it’s a lovely problem to have.”
The crux of beauty today is that it’s accessible to anyone: while a Chanel Boy bag or embroidered Gucci jacket might be on your wishlist, a matt lipstick or citrusy fragrance from the brand’s cosmetics arm is well within reach. No matter whether you’re a contouring queen or tomboy beauty, there’s a brand, vlogger, website or store that caters to your every need. Take Coddington, who, despite creating a namesake rosy scent, told US Vogue: “I don’t know much about beauty.” That’s so refreshing – and indicative of what the contemporary beauty world stands for today.