INTERNATIONAL VELVET
With its unique touch and sheen, the season’s hottest fabric seduces the beauty scene. By Li Ying Lim.
elvet in the lexicon of beauty is figuring large this year, from covetable complexion to hair accessories and indelible lip colours. Liquid-turned-matte lip products that first go on gloss-like, then transform into an entirely different texture in seconds, are the order of the day. “The velvety smooth texture looks luxe and fuzzy; you can’t help but touch it,” said celeb make-up artist Suzie Kim. At Marni, Zac Posen, Stella Jean, Mary Katrantzou, and Rodarte, lips were both plush and matte, in their meticulous lip techniques and hues. “Red lips are now painstakingly shaped, curved, layered, smoothed,” informed make-up artist Val Garland. To work it like the dark, plush lips of Marco de Vincenzo’s girls, Terry Barber gave it a velvety finish by dabbing MAC Pigment in Basic Red in the centre to blend, pressing and re-pressing to perfectly finish. BAZAAR Australia beauty contributor Chloé Brinklow shared, “The velvet texture is achieved by pressing, not sweeping, a translucent pressed powder or matching eyeshadow over the top of the colour.”
FROMTHERACKS
Velvet also made an appearance in hair accessories. “The fact that it’s silk velvet makes it more evening,” explained hair doyenne Odile Gilbert, as she showcased the wrought velvet ribbons around the models’ skinny ponytails backstage at Suno. “It’s a touch of sophistication.”
At Haider Ackermann, models had jewel-toned velvet strips bandied around their manes, turning them into skyscraping “hair horns” using the same materials from the clothes. The make-up was equally luminous. “It’s soft, and pure ... it’s surreal,” said Ackermann’s principal make-up artist, Lynsey Alexander.
Not only was the fabric used for creating the looks backstage, but beauty gurus have also aspired to achieve the texture and feel of velvet. “It’s very ethereal, romantic, almost angelic in a way, with the static creating a halo,” confirmed hairstylist Paul Hanlon backstage at Rochas, who used a big brush to repeatedly brush through the length of each model’s tresses to achieve that “glow”, which beautifully complemented the velvet sheen of beige eyeshadow across the lids.