Chanel's A/W Catwalk Sparkle

Usually at this time of year I’d be busy doing all Spring/Summer colours like everyone else is. But the weather being as it is (yes we had snow this week in UK and it’s April) and it’s freezing, so I thought I’d check back on the A/W fashion shows from last month and pick some interesting looks. For all we know, this season might just carry on and we’ll have no summer at all. Last year, anyone?

 

Once again, fashion designers are flirting with punk as their inspiration (maybe because the Costume Institute is doing a Punk exhibition?) so cue the mix of different fabrics and textures in one outfit, teamed with the streamlined silhouette and darker colours. Always at the helm of originality while keeping their own style, Chanel interprets this look well.

Next year’s punk face, according to Chanel is fresh and glowing. And perfect. Skin is prepped with Hydra Beauty Serum and Vitalumiere Aqua foundation, cheeks are flushed with the natural pinky crème blusher. Chanel have always done a good blusher, and for the upcoming A/W the new shade is called Inspiration. Not yet available though, but you can find other shades from Chanel. Their blusher colours are subtle so incredibly user friendly.

 

Eyes are lightly lined with a pencil, with lots of black mascara on the top lashes. But this is where this look gets different. Platinum sequins are glued on around the eyes ensuring plenty of light would be reflected. Get your own sequins on with the help of Frontcover Cosmetics, their Sparkler kit comes with extras and with the glitter sealing gel to keep the sequins in place.

 

What stops this look getting all romantic and too girly are the eyebrows, strong and arched and beautifully filled in. Really good eyebrow pencils are available from Sisley, Laura Mercier and Shiseido. Choose a colour that suits your natural eyebrow and hair colour.

Keep the lips nude and sheer. Mix some Chanel Conditioning lip balm with some Precision lip liner in Pretty pink.

There you have it, your own Chanel catwalk look. You certainly don’t have to wait for the next season to wear it, now is always good!

Celebrities No Make Up Trend

You probably noticed since a few months ago that more and more celebrities are going out make up free on purpose. Or are “accidentally” papped with “nothing" on their faces. US television show The Talk had the whole show presented by unmade up presenters. And now W magazine, the holy grail of fashion cool has done a non-scripted, non-made up fashion story with some very famous people. What up, you may wonder? Have they all of a sudden become all devoid of vanity? Yeah, right.

I call it photoshop damage control PR spin. Not thought of a catchy name yet, feel free to drop me a line if you come up with something better.

We have all seen some images of celebs retouched to infinity so they no longer resemble themselves. Call it the ultimate makeover or whatnot. And rightly so, the general public started to complain, especially if that said celebrity is flogging some “looking younger” cream where the “younger” effects are achieved by some skilled individual on their Apple Mac. And their Adobe CS.

Photoshop in modern digital photography is pretty much a necessity. Film used to lose some detail but the digital technology picks up every little bit that the naked eye could not even see. So, it needs to be done, so it would not be detracting the attention from whatever is being shown. Imagine a lovely beauty shot advertising mascara and there’s a zit on model’s face and some fine hairs above the top lip (not calling it a moustache).  Once you “spot” those bits it’s like you can’t stop seeing them. Game over. Mascara what? So you get my point.

But vanity retouching is not just cleaning up the bits like the skin, hair, etc. It’s body reshaping, eye bags removing, double chin-ectomy, bingo-wings de-flapper and the usual “how to lose twenty years in half an hour”.

So some big shot clever PRs, who are paid big bucks to “look after their clients” and assure they keep getting those lucrative endorsements, thought of a great way of doing that. Stars going out with no make up. Genius. The stars still look “good enough” but real. But definitely not perfect to alienate the public.

Except they are really not walking around with zero make up. Just less of it. The Daily Mail machine is working hard to bombard us with those images and make it a “story”. So when you see a celebrity with no make up walking down the street shot, remember they most likely have concealer, a bit of foundation, a bit of blush and some mascara. And lipstick. 

So when the celebs get that beauty campaign and get so retouched/botoxed/filler-ed up they can always credit a good make up artist for looking like that. For sure. 

This season I'll be mostly wearing... Lips And Ponytails

Unless you just got back from Mars expedition (so how was it?) you probably noticed that lipsticks are the new black. The trend’s been brewing for  a few seasons and it kind of got established that we are wearing more and more lipstick on a day to day basis. And not just the “nude” variety or the barely there lip gloss. But full on, in yer face, brights.

And red is the mama of those brights.

What used to be the reserve of those special occasions where it was the night only, canapés and champagne kind of evening out, now the red has moved up to the day wear as well.

And us women are loving it. You can call it the “Mad Men” effect or whatever you like, we are embracing the new trend like never before. Ruby Woo is one of the best selling MAC lipsticks, especially in trend setting London.

As much as I like the MAC favourite, I’d probably go for something more bling-tastic for a statement lipstick.

Aptly named “Rouge Passion” by Sisley is a great colour and texture in a very nice packaging. Or if I died and came back as a lipstick, I’d probably want to be Chanel Rouge Allure in La Fascinate.

Both of these are very make up bag friendly. Oh and you’ll need to retouch your red lips a lot. And I mean it when I say a lot.

No point for going for one of those stay on forever formula (as if), you do want to show off your lipstick! 

Team up your lipstick with tight ponytail. It provides an instant face lift and as an added bonus, it keeps the hair off the face.

 After all, you don’t want to ruin your red lipstick!