It’s the morning after and you’re scurrying through the city streets (wearing last night’s heels, no less) on your way home from your big night out. But fear not, there should be no shame in your game. “There’s no walk of shame anymore. New York ladies do the stride of pride!” says Moroccanoil lead stylist Peter Gray, who took inspiration directly from the Badgley Mischka collection for his hair design, and gave it a modern twist. “We were given ‘Blood and Sand’, a movie from the 1940s, as a reference. So I thought it would be fun to take someone a little bit younger from another era [as the muse] and I came up with Brigitte Bardot in her prime doing the stride of pride.”
To create the sexy, glamorous look, Gray first mists the models’ tresses with Moroccanoil Luminous Hairspray, roughs them up with his fingertips and then curls 2-inch sections in opposite directions with a 1 ½ barrel curling iron for a loose, soft texture. Next, for a lived-in feel, he applies Moroccanoil Dry Shampoo directly on the roots and then backcombs hair in 1 ½-inch sections moving from the crown toward the front. Once the teasing is complete, Gray pulls sections from the ear to the temple and twists them toward the back before securing them in an X-shape with Japanese serrated hair pins. To finish, he buries gilded roses into the twist at the back of the head, pulls out a few pieces of hair over the roses and spritzes Moroccanoil Luminous Hairspray for long-lasting hold. “It’s this ’60s bouffant with a really soft, loose, lazy texture going through,” he shares. “It looks like she slept on it and then tried to touch it up a little. I really wanted to exaggerate the bouffant so it’s a little bit retro, a little bit rock ‘n’ roll and fun.”
Deborah Lippmann also taps Brigitte Bardot in a walk of shame (or, if you prefer, stride of pride) for the inspiration behind her nail design. “There’s a lot of baroque inspiration in the clothing so these nails aren’t your basic sheer pink!” says Lippmann. To create her bejeweled design, Lippmann first places long, almond-shaped tips atop the models’ natural nails and coats them twice with Deborah Lippmann in Can’t Be Tamed, making sure to let the nails dry for two minutes between each coat. For a touch of “naughty,” Lippmann flips the nail over and paints one coat of Deborah Lippmann in Fade to Black on the underside. Once dry, Lippmann adds nail glue starting at the free edge (and also on the underside) and drips Swarovski crystals onto the nail. “They just land where they land! It’s not about a perfect line. And these crystals are out of control!” Lippmann jokes as she holds up a gigantic bag of the crystals. To finish, she carefully paints Deborah Lippmann Gel Lab over the nail, but not the crystals so that they keep their stellar gleam. “This is a pretty simple look you can do at home. The hardest thing to do is to be patient between coats!” she exlaims.
For the makeup, MAC lead artist Tom Pecheux’s eye-focused design came directly from the collection and the designer’s inspiration of Spain and the matador. “You think of a strong, powerful woman with the eyeliner, and femininity and sexiness,” he says. “When you think of the women that dance the flamenco, they [give you a strong look] and we want [the eye] to give that feeling of a sexy attitude.” To achieve this, Pecheux uses a medium square brush and MAC Fluideline in Blacktrack to create a sharp and square, not pointy, wing. He next brushes tiny strokes of a new blue Fluidline (available Fall 2015) at the end of the black line. “It’s like a feather, a tattoo of color,” he explains. “We want the girl to be a little bit of a rebel. Spain is a very macho country but the women are so powerful. I love that and I wanted to show that powerful, rebellious feeling that women have in the Latino country.” –Molly Church
[Images courtesy of Moroccanoil, Deborah Lippmann}
