Backstage Beauty: Jill Stuart Fall 2012

There’s a certain ease to the Jill Stuart girl—she’s youthful, even in high-collar frocks; she’s ultrafeminine, despite the designer’s desire to venture to the darker side for Fall 2012. Backstage at the show, Odile Gilbert, working with Kérastase, speaks to the ease of this girl—right down to her no-fuss tendrils. “The hair should look natural—organic; it should be touchable,” she notes. “It’s not straight, it’s not curly. It’s somewhere in between—almost stringy.”

To achieve this mussed hair texture, Gilbert works a clutch of Kérastase products into the hair—Mousse Substantive, Lotion Densitive, Double Force Hairspray, Double Force Ultime and Sublimateur Jour—and notes she’s reworking and scrunching the product through tresses, using “only my hands and a little bit of heat. No brushes! No irons!”

For makeup, Diane Kendal, working with Jill Stuart Cosmetics, says that ’80s model Susie Bick informs the design, a combo of deep yet vibrant violet eyes and softest pink lips. “I’m using two tones of purple on the lid—one just up to the crease, the other all the way up to the lid that I am diffusing for a sheer finish,” she says. The rest of the face is that favored “no makeup” makeup look, made prettier by a flushed cheek and lip—the former courtesy of Jill Stuart Cosmetics Blush in Baby Blush, the latter of the brand’s Lipstick in Little Pink Lady. —Karie L. Frost

(Top runway image: Courtesy of Image.net/Getty Images; second runway image: Courtesy of beautypress/Juan Arredondo)

Other Backstage Beauty Articles: Erickson Beamon  | Alice + Olivia  |  Marc Jacobs   |   Lauren Moffatt  |   Rag + Bone  |   Peter Som Fall |  Katie Gallagher   |  Rachel Roy  |  Christian Siriano  |   Derek Lam and Diane Von Furstenberg   |  Richard Chai   |  Houghton   |  Tadashi Shoji