Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Fall '12. Backstage at Carmen Marc Valvo

Everyone knows that the SCS team looks so forward to our time backstage at the Carmen Marc Valvo show. Amid he stress of the Lincoln Center tents, it’s always SO nice to go a little bit downtown to Times Square, hop on over to the NASDAQ and hang out with Romero Jennings from MAC and Ted Gibson, It is by far, one of our favorite New York Fashion Week moments every season. This season the mood was no different than it always is: friendly, laughing, laidback (as much as they can be) and just generally relaxed.

We spoke first to Romero Jennings, key makeup artist for MAC who always has a great story to tell on how he came up with the season’s makeup look. He said that he had recently seen Sunset Boulevard and was blown away by Norma Desmond and how she looked, even in the black and white coloring. In fact, he noted, the lack of color actually allowed to him to pay more attention to the light and contouring on the face. And he decided from that moment, that he wanted to recreate that kind of look for the CMV show. He said the clothes in the collection were fantastic and so detailed, and the workmanship was so incredible that “everyone here is going to want it.” After talking to Valvo and seeing the clothes, Jennings knew he could bring the movie in as his muse, citing also the dramatic looks in the recent release, The Artist, which takes place in 1920’s France. “I was just thinking about what I could do if I wasn’t able to use any color.” So the end result was a mostly matte face with the nose, lids and cheekbones highlighted, a mega-watt smokey eye (what Jennings refers to as the “Power eye of the fall”) and a rosy matte lip for some sort of just bitten flush.

To achieve the look, the skin was prepped with MAC Prep + Prime Moisture Boost. MAC Matchmaker foundation was applied with a #190 brush and MAC Smooth Finish concealer was dabbed on only where needed. The face was contoured with MAC Sculpt + Shape powder and MAC  Pearl Cream Colour Base was swept down the bridge of the nose, under the outer eye and along the cheekbones as a highlighter. For the dramatic smokey eye look, MAC Smolder eye shadow was smudged into the top and bottom lash line and sketched out over the corners and into the crease. MAC Omega shadow was then added to the top and bottom of the eye to add dimension and Saddle was dabbed onto the outer center of the lids. The artists then manually pressed MAC Pressed Pigment onto the center of the lip for the maximum amount of pop. The lashes were topped off with MAC False Lash mascara.The brows were also brushed up to appear fuller. The lips were painted with the French Nougat lip color from the Fall Trend Lip Palette, which was pressed into the lips to create a dewey, stained look.

After bidding Romero adieu, we then moved over to hair and our beloved, Ted Gibson. Clad in his signature cotton candy pink polo, Ted was all smiles as usual and ready to dish on his latest look. He said that when he and Valvo first got together, they discussed how the clothes were this season were very couture. But Ted did not want the hair look to be “pretty couture”, he wanted it to have a masculine edge to it. So he decided to focus on one of the products in his eponymous haircare line called “Fix It Gel”, which provides a power hold and when applied in a certain way, an almost glass-like sheen. He wanted to do a twisted knot but in the the middle of the head to again, not look too feminine and pretty.

The hair was given a deep side part and the “Fix It Gel” was rubbed onto the hair (after being flat-ironed straight) and then pulled back into a glossy ponytail. Gibson explained that if the ponytail was too low, it would come off as too sophisticated so the middle of the head was key in maintaining the masculinity. Also, the knot was formed into more of a triangular shape, rather than what Gibson referred to as “the classic ballerina bun”, since that was more architectural and akin to the structure of the clothes. The final step was a touch of Ted Gibson Beautiful Hold hairspray and the models were ready for their Demille closeup!

  -Alia Rajput Photo Source: Second City Style