Cover Look.(runway trends; hair styles and makeup)

Letter From the Editor May '07

Natural Progression

Runway shows change from season to season, but life backstage is always the same: There's a buffet that only the photographers touch, blaring music, models on cell phones with teacup dogs in their laps, and one girl studiously hunched over The Fountainhead. Sometimes, there are splits of champagne with gold straws so the models can drink without messing up their lipstick. There used to be a lot of cigarette smoke; now, no one allows it. Over the years, the makeup and hairstyles slowly, almost imperceptibly, have been disappearing. What started in the early '90s as the "natural look" -- a misnamed concoction of foundation, blush, powder, eye shadow, eyebrow powder, lip pencil, and gloss -- gradually became the real thing. At show after show, the designers instructed the makeup and hair people to duplicate the way the girls looked when they walked into rehearsal -- bed head, the previous night's mascara, bare lips. The makeup people took on the reduced responsibilities of groomers, cleaning the models' faces of makeup, plucking a few stray brow hairs, dotting their blemishes with concealer, and patting on lip balm. In the hairstyling area, there wasn't

a lot more action. The experts would spritz the models' hair with water and leave it to dry on

its own, then they'd rake it with their fingers, tuck it behind the models' ears, and send them

onto the runway. "And you're getting paid for this?" I'd ask them, sort of ...