BOLD STROKES; Spring's kaleidoscope colors the lips, the eyes, even the nails with fearless brights and chic, unexpected combinations.

Byline: Sarah Brown

There was no fear of makeup this spring," says Pat McGrath, who masterminded the look at a staggering 22 shows, from Prada and Dior to Balenciaga. "Everyone seemed to be so brave. People really wanted to push the envelope and enjoy makeup. It was a mad spring."

Take Louis Vuitton. "It just happened," McGrath says of the vivid, art-box lips-in neon orange, leafy green, chalky pastel and sky blues, and every shade of pink-that unexpectedly took over the faces on the Paris runway. During the fittings the day before the show, the original plan was a nude face, but then she started collaborating with Vuitton designer Marc Jacobs-who was showing a collection pierced through with shocking yellows, oranges, pinks, and purples-and "one color went on, then another and another." Against an otherwise natural face, Marc "just wanted a slam of bold color. So we kept going and going." Jacobs offered an even more concise explanation, attributing the exuberant, cartoonish color to an actual cartoon: "SpongeBob SquarePants."

And so it went. At Bottega Veneta, perfectly painted clementine lips-the sort that looked like what might happen if you plugged a Crayola crayon into an electrical outlet-added sunny sophistication and focus to the backdrop of Tomas Mai_er's cool, neutral-colored clothes. "That mouth was custom-made," says McGrath. "We were looking at Grace Kelly, the elegance-you think of the most beautiful coral, but today's woman is not so demure. She wants to look powerful."

Where did this full-spectrum phenomenon come from? Spring's brighter-is-better bravado is the result of a collective longing "to not be banal," observes McGrath, to take "a new twist on familiar ...