Those who go to fashion shows know that the show start time is a mere … suggestion. Some shows are exactly on time (looking at you, Marc Jacobs), and some run 30 minutes to hours over (usually waiting for a Kardashian or two). But on Thursday night, the Hermés show’s start time is very specific. As guests of Hermés filter into the space on Pier 36, they are told that the show is going to start at exactly 8:15 p.m. And that wasn’t random. “The show takes place at the end of the day, when the sun starts just to set and we have a hazy mist around the city,” creative director of Hermés Beauty Gregoris Pyrpylis says backstage. “We wanted to bring this to the makeup.”
I’m backstage three hours before the show starts, watching Pyrpylis intricately place mascara on each one of a model’s lashes. He’s using Hermés Beauty’s revitalizing care mascara, his favorite product he’s created at the brand since taking on the creative-director role three years ago. “We really wanted to bring fun elements to the mascaras,” he said, showing me the brand’s untraditional bright mascara colors. There’s a plum shade (Rouge H) an iconic color of the house; there’s also an eye-catching electric-blue shade and green. But tonight Pyrpylis is reaching only for black and brown mascara, adding just a tiny bit to the root of the lashes.
The neutral tones are the opposite of what I expect, since Hermés Beauty is known for its bright colors, but Pyrpylis wants to leave the color on the runway to the clothing, which features bright-red leather pants and turquoise knits. “The whole inspiration for the collection is the energy, this endless, perpetual pace and dynamic of New York City, the vibration of the city, different colors, textures, patterns, motifs of the clothes. We wanted to transcribe this feeling,” he says. “We wanted to bring a very realistic part of the woman. We didn’t want to create an unrelatable image, something that everybody, every woman, can project themselves to the beauty part.” Can’t afford a Birkin? Same, but the allure of the beauty feels and looks attainable.
On the models, Pyrpylis is using Hermés’s Plein Air complexion balm to achieve that dewy, glossy cheek look and lip-care balm to add a soft, light-reflecting glaze to the complexion. He’s also added a bit of balm under the brow bone for a glossy finish. For the lips, he played with three different shades, satin nudes, depending on the skin tone of the model. On some models, new lip liners add a hint of definition to the lips.
Pyrpylis knows that we’re in a less-is-more era of the runway, and while he thinks the no-makeup look is beautiful and “works for many collections,” he also doesn’t think we should be deprived of the fun and joy that makeup brings: “For me, it’s all about balance and harmony. In this collection, we saw that there was this window where we could enter and play with color and makeup and introduce this beautiful chapter with the new eyeliners, but it doesn’t work all the time. It was a perfect moment, a perfect time to do so. I’m really happy that there’s this shift toward playing with makeup again,” he says.
Pyrpylis also wants to individualize the looks by the models and their personalities. “You do whatever she feels comfortable with,” Nadège Venhee, creative director of Hermés, tells Pyrpylis while he’s working on one of the models. “That’s a big luxury today because we’re not just here to impose makeup looks,” he said. “Luxury is not just the excellence of the expertise of the colors or the quality of the products, but also the luxury for me is the freedom, the liberty you can give to a model today and make her look confident, at her best, the way she feels at her best.” Freedom is one of the things he loves most about New York: “There’s a total freedom to the way you get dressed. You do your makeup, your hair, and there’s not going to be any judgment. Paris is getting there, but I think it will take a bit more time.”
Asia Milia Ware , 2024-06-07 20:15:17
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