The fine china reference that guided Giambattista Valli’s Fall couture presentation offered Val Garland a chance to interpret the designer’s inspiration fairly literally. “It’s all about porcelain figurines—patterns on porcelain and crockery—so I wanted the skin to feel very alabaster, to make [the models] look like they’ve got ‘super skin,” the makeup artist said, inadvertently coining the perfect descriptor for the impossibly flawless, paled-out complexions that were heavy on the highlights and not much else. “You’ve got to use a serum first,” she advised of the kind of beautifully bare effect she was after while reaching for Josie Maran’s Argan Oil, which provided a base for a good helping of MAC Mineralize Foundation. Then came the gleam, which was built with a mixture of MAC Cream Colour Base in Shell, Luna, and Pearl,and brushed across the cheekbones, down the bridge of the nose, and on top of the Cupid’s bow of lips. “It’s not too innocent,” Garland stressed, eschewing mascara and focusing her attention on a heavy, architectural brow instead, which extended toward the temples to give the face structure and ensure models did not “look like aliens.”
Also helping that cause were Orlando Pita’s blunt-cut half-up, half-downs that recalled a classic school girl-style, albeit with much more precision. “He sees everything,” Pita said of Valli, matching the horizontal parts he used to divide two distinct sections of hair with the line of Garland’s brows. Sticking with the porcelain theme, Pita implemented the ceramic material’s signature shine glazed via direct spritzes of Osis Session Finish Extreme Hold Hairspray, which smoothed out the top of the look and gave it a sheen. Then, for his crowning achievement, Pita placed a series of gold and pewter coronets above the forehead on eight, select girls—Maud Welzen (above), among them.
