When the heat is on, why worry about your hair? At least that’s the feeling Paul Hanlon had at Missoni. While we’ve come to expect a bit of bohemian flair from the house, the patterned wraps (inspired by novelist Zadie Smith) wound around models’ heads in a conical shape or enveloped tightly over ballerina buns were decidedly more “sophisticated” and “sculptural.”
To make it appear that catwalkers had thick strands piled high, Hanlon started the fabric an inch or two back from the forehead (“It’s very important to see the hairline,” he noted) and padded topknots with “chair foam” so that he could mold the shape and make it individual to each girl. “These aren’t store-bought turbans,” he said. An added bonus to these “regal” wraps (aside from not having to worry about the effects of humidity): “They give your face a lift,” he said of the taut foulards. “They’re great for the eyes!” (We don’t know about you, but we’ll opt for a style solution over surgery any day of the week.)
Haven’t worked up the courage to don a full-on turban? The second look (influenced by French painter Paul Gauguin’s Tahitian Women) offered the same concept on a slightly smaller scale. After working Moroccanoil mousse through strands, blowing them back off the face and into a bun, Hanlon fitted a piece of material over top and tied it off near the nape of the neck. The crown was then shellacked with hairspray to prevent any flyaways. Hanlon also revealed the other secret to his smooth moves: Sanbi brushes from Japan. “I’m a brush trafficker!” he joked, outfitting his entire backstage team with the imported tools. The finishing touch was a fiery, matte red mouth by face painter Lucia Pieroni—a combination of MAC Lipstick in Dangerous and Relentlessly Red—that was blurred around the edges with a cotton bud. “It’s all about the heat, like in a Gauguin painting,” she said.
Photo: Michele Morosi / Indigitalimages.com
