Fashion East is a show which celebrates up and coming designers, giving them support and the opportunity to showcase their collections. This year they're hosting their second show at the Somerset House Vaults, and we've gone backstage to view the beauty looks that are being created.
The Fashion East show I viewed features three hot young designers; Michael Van der Ham, Nasir Mazhar and Heikki Salonen and each designer has created a very different look for the models.
Click through for our backstage beauty appraisal.
Nasir
The hair in this show was styled by Duffy, the Clairol Colour Director- more to come from him later!
The use of colours and textures, from legs painted with colour and glitter to extra long WAH nails gave the collection a youthful exuberant theme, and showed one ho much fun they can have with cosmetics. Muscled black men paid homage to Baz Luhrman's Mercutio, covered in body glitter with skull caps of violent candyfloss pink. Women sporting rainbow hair colours and lengthened lashes sauntered down the catwalk, their nails accentuated by WAH nails designs and their eyes framed by lashings of decoration. Two tone pin curls were featured on the women, and the whole show gave off the impression of playfulness and exuberance.
Heikki
This show featured a back to basics approach to beauty , with ghostly pale skin, accentuated by healthy lashings of neutral powder. Everything was kept bare, with no colour on the cheeks and the finished look was very 2 dimensional. Eyes were pale and corpse like, with zero mascara and eyeliner and the only colour on the face was a thick plummy lip. Hair was slicked back from the face in tight ponytails, creating a wide eyed Lolita meets House of the Dead look. This complemented the pseudo mature style with velvet Doc Martens and schoolbag style rucksacks.
Michael Van der Ham
Once again natural skin was a noticeable trend here, but whilst the Heikki show turned this into something fierce and angry, the models here had it softened by lighter lips and a wash of sheer brown on their lids. Their hair was less structured, with reverse fishtail plaits tied into their hair, framed by deliberately created frizz to create a halo effect around the head.
With thanks to Sara Blonstein from Blonsetiein Associates for providing access.