Technicolor Lips at Bottega Veneta

It didn’t take long for a strong lip to surface on the runway in Milan.

Makeup artist Pat McGrath heralded its arrival backstage at Bottega Veneta. “I was looking at the clothes and I was thinking about Grace Kelly in “To Catch a Thief” and that led me straight to thinking about the lip,” said McGrath.

Indeed the lip, in all of its orange-red matte glory was, according to McGrath, an ode to Technicolor and films of the Fifties. After she applied concealer to the models’ lips, McGrath used her finger to press the custom-blended lip color over the top. “I just find it easier this way to shape the lip a bit bigger,” said McGrath.

The vibrant mouth was softened with contour on the cheekbones, a flash of gold powder on the eyelids and white pencil on the inside rim of the eye: “it really pops the eye,” she added.

To finish the look, head hair stylist Odile Gilbert dreamed up a modern French twist. Gilbert gave a flat wave to the front section of loose hair before it was twisted and pinned. “Every woman wants to wear a French twist once in her life — this is just an ultrafeminine version with no back-combing,” said Gilbert.