By Bella Blissett
Oh, to inhabit the mind of Vivienne Westwood. A world where a cross-pollination of Marie Antoinette, Africa and punk aliens makes perfect sense.
For today at least, Val Garland picked up her passport and took an inter-planetary shuttle to Westwood world in order to bring the theme to life.
And so it came about that a mini marquee pitched in the gardens of the British Ambassadors office became the artists studio as white or dark brown heart shapes were painted onto models faces, before Garland added explosions of grey onto the eye sockets in a play on fleshy tones using just about every MAC product going.
So the logical progression was (obviously) to add Afros and Rockabilly quiffs into the mix in a variety of styles - each one more mad-as-a-box-of-frogs than the next.
Prepping hair with mousse, Sam Mcknight's team used Pantene's Two Minute Deep Shine Mask as a styling product to rake it back and whip up a rockabilly quiff.
On other girls, figure of eights hair sets were wound around pins and clamped between hot irons. Brushing them out into giant Afros, they topped them with bits, bobs, hats and plastic combs so large surely even Marie Antoinette would have found cause for an "ooh la la".
Which left the nail queen herself, Marian Newman to pop on blue, beige and lilac Nail Rock wraps with a "cut glass pattern and Swarovski crystals". Et voila - tribal aliens with a 18th century twist. Turns out it was a match made in Westwood heaven.
