Marc Jacobs is bringing back the '80s in a major way. For his fall 2018 runway show, the designer's cues for hair and makeup all harkened back to the decade's near-neon hues and full-on glamour. There is no place for "effortless" or "natural" here—Jacobs' girls this season are all about being done-up.
While most of the models' hair were covered up by giant brim hats, nine of them were given dramatic, geometric haircut dyed highlighter colors like fuchsia, yellow, and cerulean. Lead hairstylist Guido Palau worked with colorist Josh Wood over three days to achieve the looks. Palau explained that, like the dramatic hats, the geometric cuts were meant to feel "like an accessory in themselves."
"Marc loved the idea of having a few girls with these extreme cuts and colors," he said backstage. "The cuts are based on [Vidal] Sassoon, so they're sort of '60s classic Sassoon cuts, like the five-point." Both Palau and Wood started their careers in Sassoon salons.
Unlike #IWokeUpLikeThis Instagram hair, Palau explained this hair was meant to be A Look. "I was looking at colors from the '80s where it was about cut and color and doing clashing things that really pop," he said, "[Hair was] almost like an accessory, a jewel, a hat. When you went out at night...a big part [was] dressing up, doing a total look with colors and cuts. It's exciting to see it again." The blunt cuts all had a beveled, ultra-shiny finish with every hair meticulously in place. "It feels very finished—as if a hairdresser worked on it."
"There's been literally thousands of fabric swatches and little pieces of hair trying to match the hair to the fabric," Wood said of the collaboration process. He used Redken Flash Lift to lighten the models' hair and a combination of Redken City Beats and Redken Color Gels to get the wide range of hues ("I'd probably have to keep you here all week to explain the colors," he joked). Among the looks, there was a bowl cut with a reverse ombré of ultraviolet to black, a shocking pink-dyed undercut, a mod bob with a stripe of deep blue, and a pixie cut with lime green and teal bangs. The hues were meant to look as if they were lit in a nightclub.
"Each girl, as the style was being crafted and the color was being created, became her own person. It was much more about looking at the individual girl and pushing her look," Wood said. "Guido touched on the '80s—there was a real movement where people expressed themselves through hair color...it was a lot more experimental then."
The '80s vibes continued on the makeup front with dramatic eyes. Lead makeup artist Diane Kendal worked with nine different jewel-toned eyeshadows to coordinate with each models' outfit and hat.
Kendal used the new Marc Jacobs Beauty Shameless Youthful Look 24-Hour Foundation to create a fresh-looking face, then focused on the eyes. She pressed glitter shadow into the eyes with her fingertips, blending outward past the brows, then intensifying with gel liner and liquid liner. Marc Jacobs Beauty Lipstick in Scandal 226 gave the cheeks a cool-toned flush.
Even the nails by Jin Soon Choi coordinated. Nine brand new shades of Marc Jacobs Beauty Nail Lacquer were introduced backstage, each one picked for the models based on their looks.
The spirit of the retro Marc Jacobs girl for fall 2018 was best described by Kendal: "The inspiration was the celebration of fashion, going back to the roots of fashion and how people would create a character for themselves."
Bring on the drama.
