New York is known for it's low-key, easy beauty aesthetic – in fact, it prides itself on it. Second day hair that's been out all night at the newest, coolest club opening, subtly smudged, worn-in black eyeliner and brushed up boyish brows all make regular appearances, alongside pops of colour here and there. But something must be in the air for SS17, because the city that never sleeps has developed a penchant for shimmer, glitter and all things iridescent.
Despite grown up glitter being big on the catwalks last season, it was mostly the London shows that put it on the trend map. Now NYC is in on the action and putting its own spin on things, with make-up ranging from subtly shimmering opalescent eyeshadow and gold chain nail art at Rodarte, to iridescent cobalt blue and emerald green eyes at Victoria Beckham and full-on glitter lips at DKNY. Here's the low-down.
Rodarte
'Many designers and stylists in New York are somewhat anti-makeup,' explained James Kalliardos backstage, 'but you can still do a proper look and make it simple and cool.' And that's exactly what he did at Rodarte, by pairing fresh skin with opalescent lilac eyeshadow (Nars Thessalonique Eyeshadow Duo out spring) that twinkled just so under the catwalk lights.
Over on nails, manicurist Tracylee created one of our favourite nail looks of the season so far with this simple glitter nail art.
Rather than applying directly onto the nail, Tracylee used a fine line of Morgan Taylor Glitter & Gold just around the cuticles 'to look like jewellery.' Try it out yourself with a nail art brush or a cocktail stick.
Victoria Beckham
Make-up visionary, Pat McGrath used her fingers to sweep iridescent emerald and cobalt blue eyeshadows across the models' eyelids for an almost accidental look.
Read all about the full look here.
DKNY
And finally, Pat McGrath worked her magic once again with the most Instagrammable lip of the entire season. 'We wanted a crescendo of glitter on the catwalk,' Pat told us backstage, as she applied Pat McGrath Labs lipstick in Blood Wine 2 onto the models mouths and pressed glitter over the top.
The one thing that connects all of these looks? Skin. In all cases it's clean, simple, fresh and not overly contrived, contoured or caked. It's anti YouTube tutorial base make-up and it makes the shimmer and glitter look cool over kitsch. 'The aim is to make it not look overly done,' Pat told us. We can work with that.
