NYFW: DIY Contouring Videos Inspired Hood By Air’s Makeup Look
The DIY contouring inspired beauty look at Hood by Air. (Photo: Getty Images)
Imagine if Kim Kardashian left her makeup chair before all the carefully placed light and dark slashes and swipes of contouring makeup were fully blended, and walked the red carpet like that. Quelle horreur, right? But that was precisely the reality of Hood by Air’s male and female models during the luxury streetwear designer’s New York Fashion Week show on Sunday. Inge Grognard for MAC Cosmetics created the graphic, deconstructed look per HBA’s specific vision that saw faces painted with only the very first step in makeup application.
Models being prepped backstage at Hood by Air (Photo: Kathryn Romeyn)
“It’s the tutorials that you see on the Internet with the young guys and girls when they want to start the contouring — that’s the inspiration,” says Grognard. But before there were YouTube tutorials and before the Kardashians so successfully appropriated it, contouring actually had a significant place in entertainment history. “It’s a very old theater thing and a movie thing, before we started to work with digital. It’s very old school,” says Grognard. “It’s like bringing out the good points and bringing down the things that are too big. It’s that game. And now the young people play with it and I think it’s quite amusing.”
References for the beauty look backstage at Hood by Air. (Photo: Kathryn Romeyn)
Her amusement comes from the fact she, as an expert, realizes that the young people don’t really need all that makeup. “They think they need a lot of product and they look fabulous without also,” she says. But her opinion admittedly is skewed due to the fact she’s European, where, says Grognard, there’s a more transparent approach to beauty. Still, HBA’s almost animalistic-looking makeup serves as interesting commentary on the use of contouring and makeup today — especially when paired with numerous other NYFW runways that featured models with bare, raw skin and nary a speck of foundation.
As for making the beginning stage of the process the actual “makeup,” Grognard says she started with the designer’s input and inspiration of DIY tutorials and put her own stamp on it. Creating the sculpted look, which ranged from very heavy on some models to barely there on others, (using MAC Pro Conceal and Correct palettes, Prep + Prime Highlighters, Paintsticks, white, dark and silver pigments and Prep + Prime Finishing Powders) “can be very quick but you have to know what to do, what colors to use, because every face is different. Some have a lot, some have a little bit less. It’s [about] the shape of the face when you speak about contouring — there are rules: highlights, darker parts,” says the veteran makeup artist. “Normally you start with contouring and then you blend it out and start with the eyes, but we stopped there.” Makeup artist, interrupted! She’s not advocating this look off the runway, but in this case, says Grognard, “The most important thing is the beginning.”
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