Dior Just Opened Paris Fashion Week With Next-Level Eyes So Cool, They Looked Like Face Tattoos

"The story comes from inside the body," says Sharon Eyal, the choreographer who not only helped designer Maria Grazia Chiuri conceive Dior's stirring Spring 2019 runway-show-meets-dance-performance this afternoon in Paris, but whose fluid movement and radical self-expression inspired the striking, freeform eye designs created by makeup artist Peter Philips.

"I met [Eyal] on Friday at the makeup test," explained Philips backstage, speaking of his first time coming face-to-face with the 47-year-old Israeli beauty with her silver-streaked hair and wide grin. "Maria Grazia told me 'I think she has tattoos around her face,' which sounded really intriguing. But when she came in, [I realized] it's just the unique way she approaches makeup. She doesn't [think] about how her makeup is going to look. She gestures, traces, and leaves it—like a choreographer. It's very poetic, actually."

Philips gave the majority of the models and professional dancers in the show natural, glowing skin courtesy of Dior's new forty-shade Backstage Foundation range ("Maria made bodysuits in different skin tones to match each dancer, so it was important for the skin to match perfectly," he said). Then, he coated the lips in Dior Addict Lip Maximizer gloss before warming the tip of a kohl liner pencil with the flick of a lighter for extra grip, and smudging the pigment into the water lines from the inner to outer corners for a more intense, lived-in look. "It looks a bit like leftover makeup after a rehearsal or performance," he explained. But for Philips, the more literal homages to Eyal were the dark, finger-paint-like scribbles framing the gazes of 10 of the models, each applied haphazardly and with hyper-individuality in mind. "When Eyal [applies eyeliner], it's different each time," explained Philips, the back of his left hand covered in deep black swatches. "It's not symmetrical, but it's in balance. It’s controlled asymmetry."

And speaking of control, hairstylist Guido Palau opted for a strict and simple, yet directional style—wrapping the hair around the head in a sculpted, ultra-tight wig wrap—to serve as a canvas for the collection's vast array of above-neck accessories, from the tight, double-banded headbands to the side-leaning berets and second-skin head wraps. "We're getting rid of the hair and making it feel dance-like in a contemporary, kind of experimental way," he explained in between dense brush strokes and blasts of Redken's Forceful 23 Super Strength Hairspray to slick every last flyaway down. "It really makes the head shape beautiful and emphasizes that elegance of the dancer."

In perfect keeping with Grazia Chiuri and Eyal's joint vision, which found sporty netted slips, airy full-skirted silhouettes in monochrome neutrals, and mesmerizing muted prints gliding down the rose petal-strewn runway alongside rapturous dance numbers, the show's bold graphic liner and aerodynamic hair statements were perfectly choreographed beauty moves.

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