Models Ditched the Mascara for an Effortless Makeup Look at Dior's Runway Show in NYC

Lead artist Peter Philips breaks down all the details.

On April 15, Dior made history with designer Maria Grazia Chiuri's first-ever show for the house in New York City. For the Fall 2024 collection, models walked down the runway at the historic Brooklyn Museum in a mix of tailored separates, crystal-encrusted dresses, and short shorts inspired by Marlene Dietrich. On the whole, the collection channeled the spirit of both New York and Paris.

For beauty, Peter Philips, the Creative and Image Director for Dior Makeup, crafted an effortless look to match with a hint of vintage glamour, featuring makeup-free eyes and a bitten lip. "For this show, Maria Grazia Chiuri wanted a simple but strong look," Philips told Byrdie backstage. "We opted for a luminous face where the nude eyes are framed with groomed eyebrows. The lips look bitten, set in deep aubergine and a hint of dusty pink."

"It's actually a duality between masculinity and femininity," he continues. "Maria Grazia was very much inspired by strong women like Marlene Dietrich, which, one side of her was extreme glam. And the other side was wearing men's suits and playing with masculinity and reinventing it in a way." He adds that since the hair, by Guido Palau, was more glam (it took four hours to create the Old Hollywood waves), he went more masculine with a barely-there makeup look.

To start, Philips prepped the models with the Capture Totale Le Sérum ($125) and Capture Totale Hyalushot ($90) before applying the Dior Forever Glow Star Filter ($55) as a base, focusing on the high points of the face. It was important to Chiuri that it didn't look like the models were wearing a stitch of face makeup, so Philips applied a thin layer of the Dior Forever Skin Glow Foundation ($57) and concealed any blemishes or redness with a touch of the Dior Forever Skin Correct ($40). He didn't add any contouring, blush, or highlighter to keep the look natural.

Again, to keep the illusion of a makeup-free look, Philips kept the eyes simple, grooming models' brows with the Diorshow On Set Brow Gel ($35) and Diorshow Brow Styler Pencil ($35). He kept them fairly natural but elongated the arch just a touch for a dose of vintage glamour. He followed TikTok's no mascara trend but worked a tiny bit of dark shadow into the root of the lashes for the illusion of fullness. "Whenever you do mascara or eye makeup, there's a texture, it becomes feminine," explains Philips. And [Churi] wants to keep that raw masculinity."

The star of the beauty look was the lips. Philips calls it a "bouche mordue," which means "just bitten lips" in French. He started by using a fluffy eyeshadow brush to dust the  Rouge Dior Forever Lipstick ($47) in 670 Rose Blues over the lips. He says that he went slightly over the natural lip line for a soft, blurred effect. Then, he used the same lipstick in 111 Forever Night, a deep wine, and diffused it over the center of the lips. "From afar it looks like a shadow line," says Philips. "But if you look closely, it looks like a leftover lipstick, or when you drink a glass of red wine, which is very Parisian."

Philips explains that he opted the focus on the lip instead of a glam eye because it adds to the overall effortlessness of the look. "[If you have a bold eye] it becomes a different narrative because then it is all about the glam," he says. "By doing a raw face and a kind of leftover makeup, it becomes Oh, she has a hidden side. Is she [just starting her makeup]? Or is this leftover makeup [from the night before]? The narrative is different. It's a more mysterious story. It would be gorgeous if the hair and the makeup had been totally done, but then she becomes this luxurious glam [woman], and that's totally not in synch with Maria Grazia's vision. So we kept it raw."

Read the original article on Byrdie.