If the Fall collections had a near-unanimous message it was: Grow your hair out and wear it long. This morning backstage at Jason Wu’s Spring 2016 show, Odile Gilbert presented us with the most powerful counterargument yet: Show off your neck. While fastening wet, finger-raked buns onto the models’ heads, Gilbert explained, “The sexiest part of the body is the neck. It talks to men. I don’t know why—you’ll have to ask them.” Referencing society swans like Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly, Gilbert waxed poetic on the benefits of showing skin between the collarbone and chin. “Women don’t realize it because they always wear their hair down, but there’s something so sensual [about a neck].”
And so, for the midcentury-inspired architectural collection of green, russet, black, and gray, Gilbert took a modern approach to the ear-height chignon. “We were thinking ballerina-meets–Helmut Newton, being a little bit more masculine,” she said, coating entire lengths of damp hair with Kérastase Crème de la Crème, and finishing with a spritz of hair spray before sending the girls off to makeup. There, too, they were given a classically feminine trope: the bold red lip, courtesy of Yadim, and, according to the makeup artist, “nothing else.” Why? “A lot of the girls are a bit tan right now from summer. We kept the skin completely raw—we even liked the little bit of redness on the face.” Blending two new Maybelline Liquid Matte reds for a balanced, universally flattering tone, he applied it to the lips with his finger, tracing a perfect outline afterward with a pencil and, for a dramatic chalky finish, dabbing on “a pure, intense matte red pigment” right before sending models down the runway. The cohesive statement here? Show some skin.
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