The phrases 'all-natural,' 'bare, healthy skin,' and 'no makeup' have become somewhat of a running joke backstage this season—nearly every makeup artist has described the beauty look they've created as such and then gone on to explain the countless steps they've taken to land on the perfect #WokeUpLikeThis face: Well, first we start with primer, then we even out the skin with foundation, correct where needed with concealer, add a little contour with bronzer and some blush on the apples so the girls look alive, dab on some illuminator and lip balm…
Look, I get it. Perfect, glowy-in-all-the-right-places skin, dark lashes, and just-bitten lips are pretty. It's how we all hope to look—but it's also not quite real. So tonight at Marc Jacobs, when François Nars announced that the no-makeup makeup actually meant no makeup—zero, zilch, not a drop—it felt kind of revolutionary. "I don't like the middle of the road," said Nars. "I like to go extremely strong and that's either lots of makeup or none at all." The bare-faced models all wore choppy, black wigs designed by Guido Palau, and the effect was an assembly line of women—some of the world's most recognizable women, in fact—who all looked nearly identical. "The colors in the collection are very military-inspired—beige, khaki, camel, chocolate—so Marc saw them looking like an army of girls on the runway," said Nars. And just like that, Marc Jacobs won NYFW yet again.
