All too often, when I'm trawling through catwalk pictures to illustrate a lovely collection, I find myself blind-sided by freakishly hideous (that's the technical term, I believe) make-up. Why do designers pay a fortune for Cara Delevingne/Lindsey Wixon/ Julia Nobis/Bette Franke only to make them look like (barely) living corpses? The answer, I fear, lies in fashion's inherent inferiority complex. It thinks it won't be taken seriously if it doesn't do something Artistic. Artistic equals ugly, in fashion land, because beauty is too populist.
In the quest for Art, eyebrows are blanked out, lips are blotted, hair is greased and eyes are bruised. It is a painstakingly recreated circus of bubonic plague victims. I've yet to see blacked-out teeth. But I don't rule them out.
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But not at Dolce & Gabbana's shows. Here a woman is celebrated in all her womanly glory, complete with feline eye flicks, strong brows and dewy skin. "It was really important that the models looked healthy and radiant," said Pat McGrath, the British make-up maestro, of her handiwork. McGrath's models may not look as though they're wearing anything much for this show, but skin was primed to perfection with moisturiser, concealer, base and highlighter. Blending was key for that translucent glow and the eyes were accentuated with beiges and soft browns - and finished with dark liner. Crucially, it's a recipe that works on every face.
Lisa Armstrong
The lot of the catwalk hair stylist is a pitiable one. Not only must they play supporting act to the designer's lead, but they must come up with a style that will work on the follicles of at least 30 models, many of whom will have turned up an hour late and be sporting a peroxide wet‑look mohican from the previous show on the roster.
Forgive them, then, when they deviate from the beautifully laissez-faire catwalk hair that women can aspire to recreate, and instead embark upon a "concept". The Birmingham-born stylist Paul Hanlon did precisely this at Marni, taking "twisted" as his buzzword after the designer Consuelo Castiglioni intimated that she was a bit bored with the prevailing simplicity of styles so far at Milan Fashion Week.
Hanlon's answer was to plaster sweaty-looking hair to waxy foreheads by blow-drying it through a stocking cap. He deemed it reminiscent of "wicker baskets", "bird's nests", and "tree branches", conceived to match a collection that featured Dutch duck feather embellishment and swathes of shaggy fur. We thought it reminiscent of greasy hat hair.
Over at Antonio Marras, Eugene Souleiman twisted models' hair into victory rolls that he termed a cross between "Bladerunner, an Edwardian lady and wolf ears". Those wolf ears were important - Little Red Riding Hood had been a key influence on Marras, and clothes featuring prints of howling wolves came down the catwalk under a full moon, to a wolf pack soundtrack.
Sometimes, though, a good old glamorous Milanese blow dry can't be beaten - as Donatella Versace well knows. The models at her show had poker-straight, flat-ironed manes, plumped up by Guido Palau, with extensions at the crown for added thickness. "Per the usual, it's very glamorous hair for a very high-maintenance woman," Palau said backstage.
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