Monday, March 9, 2009

THM Welcomes New Makeup Artist Wendy Rowe!



We would like to welcome makeup artist Wendy Rowe to the Tim Howard Management family. Check out her (quite extensive and thoroughly impressive) portfolio posted on our website (www.timhowardmanagement.com).

Check out Wendy's latest in the second issue of The Last Magazine, on newsstands now.


Matthew Betmaleck for Converse

The recent collaboration of Converse and our very own THM set designer Matthew Betmaleck ended up in a pretty sweet ad.



Great Chucking job, Matthew!

All Eyes on Chai


Photo: Billy Farrell / Patrick McMullan, from Style.com

Stylist Tina Chai has been making quite a bit of headlines these days.

Few stylists can say that they worked for a whopping six events in this year’s Fashion Week, but an exhausted Tina Chai proudly owns it. Among them include Band of Coutsiders and Tadashi Shoji.

She’s made recent appearances with such fashion icons as Scott Sternberg (founder of the Band of Outsiders label) and Jason Wu (pictured above). Tina not only styles for both Sternberg and Wu, but she also claims to be a faithful client of both designers. To read more about Tina, long onto Style.com.

In late-February, Tina was spotted at Glamour Magazine’s 70th anniversary party rubbing elbows with actress Amanda Peet.

On top of all this, some of Tina’s latest work can be found on the cover of March 2009’s i-D Magazine. Check it.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Sheer Coverage of the Shows

Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week 2009 - Makeup

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For the Karen Walker show, makeup artist Maxine Leonard created a youthful, charmingly girlish look with rosy cheeks and lips as the main focal points. In order to make this look work, the rest of the makeup must be applied very lightly: no dramatic eye shadow, no heavy eye liner; instead, focus on various shades of beige and brown to match the color of the skin.

After a maximum coverage foundation, Maxine applied mascara and used a pencil to fill in the eyebrows. Maxine tells us that the freshest layer of makeup will be the one people notice the most, so she waits until the last minute to apply the blush and lipstick.













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Lisa Butler told us that her main inspiration for any of her makeup styling is the designer’s vision with the clothing line; she says, “When I see the line of clothes during the testings, the makeup almost creates itself in my mind… It’s a joy to watch everything come to life and see how the makeup actually enhances the look of the garments.”

This season's Miss Sixty line incorporates a vibrant violet color, so Lisa and her team created a more powerful, contemporary version of the classic smoky eye using a vivid purple as the hallmark. To achieve the look, she started with a smoky pencil around the lashes as a foundational highlighter. For the eye shadow, she used a deep purple with a golden shimmer for that extra pop under the runway lights. This updated smoky eye fit perfectly with the “rocker girl” style of Miss Sixty.

























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The definite highlight of the Devi Kroell show was its sponsor, Temptu, an airbrushing company. The airbrushing helped to create the sophisticated, elegant, and finished look that Lisa Butler envisioned.

The first steps when working with airbrushing are to match the skin tone and apply an even coat of the silicon-based formula to the entire face. The airbrushing basically serves as a foundation, to make the skin appear absolutely flawless; then it’s Lisa’s job to polish the look with makeup.




Lisa’s secrets for this look center around the clean and defined brows, a deep taupe liner for the eyes, and a natural cheek to compliment the airbrushing.

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Tommy Hilfiger’s clothing lines tend to focus on clean-cut American fashion. To accentuate this year’s line at Fashion Week, Lisa Butler and her team of makeup stylists created a unique look inspired by the late 70s golden glam of a lower Manhattan fashionista.

To achieve the look, Lisa first focused on giving a full coverage of sheer foundation. She explains, “As a makeup artist, the face is my canvas… it must be cared for even down to the smallest underpinnings. This sheer coverage provides a light base for the rest of the look.”

She then used a refined golden bronze for the blush and mineralized powder for highlighting. The mineralized powder gives the look an extra pop on the catwalk.

For the eyes, Lisa begins by curling the lashes and then tracing a gold pencil under the lower lashes. She then applies a gold furdel (sheer) powder to the eyelid and socket, applying it heavier toward the outer half of the lid. The eyes are finished with mascara and the eyebrows are darkened with a pencil.

The lips get a thin layer of lip conditioner topped off with a fun lip balm.

Male models also walked in the Tommy Hilfiger show. When I asked Lisa about the makeup inspiration for them, she laughed and said, “Oh, the makeup for the male models is mainly used for grooming, to cover up spots. Basically we want their skin to look as smooth as the girls’ complexions without the added drama of color and shimmer.”



Monday, March 2, 2009

Fashion Week 2009 - Twist and Shout

The 2009 Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week integrated the classic twist into several new hairstyles.

First up: Diego Da Silva at the Costello Tagliapietra show. Diego’s inspiration for this hairstyle falls in line with the majority of his work: classic with a twist. In his own words, the look is “50s elegance, chic and exquisitely luxurious… with a colorful pop.”

To achieve this difficult look, Diego and his stylists first created a braid in the shape of an oval directly onto the scalp on the back of the head. The braid was constructed tightly enough to serve as an anchor for the two French twists that Diego pinned to the braid. He then teased the hair on the top of the head to create volume, smoothed it back and pinned it into the French twists in the back.


For the final look, Diego took cans of aerosol hair color, something generally reserved for Halloween costumes, and sprayed a fine kaleidoscopic mist over the hair style. The colors he used included navy, light blue, red, silver, and white.





Just before the models walked onto the runway, Diego “broke” the look by pulling small strands of hair from the French twist to create bangs.

Work.

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Laurent Philippon...
“Severity,” “cold beauty,” and “mutiny” are three descriptions that designer Joseph Altuzarra wanted reflected in his show’s hairstyles. In order to translate these ideas into a hairstyle, Laurent produced the “flattest French twist ever created.” This hairstyle, according to Laurent, is not possible without great tension (and quite a bit of hairspray) in the hair to keep it smooth. The hair on the top of the head is collected into a tight unit, slicked back on the head, and pinned into the nape of the double French twist.























In the end, Laurent says the hairstyle looks like a girl with very short hair - sophisticated but cold.

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At Max Azria, Laurent went for a completely different twist...
Laurent’s inspiration for this look was the clothing line. He needed to create a hairstyle that reflected the line as accurately as possible; the clothes, according to Laurent, are sexy and elegant, chic and independent, dark but romantic. The pieces are seamless, so Laurent created a hairstyle without hard lines.

The first step to creating this hairstyle is to wet the head with “Prep,” a Bumble and Bumble liquid conditioner. This product is crucial during fashion week because the models are coming from other fashion shows all across the city; Prep brings their hair back to square one. Laurent likes to start the models out with Prep because, “…it’s basically water, infused with vitamins and minerals. So not only does it bring the hair to its natural state, but it also supplies the hair with nutrients it wouldn’t receive otherwise.”






After prepping the hair, Laurent braids the hair and dries it with a hot hair drier. He then “breaks” the braids and opens them to reveal wavy hair. He then twists the hair on the top of the head, and then separately twists the hair toward the neck; he then uses Bumble and Bumble wax to mold the two twists together into a floral look.

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BCBG: Tag-Team Action - Lisa Butler on makeup, Laurent Philippon on hair

Designer Max Azria’s BCBG line this year was very poised and naturally feminine, yet sprinkled with spontaneity. Makeup artist Lisa Butler says, “The look ultimately came to life in the test shoot when we were prompted with a story: we were told to create the look of a ballerina that didn’t have time to finish getting ready.”

In terms of makeup, Lisa reflected the line with an air of easy, clean, natural femininity. She begins by moisturizing the skin, then matching the skin tone with a concealer to dot out the red areas around the nose and any blemishes on the skin. Applying moisturizer before the concealer helps to create a smooth, consistent skin tone. For the eyes, Lisa mixed red and gold eye shadow into the socket of the eye and onto the upper lid. She used a beige pencil with a slight shimmer along the inside of the upper and lower lids to give the eyes an edge.

Lisa and her team then lightly scribbled lip liner onto the lips. She explains, “You shouldn’t see where the lip color begins and ends. By making the lips look seamless, you integrate them with the rest of the face for an ultimate feeling of unity.”



















As for the rest of the face, Lisa mixed various shades of brown, lilac, and red to create a customized skin color to provide the most natural coverage for each individual model.


























In this third twisted variety, hair stylist Laurent Philippon reflected the half-ready ballerina look in a modern, impulsive chignon, a popular au courante style of bun. To achieve the look, Laurent first prepped the hair with styling lotion to keep the hair manageable and pliant, while retaining its natural moisture.

After prepping the hair with styling lotion, Laurent and his team of hair stylists then put the hair in a tight, low ponytail. Laurent adds, “I only use my hands with this hair style… a hair brush would make it look too polished and refined, whereas this look requires a touch of casual nonchalance.”