NYFW AW24: the most interesting beauty looks

Even a front row appearance by Beyoncé wasn’t enough to fully pull attention away from the runway at Luar, where this season the inspiration was ‘metrosexuals’ – a term that has long fallen out of favour, which Raul Lopez is attempting to bring back. In practice, this looked like glossy leather tailoring, opulent prints, extra large jackets and skin-tight jeans. That Lopez had images of Elizabethan-era men in make-up on his mood board, alongside 1970s blow-dried hair, was clear to see in the beauty looks, which brought together this melange of influences to create something both extremely fresh and extremely referential.

On make-up, Raoul Alejandre worked with a team of MAC artists on creating exaggerated bejewelled eyes that glittered like iridescent disco balls; at times the lashes were so elongated they seemed almost like butterfly wings about to take flight. The standout lip look was a deep brown, created by combining the ‘Chestnut’ pencil liner with the silky matte lipstick in the shade ‘Antique Velvet’. 

Evanie Frausto was back on hair and clearly having fun drawing on the Elizabethan and Victorian wig references. Braids framing the face were looped and pinned back, then combined with extensions and stuck-on micro fringes which sometimes curled up like a crown. Also calling back to historical beauty were face stickers by Starface – the third time the acne brand has appeared on the runway – and elaborate, highly decorative nails by Naomi Yasuda which featured miniature depictions of Renaissance paintings.

Elsewhere, big hair emerged as a main thread throughout the AW24 season – just as Kristen Bateman predicted – with Truman Capote’s Swans providing lots of inspiration. At Christian Cowan, Justine Marjan teased and sculpted 35 wigs into bouffants that were half Lee Radziwill, half mob wife (backstage a note in Cowan’s handwriting read “the look is mob wives but not really cause she is not the wife – she is the boss”). The look was only enhanced by the wine glasses and cigarettes that models walked the runway with.

At Marc Jacobs, the hair was XXL beehives meant to evoke a modern-day Diana Ross. Hairstylist Duffy created huge clouds of hair that looked almost windswept. The make-up was equally as striking and dramatic, with exaggerated doubled up lashes that were coated in black nail lacquer to create a spidery, clumpy effect. It was a look that carried Jacobs’ paper dolls theme to the face, said Diane Kendal.  

The big hair by Joey George at Willy Chavarria paid tribute to the designer’s Chicano heritage and Latin cultures through the decades, as did the make-up. Eyebrows – “which have always been important to Latin culture”, as make-up artist Marco Castro told WWD – were the focal point and kept pencil-thin. References to the Pachuco culture, chola culture and 90s Latina pop stars also informed the beauty.