Backstage at Jill Stuart, there’s a woman in a white dress frolicking in a field under a friendly, sunny sky. It’s a poster, granted, but its youthful exuberance is one that will pass through both the beauty and fashion looks for the designer’s Spring/Summer 2017 collections.
For the second time this Fashion Week, the stylishly undone hairdo has made its appearance, this time fluffed and then slicked into place by lead hairstylist Didier Malige using PHYTO products. The look is one of having just left a nightclub, walking out into the darkness with hair glamorously dewy from shaking one’s thing all night. I’m not sure if that was the original intention, but it works given that Stuart’s collection is inspired by dancers. This look is perpetuated on the face with colorful metallic pastel eyeshadows pressed delicately over the eye and topped with black eyeliner and a light blush on the cheek. The look was designed by lead makeup artist Aaron de Mey using products from Jill Stuart’s beauty collection.
Photo by Elyssa Goodman
I’ve always found Stuart’s collections especially wearable: they’re creative in a way that a modern woman can wear them and still look stylish. This season is no different. On the runway, the ensembles make me think of images of famed 1970s-1980s New York nightclub Danceteria, where women wore Danskin and Capezio ensembles that moved easily and didn’t suffocate the body for optimum boogie capabilities. Stuart’s collection this season did the same, with additional dance-related details like ballet pink and wrap-style tops. The designer blended the ideas together, too, with light, geometric dresses in the aforementioned pink as well as taupe wrap dresses and halter dresses all of which I could see shimmying ’til the morning hours in the nightclubs of yore as well as today.
Photo by Elyssa Goodman