Over the winter break, I was talking to a friend, Her Campus at Montclair Contributor Giselle about my passion for makeup and how I want to start doing it more. She spoke to me about her passion for fashion and how she loves styling. When conversations like this come up, ideas start to fly! Spring New York Fashion Week happened to be coming up in a month so we decided to pull inspiration from all the catwalk looks in the previous year from all the spring lines.
PART 1: Planning
Planning was the most fun when we had FaceTime calls trying to figure out what we wanted to do. I wanted to go crazy with the looks while also paying attention to the looks that are most seen on the catwalk. So we decided to have fun and look for makeup looks that got progressively more intense which is shown on both of our Instagram accounts, @stephmichs and @g.selle.h. Giselle pulled some looks that she really liked which highlighted plaid textures and a lot of denim! We wanted to use the catwalk outfits as inspiration and turn them into wearable streetwear looks. The makeup was just a fun twist on things to take them from normal photos to an editorial feel. Once we got all of our photos together, we started to plan what dates we could do it and even took a look at the weather! One of our big concerns was that it would rain which would really put a damper on things. We decided we would do it on the rooftop of my apartment then see if we can find any cool murals that would make the photo pop even more.
PART 2: Styling
This part was all Giselle and she came prepared. She brought a huge duffle bag of clothes to choose from and she put together four outfits that really summarized each look but, made them wearable. I ended up getting some inspiration for outfits from this experience. We laid everything out and tried to put some pieces together. Giselle really wanted one thing to stand out in each outfit while remaining true to the outfits we pulled inspiration from.
PART 3: Hair and Makeup
After we had finished putting the outfits together, we started talking about makeup. This got me very excited. I really wanted to go outside of the box when doing the makeup and make it as editorial as possible. I pulled a few inspiration pictures I liked then once the outfits were together, Giselle and I decided which would go with which. We had a lot of fun with this part because while I was doing Giselle’s makeup, we chatted (this is my favorite part of being a makeup artist). Giselle was an amazing canvas to work on since her skin is so nice and she has a lot of lid space. The first look we did was just a basic glassy skin look because that is a staple in many runways. The second look was a glossy red smokey eye! I only used one shadow for this then a MAC gloss on top. This was my favorite out of all of them because it is such a striking look. The third look was a graphic liner that was really supposed to look different but after throwing ideas around, we ended up with this look. The fourth look was Giselle’s favorite; Yellow brows with yellow fade into a pink contour! After all of the makeup was done, we decided to put some yellow on her lashes too.
Hair was figured out after the makeup was done. Giselle straightened her hair for the day so we kept it like that for the natural makeup. I liked that because it kept the focus on the outfit. The second look we wanted to do something different and do some space buns! I kept it messy to make this look a little more avant garde. The hair in the third look was a slick back and immediately we both thought of Kim Kardashian’s signature look. Slicking back the hair took about half a can of hairspray and a lot of brushing out the hair. The last look we wanted the focus to be on the crazy makeup so we just brushed her hair and tucked it back.
PART 4: Taking Photos
In the beginning, this was so fun because the sun was out and it wasn’t too windy. It was cold but we were able to stay outside so much longer in the beginning. The first set of photos was fun because we were playing around and on my roof so we got pictures with the skyline in the background. We really utilized my rooftop for these pictures. As the day went on, it got much colder and we had to really work fast to get the photos we wanted. We had planned to take 1-2 really great outfit shots and at least one up close shot of her makeup. We managed to achieve this goal and Giselle was a trooper for dealing with me!
After all of this, we edited the photos and ended up having a set that we both really loved. Some were more composed while others were very out there. The photos really highlighted how much fun we had with the entire collaboration. It was fun to work with someone very like-minded and passionate about this. We do have future collabs planned so keep an eye out!