The ARISE African Collective was a show featuring four promising runway designers, and sponsored by Arise Magazine. The four designers: South Africa’s David Tiale; Tiffany Amber by Nigerian designer Folarin-Coker; Eric Raisina; and Jewel by Lisa, the Nigerian label of Lisa Folawiyo, showcase their winning work at the tents yesterday.

Since there were four designers, there were four key looks and hairstyles, all designed by various artists from MAC (the hair was done by Danito who used predominantly Pantene products.

Fatima Thomas, who designed the look with the bold red lips said that she used MAC’s Lipmix in Red (“an oldie but a goodie”) to achieve the extremely powerful look down the catwalk. “The clothes by David Tiale are very vibrant with a lot of reds, so I wanted to bring out that look,” she says. The eyes were lined with MAC Fluidline in Blacktrack  and she used concealer for the lids. “The girl needs to look really fresh,” she says.

She also used the MAC’s Face & Body Foundation from the Hi-DEF line to ensure flawless skin.

Thomas says we will see a ton of red lip for the Spring 2010 season. “Bold lips, burgundy lips…we’ve already seen it this fall and we’ll see more of it next year,” she says.

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Coco Rocha smiles as she talks on the phone…

We will see a lot of strong red lips next season.

Romero Jennings for MAC used the new LipGelees (which will debut next Spring) and layered five of them (above) to get the precise texture he wanted for the lip (see below). He designed the look for Paul Tiffany Amber’s line. “I wanted a look that would NOT go with the clothes but would complement it,” says Jennings. He applied a new gold eyeshadow called Crushed Metal on the lids of the girls (think of a faint glimmer powder in pure gold…) and used Mineralize foundation to get that clear skin. He used a bright orange blush to make the look super sexy.

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Agent Provocateur kicked NYC’s Spring 2010 Fashion Week off to a rollicking start with the launch of their new line, Soiree. The high end kinky-with-class collection, including panties studded with Swarovski crystal, call spectacular make-up and hair. Chantal Miller and Pasquale Ferrante answer the call.

Miller wanted the make-up for the show to capture the spirit of the Timeless Woman. “She’s the woman for whom time doesn’t exist,” Miller explained. “She uses liquid eyeliner, and she knows how to do a flawless red lip.”

A strong eye, bearing MAC’s Fluidline liquid eyeliner in Blacktrack and baby blue, olive green, turquoise, and rich gold shadows, balanced out the aforementioned flawless lips in MAC’s Pro Longwear Lipcolour in Ruby Red. (more…)

Lana Horchowski is the new lead makeup artist for Season 3 of TV hit show Mad Men.

Lana loves MAC.

MAC loves Mad Men.

A beautiful friendship is borne.

Here is a Q&A on how Lana chose the looks for the three leading ladies of the hit TV series.

Q: You’re the new department head at Mad Men for Season 3, will you be making any changes to any characters makeup?

A: Since we are moving a little forward into the future, we have changed up the color palette for each character to go along with the time period.

Betty Draper

Q: When you were preparing for this season, did you do any research for inspiration? If so, what most inspired you?

A: Weeks and weeks of meetings and research. I love looking through the old magazines. They are a great reference and a huge source of inspiration; however, we do try to keep the characters looking like real people that do their own makeup and not like movie stars with a makeup artist standing by. Magazines and old movies are a great guideline for a basic look and color selection.

Q: How would you describe the looks of each one of the characters? How do they differ?

A: Joan Holloway- always put together, very sassy and sexy

Betty Draper- although she is a housewife she is an ex model, so her makeup is clean but very current for the period

Peggy Olson- Peggy is a young and fresh faced business woman of that period, she is a very clean natural makeup

Joan Holloway

Q: What are your key products for creating the makeup looks for the main female characters?

A: Joan Holloway- We do a heavier eye on Christina, so the key products would be eyeliner and strip lashes.

Betty Draper- Betty has 2 distinct looks, her at home look and her going out/evening look. For home she is very natural, basically a sheer foundation, think black eyeliner and mascara. Evening Betty goes a little thicker on the liner and a brighter lipstick, but aalways coordinated with her clothing.

Peggy Olson- Since the key to Peggy’s look is to appear as though she is wearing no makeup, a great foundation is super important. Also, a natural cheek and lip stain is applied to give her a little color.

Q: What are your favorite M·A·C products for each character?

A: Joan Holloway- Cream Colour Base in Virgin Isle, Fluidline in Blacktrack and Rich Ground, brown and black, and Eye Shadow in Soft Brown.

Betty Draper- Cream Colour Base in Virgin Isle, Blushcreme in Posey, and Lipsticks in Vegas Volt, Lip Pencil in Redd and Cherry

Peggy Olson- Eye Shadow in Orb, Vanilla, and Soft Brown and Blot Powder

Peggy Olsen

Q: Everyone always notices the lips on the show, but brows seem to play a very important part to the look. Can you talk about the brows on the show?

A: Women of the 60′s had a stricter code of style and etiquette, so people tended to follow the trends closer to the book. Nowadays, women have a variety of different brow styles so we are constantly tweezing, shaping, and filling the brows to recreate the look of the period.

Q: Each character has the most perfect lashes framing her eyes. What are your favorite lashes to use to get that perfectly plump line of lashes?

A: We love the M·A·C individual lashes as well as the traditional strip lashes.

Q: Do you collaborate with the hair and costume departments when coming up with a look?

A: Absolutely! We have at least 3 meetings per episode to create the look as a unit. I could not do this show without Lucia Mace (hair), Janie Bryant (costumes), and my fabulous key Ron Pipes!

Q: There seems to be a lot of making out on the show, how many times do you have to redo those red lips? Does it get messy?

A: We do what we can to seal the lip color, but we still have to go in every take to perform a minor clean up.

Q: What can real women take away from the show’s look and incorporate into their everyday look?

A: Well, a great start would be lining the top lash line only with a gel liner like M·A·C Fluidline. We love this product for recreating the perfect 60′s eye. Also, replacing gloss and sheer or shimmer lipsticks with matte reds, bright pinks, and corals help create a more retro look. Lastly, instead of a powder blush try using creme in pinks and corals to create a flushed looking cheek. For evening, strip lashes are always a bonus.

The six new creme nail lacquers for MAC by renowned nail artist Jin Soon are beyond creamy and velvety with the slightest hint of shine.

We wrote about this collection here previously but wanted you to see the swatches for yourself. This polish is very high end: lustrous, with a no chip attitude and plenty of elegance. The Beyond Jealousy screams fall runway but I’m more of a Cool Reserve kind of gal.

They are available August 27th through September.

Beyond Jealous is a hot ticket item for the fall and originally made its debut during fashion week. It reminds me of a forest green: deep, dark and delicious.

Cool Reserve is my personal favorite because I adore mauves. A beautiful pale violet, this lacquer is elegant enough to be worn to the office and is completely date worthy.

Dry Martini is a dirty olive color that is a mixture of brown and moss green. A perfect fall shade, it will complement red and wine colored dresses particularly well.

MAC Cosmetics and renowned nail artist Jin Soon Choi joined forces to create a Fashion Week ready collection that’s pure lacquer delight for the nails.

Jin Soon is a permanent fixture backstage at the tents, having worked with designers such as Oscar de la Renta, Derek Lam and Doo Ri.

This is her first ever brand collaboration, and the focus is on nail colors with a long lasting shine and creamy finish. There are six shades in the collection:

Base/ Under Lacquer

Beyond Jealous

Cool Reserve

Dance All Night

Dry Martini

For Fun

Top Coat

Rich Dark Delicious

The polishes will be available in North America on August 27th and will retail for $12 each.

MAC announced today that it will partner with the iconic MILK STUDIOS (The Milk Building at 450 West 15th Street) during New York Fashion Week September 2009 for the Spring Collections.

M·A·C and Milk will offer designers more than a great space — they will be dishing out presentations and press appointments, and allow castings, hair and makeup tests and look book shoots filmed at the spaces.

John Demsey of Estee Lauder & Mazdack Rassi, founder of MILK Studios

Confirmed participants include Adam Lippes, Alexander Wang, Altuzarra, Band of Outsiders, Barbara Tfank, Costello Tagliapietra, Erin Fetherston, Pamela Love, Peter Som, Preen, Proenza Schouler, Temperley London and threeASFOUR.

The news broke today in WWD and the NY Times.

The working title of the collaboration will be called “MAC at MILK.”  The people behind the move include John Demsey, the Estée Lauder group president who oversees MAC, and Mazdack Rassi, the founder of Milk Studios.

Frankly, this is a great move for MAC and the opportunity for fashion week to be taken to a more upscale, less “circus” environment. The tents at the Park always remind me of Barnum & Bailey. Couture is more than that, non?

Maira Kalman‘s art inspired this beautiful collection with the emphasis on eye pencils and shadows (Photo of Maira’s collection courtesy of Eye4Style).

The third collection that MAC unveiled last night was by Richard Phillips, who had beautiful canvases displayed at the artist’s studio:

The artist with his creation:

This is the original canvas:

Richard Phillips started with the above canvas as his armature (the basic painting). “Once we got the pigment colors, this is the painting (above) that we had as the basis to work with, I painstakingly layered the exact MAC pigment colors to create different versions of the lip and eye and blush,” he says.

As you can see, this is a different rendition of the original (the lip color is richer and thicker):

Phillips explains that MAC gave him some colors to work with and he created a work of art for the collection using the pigments. The Phillips Collection is very much eye/ lip savvy. All the colors are wearable by all complexions and the rich lipstick shades make this my favorite.

This will launch in August 2009 along with the other two artist collections.

This evening I had the chance to see three artists and their galleries — inspirations and canvases for MAC‘s new Fall collections honoring three great and interesting voices.

MAC tapped three artists who paint and photograph in different medium to create three distinct lines. Artists were given colors and were encouraged to set their imagination free and wild. MAC wanted to know how they would see the cosmetics and what colors they’d pick for their art.

And the results were gorgeous, wild, unexpected. The first gallery I visited today was Marilyn Minter‘s at Soho:

It is easy to see why Minter’s work is so “MAC.” The vivid colors, the introspection, the raw imagination.

“I work with glitter as much as I can,” says Minter. “I was just playing and let things fall into place.” Minter uses enamel on metal as her medium and her photography is film. ”

This is Minter’s collection:

This is a gorgeous painting of Pamela Anderson, in close up:

This is a picture of Minter and MAC’s James Gager, senior VP/creative director.

I love the freshness of this painting below.

MAC as seen by Marilyn Minter will debut in August 2009.

This has to be one of my all time favorites because of the rich colors. Since I’m a high pigment junkie (thanks, brown skin), I’m relishing the shades and the pinwheel eyeshadows in the collection.

The lipglass also has a kinky marbelized finish (swirled with three shades). There are a ton of Mineralize Skinfinishes too in new mosaic combinations: Triple Fusion, Smooth Merge, Warm Blend.

Lipsticks

Madly Creative
Ever Embellish
Made with Love
Colour Crafted
Trimming Talk
Most Popular

Lipglass

Pretty Pattern
Crazy Haute
Nice Mix Up
Funky Fusion
Eclectic Edge
Miss Marble

Mineralize Eye Shadow

Assemblage
Odd Bits
Fashion Patch
Eccentricity
Natural Flare
Girlish Romp

Mineralize Skinfinish ($27)

Sunny By Nature
Cheeky Bronze
Porcelain Pink
Triple Fusion
Smooth Merge
Warm Blend

Mineralize Blush (not shown)

Hand-finish
Fad-dabulous
Daft Pink
Improvise
Cheek & Cheerful
Style Demon

The MAC Cosmetics Colour Craft Collection will hit counters nationwide on July 9th. Are you ready to be crafted?

Backstage at Tadashi Shoji’s Fall 2009 Collection (my last Fashion Week backstage!), I saw beautiful makeup artistry by MAC Cosmetics’ artist Luc Bouchard, who created a palette of caramels and browns for the eye. Tadashi Shoji came to Luc  and said , “A smoky train station…that’s what I want for the makeup.”
“So I wanted something soft and smoky for the face since the clothes are all angular,” Luc says.

He used MAC’s Teddy pencil around the eyes, and Eye Espresso in Omega (a soft brown) and Carbon. Luc also wanted to recreate the same effect as when light falls on top of the head, when skin is reflective of the light.

As with so many Fall 2009 faces we’ve seen, there was no trace of blush. Lips were peachy in color using the gloss Shy Girl (he applied lip conditioner first). The skin was dusted with Mineralize Skinfinish Foundation.

(Shy Girl is the orange peachy color)

Eyeliner has no where to hide during the Fall! Luc used lots of liner to finish the “smoky train station” effect. “The colors of the clothes are very strong, like fuschia and orange. I didn’t want the makeup to fight with the clothes,” he says.

Hair master Rodney Cutler of his eponymous salon said the Tadashi look was “clean, beautiful and evening. We wanted to keep it simple, young and fresh.” To do this, he used side partings for the hair, back- combed it to add texture and wisps, then coiled it into a little bun. Yes, it’s a little messy bun at the back and a very clean, glam silhouette in the front.

To achieve this messy little bun, Cutler used the Cutler Straightening Cream and Redken Workforce 09. His latest power tool is an Ionic Hair Dryer that’s lightweight and does the job at the speed of a Ferrari.

And as for the clothes and the full look, Tadashi Shoji created clean, inspired cocktail attire worthy of any socialite. Equally versatile in both black and white and color, the designer shows us that mastery of quiet, solid elegance will never really go out of style.