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On the catwalk at Sado, image: Doh Lee
Backstage at Orschel-Read, image: Marsy Hild Thorsdottir
Check out those wild 80s brows in Mystic Pizza
Hold the tweezers. The strong eyebrow is back. Throughout London Fashion Week I kept noticing eyebrows, not because they were big, bushy and screaming for a plucking (although at times they were) but because they were there, big, bold and actually quite beautiful.
Rachel Wood, makeup artist for Benefit Cosmetics, worked on ten shows at London Fashion Week and she noticed the brow going big too. “Brows seem to be the feature of fashion week. They are definitely back on the scene, but not perfectly groomed brows. I think that groomed look has gone out the window, it has become a little bit more disheveled, kind of busy and unkempt.”
At Alice Palmer’s “Batman” show brows were done with a strong rock and roll black liner for a graphic feel. David Koma’s models had brows slicked back with Benefit Speed Brow Gel for a wet, just got out of the swimming pool look. For the boys at Orschel-Read eyebrows were channeling the busy, unkempt brow of Robert Pattinson. At the Sado show eyebrows were highlighted with a crowing silver streak shaped over the brow and across the forehead.
So why is everyone letting loose with their brows? Wood links it to the recession and 1980s fashion revival. “I think brows are growing because we’re in a recession and everyone is working really hard and is stressed. They don’t have time for the coiffed; perfect Madison Avenue, mani-pedi type look anymore. And a little 80’s feel is coming back into make-up at the moment. Think Julia Roberts in Mystic Pizza, that bushy type of brow, more feral, more animalistic.”
It can take a lot of up keep to make your eyebrows look unkempt. Wood recommends Benefit Brows Zings shaping kit to feather in little light hairs and She Laq makeup sealer to keep everything in place. Benefit Highbrow, a creamy off-white pencil, can be used to underline the brow - then smudge with your finger to give a luminous highlight for a natural look.
Words: Maggie Dolan