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Collina Strada's Beauty Look Featured Bedazzled Pig Snouts and Horse-Inspired Hair

The beauty teams spent days bringing this “Animorphs”-themed fashion zoo to life.

Where does one begin when attempting to recap a beauty look that includes a handful of intricate horse-inspired “netted hair hoods,” multiple pointed goat ears, a slew of wiry whiskers, plenty of neon hair dye, a prosthetic dolphin mouth and at least one bedazzled artificial pig snout? This was the question I immediately found myself pondering backstage ahead of Collina Strada‘s Fall 2023 show: a fantastical, trippy fashion zoo. But then, I got caught up in the whimsy of it all. It was hard not to.

One of the fashion industry’s less admirable qualities is its tendency to take itself far too seriously; sometimes, this translates to a high-stress, somber or even misery-tinged backstage atmosphere. And while it would be understandable for models to be less than thrilled about having to spend hours in makeup chairs getting prosthetic animal features glued to their faces, that wasn’t the vibe at all on Friday. Rather the opposite, actually: The models — who included Aaron Philip, Tommy Dorfman, Ella Emhoff and Kelly Mittendorf, among others — mostly seemed bemused, and in some cases downright delighted, by their “Animorphs“-inspired moment. It was an opportunity to really transform, use fashion for a type of bizarre world-building and to do something truly, deeply un-boring.

Isamaya Ffrench, who specializes in the un-boring (see: melted Kylie Jenner, ‘pierced’ mascara and, most recently, penis lipsticks) was behind the wonderfully absurd makeup look. “The theme is ‘Animorphs,’ so the idea is a ‘don’t eat my friends’-type concept and we’re creating loads of these really fun characters that are sort-of hybrid animals and humans,” she told Fashionista. “We’re kind of going beyond the animal and taking a lot of pattern and material references from the collection, so we’re kind of putting it into the real materials that Hillary’s using. When everyone’s in their outfit, everyone’s going to look quite harmonious.”

On the runway at Collina Strada Fall 2023.

Photo: Imaxtree

Asked how much time went into creating each look, Ffrench replied, simply, “Quite a lot of time. Hours? Couldn’t really tell you, but quite a long time,” with a tired laugh.

“We did a pre-paint of everything, so we basically got all of the fabrics together, worked out who was wearing what and spent a couple of days in the studio painting [the prosthetics],” she explained. “Now at the show we’re applying it, and it’s quite a full-on process because we’ve got to let the models breathe [laughs].”

On the runway at Collina Strada Fall 2023.

Photo: Imaxtree

Hairstylist Evanie Frausto (for Bumble & Bumble) had a similarly labor-intensive undertaking for the show, creating three different looks. “The first one is kind of natural, hands off,” said the stylist. “Collina Strada is a brand that embraces things that are organic, so we’re kind of staying true to that with the hair as well.” For this look, the hair team relied on Bumble & Bumble’s Thickening Spray, Tonic and Hairdresser’s Invisible Oil for an effect Frausto describes as “cool and grunge and punk.”

A handful of models also wore wigs, which Frausto had custom-dyed to “pastel-y muted” brights. But this still wasn’t the boldest hair look of the show: “For our bigger hair moment, we made these lattice hair-net-hood things — I don’t even know what to call it,” said the hairstylist. “[Collina Strada designer] Hillary [Taymour] is calling it ‘the dressage’ — they kind of just sit on top of the head like a little hood. They’re inspired by a horse’s mane; we were looking through literal pictures of farm animals to find inspiration for hair. We found all of these really cool intricate braiding patterns on horses’ manes, and so that was kind of the inspiration from that. Hillary has a really strong vision. Obviously, humans are different from horses [laughs], so we’re translating it from horse to human.”

The “hair hoods” backstage at Collina Strada Fall 2023.

Photo: Stephanie Saltzman/Fashionista

For the almost macramé-like pattern “hoods,” Frausto’s team began with loose hair extensions, which they then wove into the intricate pattern, tying them together with mini elastics.

“There’s a lot going on,” admitted Frausto. “The clothes are really colorful and cool, we have Isamaya’s prosthetics and we have these hair hoods and wigs, but it’s about finding harmony.” 

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Source: Fashionista.com

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