Milan Fashion Week’s beauty trends were all about celebrating freaks and geeks

Date September 28, 2015

milan fashion week spring 2016 beauty — Photography by Pietro D'Aprano/Getty Images

There’s always been two prevailing beauty teams in Milan: there’s the ultra sexy bombshells (Versace, Roberto Cavalli, Dolce & Gabbana) and there’s the wonderfully wacky (Prada, Marni, Fendi). It’s obviously much easier to convey the former—you can smoke out an eye, hot roller in some waves, add a strip of fake lashes and call it a day. But it’s the latter that’s always so much more exciting to witness, and this season was no exception.

What also made it interesting was that for a second season in a row, Gucci, a long-standing member of Team Glam, joined the nerd herd. Paul Hanlon styled everyone’s hair to what suited them best, but model Peyton Knight easily had the best cut with her graduated bowl. Donning minimal makeup, many models wore oversized glasses that looked like they were plucked from the lanyard of a ’70s era librarian. Over at Stella Jean, things were up to code with eyewear growing to safety goggle size. (Models were still waiting for their building permits to come in.)

Referencing cinematic bookworm Margot Tenenbaum, Sam McKnight dubbed his tucked-under hairstyle the “geek bob” at Fendi, while Peter Philips drew a single black contour right under brows that was totally weird but somehow so appealing. At Marni, spider-leg like lashes on top at bottom paired with two pigtails twisted in from the part was classic Consuelo kookiness.

And of course, then there was Prada. Guido’s long, low ponies were made strange with baby bangs and sideburns, but it was Pat McGrath’s matte gold mouths that caught the most attention. It totally made us think of C3P0—she did just do a makeup collab for Star Wars—and there is nothing nerdier than making a fan boy swoon.