With New York Fashion Week’s SS25 season at a close (and VIPs setting off to their next stop in London), let’s look back at the biggest beauty trends we saw.
From Yadim’s tattoo makeup and black lipstick at Area and Luar, to Kim Shui and Theophilio’s Club Kids hair at all the after parties, this season was full of shocking beauty moments you can’t get anywhere else.
Below, take a look at the biggest beauty trends from NYFW’s SS25 season.
Tattoo makeup
This season, tattoo-stenciled skin was of the most unexpected beauty trends keyed by makeup artist Yadim for Area and Luar. To celebrate Area’s 10-year anniversary, one model turned into a walking fingerprint with elongated loops printed onto her chest, neck, and face (which spilled into the collection).
At Luar, a similar technique transferred fabric and prints from the En Boca Quedó collection, but as eyeshadow and brows. “We’re using a vinyl python material we borrowed from the collection and we cut out brows in the material,” Yadim tells ESSENCE.
In another look, he used a digital file of a distorted leopard print seen in the collection, to stencil-on shadow. “We printed the print onto tattoo-transfer paper and then we’re laying that on the eye as eyeshadow,” he says, which complimented black lipstick spotted in both shows.
Quiet grunge
Fashion week in the 1990s (think: Naomi Campbell at Mugler) is a highly referenced time beauty never let go of. This week at Kim Shui, makeup artist Romero Jennings tapped MAC’s Luminous Lift Concealer and then unreleased shades of Macximal Silky Matte Lipstick in black and butterscotch tones. “This is a little bit grungy, a ‘90s nude but a little wabi-sabi at the same time,” Jennings says backstage. “It’s imperfect which is actually perfection.”
At Jonathan Cohen, Jennings leaned into a more “quiet grunge” with smoked out eyeliner on the lower lash and waterline, while makeup artist Marcelo Gutierrez used a more blue-red tone for a ‘90s grunge lip at Paloma Spain. Meanwhile, Pat McGrath’s work at Alaïa was a “study of nude makeup,” she says in a press release.
Black lipstick
From Area to Luar, and Kim Shui, black lipstick was the unspoken rule this season, fitting strategically into each collection. While caviar-toned lips have a rep for being dominant over your makeup, the color, against equally powerful hair and eye looks, struck an unexpected symmetry.
At Luar, Evanie Frausto’s gel-layered, sculptural hair pieces and Yadim’s fabric cut-out eye makeup worked in tandem with black lipstick to pull off the collection’s message. Black lips at Area paired as the sole makeup for the show’s face-covering looks, meanwhile the color was more chic at Kim Shui, used next to ‘90s supermodel nudes.
Club kid hair
What’s NYFW without the after parties (and after after parties)? While the runway is arguably more chic and subdued than the cult partiers of the New York ‘80s and ‘90s, party-ready hair remained one of the season’s biggest trends.
“The hair look [at Kim Shui] is very inspired by having a night out on the town, going to a hot club and getting sweaty and dancing,” hair stylist Davey Matthew tells ESSENCE, honing in on movement, taxiness, and humidity in the hair. As the show’s hair hack, “we set a majority of the models’s hair into ponytails, added texture, then cut the ponytail out for a more billow feel.”
Meanwhile, hair stylist Jawara used Kiss Colors Foam Mousse and Braid Sheen at Theophilio, showing off the different looks we see at the club. From sleek side parts to short pixie cuts, “it’s an overall ‘fun night at the party’ kind of hair,” he says, which pairs well with trending metallics (think: Who Decides War).
Ultraviolet skin
Since Pat McGrath’s viral porcelain doll-skin moment at Margiela last year, more subtle renditions of ultraviolet radiance arrived on the runway. At Coach and Alaïa, McGrath used her Skin Fetish: Sublime Perfection System to give the skin a natural, yet otherworldly finish. We saw similar skin moments at Off-White, when makeup artist Raisa Flowers pulled off passport-ready skin, then again at Theophilio.
