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“The story is a bit like Alice in Wonderland, kind of a fairytale feeling with a punky edge,” makeup artist Peter Philips tells me backstage at Dior’s SS25 Haute Couture show this morning of his conversations with Maria Grazia Chiuri surrounding the beauty look, which is a look. We’re in an enormous tent outside the Musée Rodin, where models with spikey brows and fanned-out mohawks are lining up near the snacks for ginger shots, cucumber sandwiches, lentil bowls, and lots of coffee.
Philips builds a beauty narrative with his work over seasons, and once he saw milliner Stephen Jones’s lacey, feathery “haute couture mohawks,” boyfriend blush from the house’s SS25 RTW runway, and comb-marked brows from Scotland’s Resort 2025 show were brought together for a mashup of new beauty codes. “This one was clear when I saw the headpiece that the makeup needs to be in harmony,” he says of creating balance with Guido Palau’s hair and Maria Grazia’s couture. Sparkling birdcage dresses, sheer angelic pleats, and iridescent tulle bloomers are already walking during rehearsal on the runway against artist Rithika Merchant’s towering textile panels painted with botanical and mythological references. “The collection is really beautiful with a lot of shapes and movement,” he says of creating a look “almost like little elves that come alive with a touch of punk.”
To shape the “rebellious” arches, Philips uses Diorshow On Set Brow as a holding gel and ultra-fine strokes of Diorshow Brow Styler to enhance the spikey effect. Then, a wash of “very, very delicate boyfriend blush, just very dewy, very romantic, so there s a contrast without being too in-your-face” using Rouge Blush Colour Glow in shades like coral 257 Dioriviera, ballerina pink 287 Dioramour, and berry 757 Wildior based on models’ skin tones. As he swirls color onto the apple of a cheek, he demonstrates how to “drag it down a little bit and blend it out. So you don t really see it, but it s there—a bit more alive.”
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Of course, there’s no mascara. “Maria doesn t like mascara,” he reminds me, which has been seen less and less in the wild (not to mention social feeds) of late. “Blame me for that,” he says with a laugh. Just a bit of clear Dior Addict Lip Glow Oil finishes the “ethereal” look.
At the hair and makeup test ahead of the show, Palau did a couple of proposals to figure out how to “get rid” of the hair in a beautiful way so that the headpieces could shine. “Maria Grazia sends a picture or an idea and then I think about it a bit,” Palau explains of their process. “She didn t know I was going to do this braid. And when she saw it, she goes Perfect. Love it. She s very quick to make a decision, which I like about her. She’s very decisive.” He uses Zara Hair Hair Spray and Shine Mist to slick the models’ hair tightly against their heads, then sews Jones’s headpieces in between two plaits. It creates an optical illusion that reads like “these great little mohawks,” says Palau. There’s always a lot of femininity to the creative director’s vision of couture beauty, he reminds me. “It s kind of more like a dream, a daydream,” Palau says, comparing the “anti” punk of the ’70s to today’s “more poetic, romantic” take. “Maria Grazia is a romantic.”
