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Grass-grazing weaves, platinum Madonna-inspired wigs, chrome accents, ’90s glamour and sky-high arched brows — the Spring/Summer 2025 fashion season delivered a few standout beauty moments among the minimal, barely-there looks favoured in recent years.
“This season, beauty felt energising,” says Jessica Matlin, director of beauty and home at luxury e-tailer Moda Operandi. “There have been seasons where the beauty mood is very neutral, very ‘quiet luxury’, if I can resuscitate that phrase for a moment. But this season, beauty had a lot of personality — some looks weren’t shy.”
Here are our four beauty takeaways from the SS25 shows.
Beauty as an accessory
Balmain captured headlines for putting its own beauty line front and centre on the catwalk during Paris Fashion Week. “Tonight was [creative director Olivier] Rousteing’s runway declaration that Balmain had re-entered the broadest luxury category of all: beauty,” noted Luke Leitch on Vogue Runway. Instead of bold makeup on the models, the collection itself featured hand-embroidered faces, eyeshadow bracelets and Balmain fragrances styled as clutches.
This playful approach to beauty made a strong statement to its audience, which included William Lauder, executive chairman of Estée Lauder Companies (ELC has produced Balmain Beauty under licence since 2022). Diversifying the beauty offer is part of Rousteing’s strategy for long-term growth, and has seen the brand launch haircare in 2023 and fragrances in August of this year. More categories are lined up for the near future. “With this [Estée Lauder] partnership, the house begins a new chapter, making very clear to all our commitment to maximising cross-category possibilities as we move forward,” said Balmain CEO Matteo Sgarbossa back in April.
In Milan, perfume also showed up on the Versace runway, this time on the heels of shoes. The fun fragrance flair nodded to the brand’s scent offering: Versace Yellow Diamond and Versace Absolu launched in 2011 and 2013, respectively. It’s a “genius” way to remind shoppers that you have a beauty brand, says Vogue senior beauty and wellness editor Margaux Anbouba.
The rise of ‘Pilates face’
Many shows embraced bare-faced or barely-there makeup, reaffirming the lasting influence of the ‘clean girl’ aesthetic. Victoria Beckham, Giambattista Valli and Stella McCartney favoured natural, minimal looks, while Collina Strada and Johanna Parv went makeup-free.
Collina Strada’s approach to its bare-faced look was inspired by the show’s ‘Touch Grass’ theme, paying homage to the natural world. It employed skincare brand Dieux to help give the models glowing skin. Makeup artist Thomas de Kluyver focused on skincare with the odd bold lip for Simone Rocha’s London show. He called it “skincare skin”, wrote Hannah Coates, beauty and wellness editor at British Vogue.
Johanna Parv partnered with skin-tech brand Face Gym for her pre-show prep, and sent models down the runway with sculpted jawlines and dewy complexions, complementing her performancewear-inspired collection. Analytics and strategy firm Seen Works dubbed this look “Pilates face” in its London Fashion Week insights report, stating that athleticism as an aesthetic is still prevalent in upcoming beauty trends, following a sports-filled summer. “Sweat and muscle toning are now a beauty asset as consumers want to look like they just left a Pilates class — even if they haven’t stepped foot in one,” the report states.
A similar aesthetic played out at Dior. “I wanted to create the makeup look of an active and dynamic woman, on the move, who has just completed some physical activity. Her skin is bright and dewy, and her gaze is intense,” wrote Peter Philips, creative and image director for Dior makeup, in the show notes.
Debuts and returns
While mainstays like Mac Cosmetics, Pat McGrath Labs and Charlotte Tilbury continue to dominate backstage beauty, this season a few other names broke through — and used fashion month as a clever marketing play.
Makeup artist and founder Patrick Ta brought his own brand to fashion month for the first time, creating radiant and minimal makeup looks at Monse. Ta used the opportunity to spotlight some of his most recent launches, specifically the brand’s foundation; demonstrating the range of shades and creating product tutorials and behind-the-scenes content to share with the Patrick Ta community across Instagram and TikTok.
YSE Beauty, founded in April 2023 by model Molly Sims, debuted at the Simkhai New York show, teasing its Like A Gloss balm and kick-starting its marketing campaign via maximising the additional runway engagement.
Refy made its Paris Fashion Week debut, collaborating with Australian designer Christopher Esber. Models wore the brand’s new Lip Blur, a liner-lipstick hybrid, delivering a soft-focus look inspired by the “clouds” that aligned with Esber’s vision.
Revlon made a triumphant return following a 10-year hiatus sponsoring Christian Siriano’s NYFW show. After the designer made a viral social media plea for makeup artists, Revlon stepped in while capitalising on the moment to showcase its Super Lustrous Glass Shine Lipstick ahead of a November relaunch. The collaboration boosted visibility for both Siriano and Revlon, which is well-timed considering the latter’s refresh after emerging from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2023.
Individual expression wins
Generally, makeup artists played more freely with their looks on the runway this season, observers say; encouraging a spirit of experimentation that will carry over into consumer behaviour.
“It was refreshing to see that artists weren’t afraid to champion models’ personalities on the runway, ensuring their beauty percolated. Prada, Simone Rocha and Chloé all leant into this idea and it stood out as an artistry moment to be celebrated,” says Jessica Diner, Vogue’s global beauty and wellness director.
Moda Operandi’s Matlin highlights the storytelling by Pat McGrath Labs at both Dolce Gabbana and Bottega Veneta. “At Bottega Veneta, the glitter eye makeup was mesmerising and helped tell the story of wonder and imagination that creative director Matthieu Blazy wanted to tell. These looks are theatrical and not for every day; they’re making a statement about what role beauty plays in fashion,” she adds.
Loewe, Harris Reed, Chet Lo, Marni and Alaïa also brought the drama with their eye makeup. Ultra-thin, colourful brows, thick glitter accents, pastel eye shading and bejewelled eyeliner stole the spotlight. “The eye makeup is what we’ll see pay off commercially from the SS25 season,” predicts Matlin.
Blush remains a strong category for SS25, but has evolved from TikTok-driven looks like ‘sunset blush’ and ‘glazed blush’. Shows such as Schiaparelli, Monse and Dior opted for more pared-back, healthy flushes, building on the ‘boyfriend blush’ aesthetic (when blush is applied to the lower centre of the cheek to create a natural flush as opposed to the high point of the cheek and into the temple), which has amassed over 21 million TikTok views since summer.
In hair, brands like Acne Studios, Dries Van Noten, Hugo Boss and Harris Reed embraced slicked-back, wet and glossy styles, moving away from the looser, more casual looks of previous seasons. With Pinterest searches for “wet-look hairstyles” up 20 per cent since the start of September, consumer interest is ticking, making product-heavy styling a trend to watch.
These trends follow a summer of encouraged individualism, as those at the zeitgeist of pop culture continue to encourage fans to embrace their unique identities. “It speaks to a cultural conversation when you look at the top pop stars at the moment,” says Matlin. “They’re all people who are creative and very personal about their beauty and fashion choices so it makes sense that consumers will start to feel more comfortable trying a little heavier liner, flashier eyeshadow or a deeper lip. Our eyes have been trained, so it makes it easier to go for it on the runway and in real life.”
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