As one of the oldest—and most infamous—purveyors of camp, Marie Antoinette has had an enduring influence not just on beauty, but the meaning of excess and extravagance. And tonight at the Met Gala, Lupita Nyong o reimagined the French queen s flair for theatrics in a frothy, fluorescent rainbow Versace gown and radically idiosyncratic beauty. There were her glossy licorice lips and cancelled-out brows, retraced extra-high and pencil-thin by makeup artist Nick Barose, who then used the extra space to saturate her lids in metallic rose and silver glitter.
And then instead of Antoinette s powdered pouf, the Kenyan-Mexican actress opted for a towering afro, sculpted and backcombed up-to-there by her hairstylist Vernon Francois. "Our goal was to demonstrate the power, malleability, and luxuriousness of natural hair texture," explains Francois—who then embellished the style with empowering visual touchstones. Inspired by Lauren Kelley s self-portrait “Pickin ” (2007), which finds the artist wearing a crown of hair picks, Francois sourced a set of combs topped off with “Fight the Power” raised fists, and spray-painted them gold into the late hours of last night. Before sending Nyong o off, Francois placed the gilded picks throughout her hair. Always one to harness her Hollywood power for activist efforts, Nyong o is the perfect canvas in more ways than one.
See All of the Celebrity Looks From the Met Gala 2019 Red Carpet:
Met Gala 2019: See Every Celebrity Arrival, Read the Latest Stories, and Get Exclusive Behind-the-Scenes Here