Pyer Moss Channels ’70s Rock Icons With Next-Level Glam Beauty

Last night, at Pyer Moss’s Collection 3 show, surrounded by the restored gilded splendor of Brooklyn’s Kings Theatre, the beauty emanating from the cast had an almost palpable thrum, the way that a Jimi Hendrix guitar solo or a Diana Ross disco beat can subtly ricochet through the brain. This wasn’t just surface flash—and there was plenty of that, from metallic eye shadows to lustrous jumpsuits. It was an energetic pulse.

Long before the rapper-musician Doja Cat made a runway cameo with her mile-long Pepto-pink ponytail, and long before a gospel choir shook the risers with a song set spanning Tina Turner’s 1971 “Rolling on the River” and Adina Howard’s 1995 “Freak Like Me,” the influence of music was already shaping things backstage. Makeup artist Daniel Sallstrom, the Sweden-born Londoner with an experimental streak, was sweeping bronze shimmer onto a model’s eyelid as he spoke about the overlooked impact of black musicians in the history of rock ’n’ roll—the central theme for a collection titled “Sister,” after the pioneering guitarist Sister Rosetta Tharpe. (The word also spoke to designer Kerby Jean-Raymond’s sense of kinship; the crew’s sweatshirts didn’t say STAFF but rather FAMILY.)

But if Tharpe influenced postwar sound, Sallstrom leaned heavily on the glittering ’70s for makeup inspiration. “Because it’s only black models, we’re using a lot of metallics, so it really bounces light and shows off [the skin],” he said, describing the monochromatic color schemes (drawn from shadow palettes by Uoma Beauty) that he was working with: burnished gold, sheered-out red, cobalt blue. With high-cheeked blush fusing with the structured eye shadow—plus a couple models’ gazes bedecked with Swarovski crystals—the effect was disco-ready. “It’s very much in the world of icons like Grace Jones. Very blended-out, highly reflective.”

Over in the bustling room next door, hairstylist Jon Reyman was tossing out his own set of icons—Chuck Berry, Jimi Hendrix, Little Richard—as he oversaw a variety of looks. Wig stands held voluminous coils; models’ natural locs and Afros were being subtly finessed. One slim-hipped model had his fine curls blown straight with a Dyson hair dryer (“Smooth, thank you,” he said in a velvet voice), while braided cornrows were hand-sewn with cowrie shells and gold beads, in a result that begged a regal Kwame Braithwaite portrait.

Hours later, set against the choral arrangements and more than a few audience members singing along, that full-tilt beauty met its sonic match: in a red two-piece decorated with a mini keyboard, and a gold jumpsuit embroidered with mini guitars. The hair was high, and the mood—from stage to the rafters—was higher.