Rare is it that a haphazard, five-word backstage sound bite by a key makeup artist can capture the prevailing beauty spirit of New York Fashion Week’s six-day affair. But asked what products he was using to craft the ’80s-supermodel-meets-Stonewall-drag makeup looks at Luar’s fall 2025 presentation, MAC global creative director of makeup artistry Terry Barber nailed it: “Everything but the kitchen sink,” he said.
The complexion? “A proper base.” The eyes? “Not subtle.” The vibe? “Almost a little bit slapped-on — like certain things were done in the back of a taxi, but everything’s in the right place.
“It’s what Raul [Lopez, Luar founder and creative director] loves, and what I love,” continued Barber. “We’re from different countries, different cultures, different generations, but we were both club kids who got adopted by the underground queer scene, and we’ve always want to pay homage to it in our work.”
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This reference-heavy, more-is-more approach was seen across the shows at New York Fashion Week, where the many different beauty trends were united by a tendency toward the elaborate.
Take Pat McGrath’s fabric cut-out blush and beauty spots at Marc Jacobs or Isamaya Ffrench’s feathered eyelashes at Thom Browne. Then there were Joseph DiMaggio’s seashell-adorned braids at Tia Adeola; Dick Page’s cheetah print makeup at Collina Strada; Alex Levy’s galactic lips in blue and green hues at Christopher John Rogers, and Jaleesa Jaikaran’s watercolor eyelids at Christian Cowan using Rimmel.
The list — an identity-infused and oft-glamorous one — goes on. Here, WWD’s six top beauty trends of the New York Fashion Week Fall 2025 ready-to-wear presentations.
The Blush of It All
Blush was all the rage this season.
“It’s almost a fevering, post-sex glow situation,” said makeup artist Sir John at Romeo Hunte, where he eschewed traditional blush in favor of orange and red color correctors by Tarte Cosmetics. “It’s going across the bridge of the nose, across the cheeks — just creating a super warm deposit on the high planes of the face, almost like they went skiing.”
High Hair
Hair possibly couldn’t get any higher at Christian Cowan, where the designer’s campy, not-for-sale collection was (literally) topped off with cone-assisted updos. “It’s inspired by ‘Mars Attack’ — it’s very alien,” said hairstylist Marcello Costa, who used Truss products to achieve the look and added a layer of bounce via roller-curled ends.
At Anna Sui, hair stylist Garren took inspiration from the Bettie Page-esque pin-up girls and Dita Von Teese. “We rolled the bangs really tight, even on long hair, and rolled them under, pinned them in, made a little crown, took the two sides, rolled that up and forward and that creates a U-shaped little crown on top of their heads,” he explained.
Over at Elena Velez, Rutger’s hair look was creatures coming out of the ocean. “Some feel very elaborate and it’s almost like a goddess rising from the water, while others are more sneaky creatures. So a lot of wet hair, a lot of graphic elements to it.”
Feathered Down
The “El Pato” theme at Luar, which translates to “the duck” and has long been used as a slur against the LGBTQIA+ community, sought to reclaim the term. Feather-adorned clothes were joined on the runway by extra-long white, black and brown feathered nails by Naomi Yasuda using OPI.
At Cowan, too, nail artist Julie Kandalec placed single yellow feathers atop models’ nude, almond-shaped nails: “It reminds me of a bird sitting in your hand, but also a quill pen,” she said.
The trend took flight to eye makeup — and specifically, lashes — at Thom Browne, where Isamaya Ffrench used Lashify to affix feathers to models’ eyelashes. “We’ve layered up these lashes, and we’re using the floaty feathers to add bulk and density,” Ffrench said. “We thought about painting the eye look, but it felt right to do something more three-dimensional.”
Boy Beauty
This season, full beats were in full force — on everyone.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re a guy, a girl, a she, he, they — everybody’s getting the same look,” said makeup artist Sir John at Romeo Hunte. The look in question entailed allover cheek and eyelid blush; lip liner and oil; brown eyeliner and a luminous complexion using Tarte products. “For beauty, I was thinking fresh, clean classic — because that’s what the collection does, is reimagine classic pieces,” said Hunte.
At Luar, Barber used brown eye shadow to create a “tired eye” look on male models, accompanied by a chiseled “old-school contour — not a 2016 contour, but a 1993, Kate Moss contour,” he clarified.
The 12-step ‘Do
One thing about hairstylist Lacy Redway — she’ll coin a hairstyle.
Last fall, it was the “contour bob” she crafted for Christian Cowan’s murder mystery-themed show; this time around, she was inspired to create “trackside twists” at Christian Siriano using Tresemmé. The ornate bun tapped into Siriano’s automotive inspirations for the collection: “My thought process was to create these [hair] ribbons that sort of feel like a winding road of a race track.”
At Diotima, hairstylist Joey George looked to photographer Carrie Mae Weems’ 1989 “The Kitchen Table Series” as well as the work of photographer Dawoud Bey as inspiration. Using Oribe products, he fashioned a hair look fit for a family matriarch: “This is a woman who has no time for herself — I imagined this sort of deconstructed, hair in rollers — perhaps some even falling out — kind of look that’s sexy, artistically sculptural and absolutely c—nty.”
Five days prior to Thom Browne’s runway show, hairstylist James Pecis started assembling stiff boards of hair — some meant to be an abstraction on bird wings, others to be more pliable like ribbon, and finally, curlicue accents swooping down from the hairline — that he fastened to models’ heads. “Thom originally sent me these beautiful illustrations of birds,” he said in a nod to the first look, and “there’s another group of models where we did a wig wrap” in reference to the third.
“What Thom said to me was ‘clean, precision, origami,’” Pecis said. “It’s more of a conceptual idea of birds, but yes, they have wings.”
At Christopher John Rogers, Sonny Molina also went for a very precise look, using Bumble & bumble products to create an ultra-structured bang that covered half the face, reflecting on the collection’s use of geometry. Meanwhile, at Collina Strada hairstylist Mustafa Yanaz created an elaborate, yet grunge look with what he calls “horn-y hair.” At the part, pieces of hair were sectioned off and crimped to create a horn-like affect, paralleling animal prints in the collection and Dick Page’s “wonky” cheetah print makeup look.
Soft Brows
“The age of the antihero is upon us,” declared Elena Velez’s show notes before Anna Delvey opened the show in Artechouse art-tech gallery.
Despite the environs’ severity — or the collection’s message — Velez took a soft approach to brows, with Delvey and a host of other models sporting their own, white-tinged looks.
Less dystopian than Velez’s show, Anna Sui’s presentation took cues from the world of the “madcap heiress” archetype, and the glossy hair and smoldering eyes were met with a softer approach to brows as well.
