In a place where nothing is linear, hairstyles from all walks of life are welcomed.
Matthieu Blazy and storied stylist Duffy made sure of this at the Chanel Métiers d’Art show on Tuesday in New York City, where the past, present and future merged in the subway below 168 Bowery to form what can only be described as a parade of playfully diverse beauty.
Flanked by abandoned cars and boarded tracks, models walked the cement platform with teased curls, straight bobs, floppy pixie cuts and everything in between. Here, hair was both an accessory on top of crocodile leather and woven dresses, or a nuisance, something that needed to be tucked under a cocktail hat or pinned in a bun to brave a chaotic commute.
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“I wanted to create a kind of happenstance — what we see every morning when we go to work and you don’t know what’s gonna be at the corner. Everyone is invited,” Blazy told WWD.
Cast as the quintessential 1980s businesswoman on the way to work, Alex Consani donned a black Zoot suit with white stitching and a brown fedora; her bleached blond hair concealed by the top hat. Not too far behind her was the archetype Chanel woman — likely also from the ’80s — dressed in the house codes and styled with free-flowing frizz like a tumbleweed stuck on her head. Meanwhile, a woman on the way to the opera — riding the subway for the plot — was imagined with a stark white and inky black toupee layered on top of her blond bob; the choppy layers sweeping in front of her sunglasses.
Partnered with sumptuous cheetah print sets and ruby red lipstick painted by makeup artist Lucia Peroni, the pompadour, a 1950s style once thought to be male-specific, was put on the modern-day map with a feminine, ’80s rocker-esque twist. Models paraded down the platform with the immovable hairdo; the tops of their heads hairsprayed and the sides slicked.
The second model to emerge on the platform did so with a honey-colored beehive that appeared like a second head. The tall style was brought down by her long bangs, which tickled the rim of her sunglasses. She was quickly followed by a woman boasting her own oval-shaped hairdo with an abstract-printed skirt and sweater set that had black fringe along the trim. From the front, the style looked to be an exaggerated quiff, but its rounded sides resembled that of the formal beehive structure.
Watching from the track, Tilda Swinton touted her signature bleached blond quiff next to Linda Evangelista’s dark brown one. Nearby, Christine Baranski sat with her hair combed and teased all the way off her forehead, tucking the sides loosely behind her ears. The style toed the line of the slicked wet hair trend, favored by both Kim Kardashian, Kaia Gerber, and more recently, Kate Hudson.
WWD has contacted Duffy for a comment on the inspiration behind each hairstyle seen on the runway. Duffy has famously imagined the avant-garde beauty in campaigns for Saint Laurent, Alaia, Loewe, Marc Jacobs and Bottega Veneta.
