Wet-look hair is shaping as much as be one among the defining magnificence tendencies to return out of London Fashion Week.
Across runways and entrance rows, fashions and attendees alike have been sporting slicked-back buns, shiny lengths and sculpted pixie partings that shine underneath the lights.
After a number of seasons of pure texture and lengthy “lived-in” waves, the return of excessive shine, brief cuts and arduous traces appears like a decisive swing back in the direction of extra exact hair styling.
Nowhere was that shift clearer than at Roksanda’s Twentieth-anniversary present. Under the course of session stylist Anna Cofone, fashions emerged with hair that appeared virtually liquid, a gleaming body for the designer’s daring, sculptural garments.
Cofone mentioned the inspiration was drawn from Barbara Hepworth, the British sculptor whose clear traces and summary curves knowledgeable the total assortment.
She defined that she and her group needed the hair to echo the clothes’ graphic shapes, speaking about a “duality of femininity and masculinity” expressed by “beautiful curved shapes” balanced by “square sections directed back and very hard lines” with “comb lines for extra detail” to maintain the general impact “very clean, very graphic, very sculptured.”
Rather than simply coating hair in gel, Cofone’s group layered lotions, serums and sprays to create outlined sections and reflective surfaces with out stiffness.
“We used the glow serum to create really great glass straight hair with obviously fantastic heat protection,” mentioned Cofone, which was key to creating the look with out damaging the hair.
Long lengths have been slicked down however nonetheless moved like material, whereas brief types have been sculpted into crisp shapes.
The outcome was dramatic however wearable, signalling that wet-look hair is not a gimmick however an clever approach to body a assortment.
Other designers have been leaning the identical method. On New York Fashion Week runways this season, LaQuan Smith despatched out fashions with stylised, hard-set wet finishes, whereas at Khaite, damp buns and slicked-back roots evoked a subtler, Nineties-inspired gloss.
In London, avenue model exterior the exhibits mirrored the look too, with editors and influencers sporting pixie cuts slicked near the scalp or lengthy hair glazed with serum.
What distinguishes this new wave of wet-look hair is its structure. Stylists are utilizing shine as a sculptural materials, creating combed-back ridges, sq. sections or curved waves that echo the garments reasonably than compete with them.
It’s a extra crafted, much less grungy tackle gloss.
For these all in favour of bringing this pattern off the catwalk, Cofone suggests a barely softer method: focus product by the high part, go away the ends pure and tuck behind the ears for a nod to the runway with out going full gloss.
After years of undone hair dominating the narrative, there may be a clear shift back in the direction of extra exact magnificence – shine, construction and end reasonably than laissez-faire texture.
In that sense, Roksanda’s present signature message was that smooth, sculptured, wet-look hair is the season’s splashiest pattern.