"Every year, London is the coolest fashion week by loads," says Lou Teasdale, ELLE UK's special hair and makeup correspondent. The Yorkshire native has helped bring pastel hair, jellybean lip tints, and braid crowns to the forefront of the beauty conversation thanks to some serious hustle: After working backstage at X Factor, Teasdale guided Bleach London's pink-and-purple hair tints into drugstores, paired with Maybelline on how-to videos, and—as One Direction's head of grooming—made Harry Styles into a modern hair icon.
This London Fashion Week, Teasdale was helping designers create looks themselves, working backstage on some of the biggest and coolest runway looks. Scroll down to see the biggest trends from the week, along with her take on how—and how not—to change up your own look without being a beauty victim.
Intense Black Eyeliner
Topshop, Natasha Zinko (using Eyeko), and Ashley Williams all harnessed the power of black cake eyeliner, applied opaquely into the outer and inner corners and lash line. Meanwhile at McQueen, Lucia Pieroni blotted her models' lids with Egyptian Magic to make the look smudgy.
"What's really nice about having an originality in your makeup is that it's kind of easier for someone who might not be a supermodel to find your own vibe," Teasdale says. "With eyeliner like this, it looks amazing only if it works with your personality. So micro trends actually look better if you're not a supermodel, because you can tailor them directly to your face and your attitude."
High Pigment Lips
Thanks to Kylie Jenner's wildly popular Lip Kit, boldly stained matte mouths are more popular than North West's Balmain jacket. Ashish and Sibling were the biggest devotees of the trend… along with most of the street style kids outside the shows. Want the look? The best way to go is with a lip brush or liner, so you can fill color directly and deliberately.
Punk Lite
British punks need a nap? This week's hairstyle of choice for Burberry, Sibling, and more was a fallen, wilted mohawk that gently curled over the forehead. Think rockabilly, if it took a Valium. Ruth Bell's buzz cut was freshly shorn at Burberry, while copycat models appeared at Christopher Kane, Erdem, and even Charlotte Olympia. And boys with long hair seemed everywhere, too.
"Everything at the moment is very gender neutral anyway," Teasdale says. "That's how things have gone. That's what's cool about hair and makeup at the moment. So boy or girl, who cares? If you like the hair, go for it." Translation: if you want to try her signature Styles shag for yourself, get thee to the salon.
Sheer Neon Lids
"Nobody's going to go out with a graphic neon eyeliner that goes all the way up to your eyebrow," Teasdale says, "But if you dare to experiment, you'll find that a lot of those electric neon colors actually look really nice as a color wash on your lids, or as a cat-eye."
Erdem must have psychically beamed himself into our conversation—his models had sheer neon lids that made a sublime contrast to their ivory lace dresses.
Glitter Fallout
Backstage at Burberry, we gasped at Wendy Rowe's glitter look, which dusted models' cheeks and under eyes with tons of sparkle. It was a lighter version of Saint Laurent's glitter tears, but no less stunning on the catwalk, or in real life, as models like Malaika Firth and Binx Walton exited the show, sparkles still intact.
"The glitter tears that are happening on the runways at the moment are really cool," Teasdale says, "and you're seeing it on the runway and also the red carpet almost at the same time. It's easy to tag it to Bowie and glam rock, but I think it can look very feminine and very, very pretty if you spread out the glitter like Suki Waterhouse did. It's so cute."
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