# 118 Back to Backstage

As the UK's glossy-mag-world prepares for the advent of London Fashion Week, the same-old-but-never-old process has got me thinking, and reminiscing, and feeling a little wary before things have even started. Last year I attended around 20 shows and was backstage at just a handful, having decided to post myself out front in a bid to peek at the looks favoured by the 'real' women as opposed to the implausibly lovely little girls being made-up backstage. I had fun, until about 2 days in, when I realised that the mood was almost permanently rooted in quiet desperation, and I became acutely aware of the legions of fawning fashionistas attempting to get a glimpse of the LFW passes hanging around their neighbours' necks in order to discover if they were really worth smiling at. I've conversed, somewhat briefly, with Liberty London Girl over email, about the scary two-faced world that fashion can sometimes be, but as a beauty journo, well, I feel I've never been burned. My world is a gorgeous globe of wonderful PRs who bend over backwards to aid us (and let's not forget, the PRs work extremely long hours & are at the beck and call of both clients & journos alike - so, R.E.S.P.E.C.T) and in my 7 (or is it 8 now?) years of playing this game, I've come across so many wonderful people & am still heartily enjoying every moment of it. I can walk into a launch without a friend in the room or assistant by my side, all alone, and have a laugh, a giggle, a good time, without having to pretend that I'm dealing with essential business on my i-phone. It's not always so easy - sometimes the room's divided into the Natmags & IPC girls (they always seem to travel in packs!), but most of the time, there's a space of friendly faces & a relaxed atmosphere. Which is why I'm still doing what I'm doing.

I've written for small mags, online mags, big mags, new mags, rags, dailies, internationals... and at no point in my ever-evolving freelance role did I ever feel as though a door had been slammed in my face. So, long overdue as it may be, I'd just like to say an enormous thank you to all the fantastic PRs with whom I have regular contact in my 'non-anony' guise, and send out a big virtual hug. Squeeze.

Right, so, the real point of this post is to muse about the fact that, last year, while squeezed up beside the fashion peeps I began to hanker after my beauty enclave once more & so, for Autumn/Winter 2010, I am again venturing backstage. I've really missed it - the NEW NEW NEWness of everything, as my eyes pop with cosmetic-candy alerts; the general crazy energy of the artists; the mix-tapes picked by each & every designer, to get their models in perfect pre-walk mood; the smell of unfamiliar products & intense whiff of favourite ones; the skill and genius of so many of the unnamed crews of cosmetic whizz-kids - all of them rocking their own look, making a statement, loving every second of it. But it's not the trends that get me palpitating - it's the people, the pros, wielding skill like a silver Samurai sword.

And on Friday I'll be privy to the handiwork of one of my all-time favourite hair heroes, Luigi Murenu. I. AM. SO. EXCITED.

And of course, poised to post, post-show, to share all that my green eyes take in, celebrate & savour.

#63 Backstage Whispers...

I'm not a 'fashionista' - lord, I hate that word - nor am I a gossip. But I have been backstage at London Fashion Week this week, jotting down what the top make-up artists have had sprawled across their work spaces and peeking in model's handbags for some insight into their beauty routines. It's been a long time since I was naive enough to assume that the products mentioned by the 'beautiful people' would be the holy grail of great skin - after all, this beauty biz is nothing if not entirely subjective. I know women who rave about Eve Lom and have not strayed from her pricey cleansing pot for years - and others for whom it is devil's juice - packed as it is with mineral oil, which can play havoc with blemish-prone skin.

Anyway, back to my i-Spying, where after five seconds witnessing the work of the backstage pros, one thing struck me more acutely than anything else - just how YOUNG the models were. You know their faces, you've seen their smiles, pouts and heavy-lidded winks - but until you've stood a centimetre away from Agyness or Bette Franke - all angular cheeks, velvet skin and licorice-lace legs - you really have no understanding of just how precious and cute these kiddies actually are. They are not powdered and painted to look so - they just ARE. Their skin, then, is hardly a product of expert handling - more a genetic wish granted and yes, wasted on the young. They're models for a reason - they walk in looking this good and were born to be beautiful. You might be able to pick up their favourite lipgloss or share their cleansing ritual, but it won't get you any closer to their look. Fact is, for the most part, the artists I shadowed did little more than blend a bit of concealer over circles (where there were circles), dabbed Vaseline over lids and brows, tapped cream blusher onto cheeks and etched in arches (most models have their brows dyed lighter which gives them a chameleon-like quality - want dark? Pencil 'em in. Want light? Et voila). Hardly taxing.

In the kits of three top artists, I spied Estee Lauder Maximum Coverage Lightweight Make-Up, MAC Face & Body Paint, MAC Cream Colour Base in Fabulush (patted onto lips and cheeks), Vaseline, Johnson's Baby Wipes, YSL Touche Eclat and Guerlain Issima Precious Light.

There wasn't a single girl who needed much work and most were in and out of the chair in ten minutes. It seems that if you are blessed with a canvas this clear, it's a case of child's play, all the way to the runway.