We’re swooning over the hair created for Kate Sylvester’s spring/summer 15-16 collection Romeo 4 Juliet by hair director Richard Kavanagh for Redken.
Kavanagh created cascading locks with a twist for Sylvester’s Juliets, nonchalantly pinned back with hair clips created by MNPT Jewellery.
“We’ve referenced the ’90s (Baz Luhrman) film characters for the hair,” said Kavanagh. “Our Juliet’s are very feminine, very Claire Danes. A lot of work with the round brush to make the hair feel luxurious – because Kate Sylvester is luxurious.”
Kavanagh twisted the hair back into a little twist low at the back of the head before fixing it with two gold pins. “That little cross reference is a motif that is running through the whole show – that’s our Juliet – very romantic, like a girl who’s just had her first pash,” he said.
For Sylvester’s Romeo’s Kavanagh created effortlessly tossed quiffs.
“Our Romeos are very androgynous looking girls. We didn’t want to do foppy Leonardo de Caprio hair, because even though Kate Sylvester is luxury, it’s rock ‘n’ roll,” said Kavanagh. “So our Romeos are prepped with Rootful 06 Root Lifting Spray, blow-dried off the face…at the last minute I’m going to push some Rough Paste 12 Working Material through their hair before they walk so they have this rock’n’roll, I just got up and put some product through my hair look.”
The make-up look created by Naomi McFadden for M.A.C complemented Kavanagh’s looks. Glowing skin and just kissed lips for Juliet, and an X tattoo under one eye for bad boy Romeo.
“The look we are trying to achieve is that of innocence and first love,” said McFadden. “We’ve gone really minimal on the skin so she looks like she is glowing from within.”
For Romeo, McFadden accentuated the brows by filling them in and brushing them up.
As for the show, Sylvester did what she does best by taking one of the most loved stories of all time and turning it into signature Sylvester – a nonchalant celebration of casual luxury and sartorial classics.
In it she also paid homage not just to Lurhman’s version but also the ’70s movie by Franco Zefferelli expressed through billowy, crumpled nightgowns in silk muslin, feminine dresses in virginal white, pastel blue, bold green and passionate red. Medieval pageantry was also updated and interpreted into modern sports-luxe jockey silks and sharp bomber jackets, while Romeo’s armour was reinvented in matt leatherette, and chainmail interpreted in soft knitwear and cotton mesh.
