Ralph Lauren’s all-American show included one surprising detail: impeccable male grooming. The preppy men walking down the runway at New York Fashion Week fall 2018 had a thick contour, Glossier-worthy brows, and shiny, shiny hair. They were so obviously groomed and looked like beautiful, yachting Ken dolls … or Don Draper.
Lauren is by no means the first designer to use visible makeup on male models. Jeremy Scott, for example, used coral lipstick in his rave-like show earlier this week. Menswear designer Thom Browne also wholly embraced blush last season. All the way back in 2013, Marc Jacobs made three of his products in his beauty line officially unisex (and said that he also thought of the eyeliner and nail polish as gender-neutral). However, it is uplifting that a show so committed to all-American preppiness used makeup in such a Johnny Depp–ian way.
One of the models was Anwar Hadid (his two sisters also walked in the Lauren show). The comb tracks in his gelled hair and smoky eye makeup were visible as he rocked the runway — he shares his sisters’s pouts.
The female models, in contrast, wore “natural” makeup and “undone” hair. While we all know that they were most likely wearing just as much product in their hair and on their faces, it was a refreshing change of pace to see a combined show where the men were much more done than the women. Long live the man contour!
