All Eyes on Eyes at Milan Fashion Week
MILAN — Fill your eye shadow stack and sharpen all your eye pencils pronto. You might need them come next fall, judging by the beauty looks seen here during fashion week.
Makeup artists bet big on the eyes for fall 2024, offering different takes on the theme, ranging from the wild and tough to the shiny and glam, and passing through the candy-hued, painterly bold, minimal glitzy and alien-like, too.
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Prada Beauty’s global creative makeup artist Lynsey Alexander focused on the eyebrows for the brand’s fall 2025 show to evoke the idea of “savage beauty” that Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons wanted to channel.
“It was very much about the extreme,” said Alexander. “It was really pushing a makeup artist out of a comfort zone, as there was nothing traditional or classical about this. [The eyebrow] was either removed and bleached or made black and strong. So a very strong statement.”
In particular, the extra-dark ones stood out. To achieve the effect, Alexander could rely on brand-new products that Prada is releasing this month with the support of its beauty licensee L’Oréal. Typically reserved for lashes and liners, a mix of the new Prada Lines Durable Gliding Eye Pencils in black and brown shades was first used to fill the brows and define the squared, straight shape desired. Alexander then further built up texture — and drama — with the new Pradascope Lash Extending Mascara, which she tipped on the roots of some models’ lashes, too.
“The straightness is what gives it the toughness,” said Alexander. “It’s the anti-beauty, which is what makes this so cool for the runway… A show is meant to be about an experience, it’s a bit of escapism. There’s not really many other places in beauty where you can push the boundaries, so it’s quite fun for me to have that sort of liberation.”
A sense of toughness also informed the dark, graphic eyes seen at Lucie and Luke Meier’s last show for Jil Sander, while eyes took a decisive shinier and more glamorous turn at Roberto Cavalli, where makeup artist Diane Kendal mixed pearly and matte rose brown, taupe and black hues of Kiko’s Long Lasting Eyeshadow Stick and smudged them in an elongated, cat-eye shape emphasized by a burgundy kajal and mascara.
In the same vein, for his runway debut at Blumarine, creative director David Koma tasked makeup artist Patrick Glatthaar to put his own spin on shiny smoky eyes. Glatthaar refreshed the familiar trend in a simple yet effective way, adding a blue touch on just a portion of the bottom lid or on both of them.
Yadim Carranza at Marni was more generous with both colors and textures. He didn’t hold back in creating unique looks for different models, ranging from a splash of colors to ultra-bushy eyebrows.
Ditto for Lucia Pica, which spiced up the overall natural makeup sported by most models at Bally with some eccentric accents here and there, expressed by exaggeratedly outlining the eyes with a black line or covering all the face in silver glitter.
For a sweeter yet still flashy approach, look at Fiorucci, where part of the multigenerational cast had fun, pastel-hued gazes that Vanessa Icareg created via Kiko’s Smart Color eye shadows. The makeup artist played with sky blue, green, tangerine, peach, candy pink and lilac shades to channel “the sense of carefreeness of people getting ready to take a vacation,” she said.
Even at Sunnei, where natural complexion perfected with Lord & Berry products was the focus, makeup artist Jury Schiavi couldn’t resist adding some sparkle to a handful of models via crystal applications mimicking eye lashes.
Not fancy enough? Dial makeup master Inge Grognard for some added drama. At Diesel, she often created colored eye looks, emphasizing the other trick she has been using at the brand’s shows: alien-like contact lenses.
Launch Gallery: The Best Eye Makeup Looks Seen at Milan Fashion Week's Fall 2025 Shows
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