Erdem’s dreamlike florals meet Fara Homidi’s cool-girl grunge for one of London Fashion Week’s standout beauty moments. Wonderland sat down with the makeup mastermind backstage for a deep dive.
Fara Homidi is no stranger to the backstage bustle of Fashion Week. In fact, it’s within the fertile grounds of fashion’s behind-the-scenes chaos that she garnered the inspiration and experience needed to spearhead one of the coolest brands in beauty right now – her eponymous Fara Homidi Beauty. With breathtakingly luxurious packaging and formulas created for real life – easily blendable, finger-friendly, with a diffused finish and top-tier performance – the brand takes cues from couture’s fantasy to inject a level of refined practicality into our beauty bags. And that dichotomy couldn’t have been more evident backstage at Britain’s beloved Erdem.
As the lead makeup artist for Erdem Moralıoğlu’s SS26 London Fashion Week show, Homidi took inspiration from the runway’s narrative to create a different look for each model – all beautifully lived-in, with a grunge attitude serving as the perfect counterbalance to the collection’s ever-present romanticism. Before the big event, Wonderland nipped backstage to watch and learn from the beauty visionary herself. Keep scrolling…
What about Erdem makes the brand such a good fit for Fara Homidi?
Erdem has such a keen eye for feminine details, and I feel like he always knows how to take something that feels like a throwback and bring it into the modern world. I feel like, with my products, I’m reinventing classics that feel contemporary because of their colours and textures – so it’s a perfect fit.
What was the inspiration behind the look, and where did you begin when creating it? How does it reflect the collection?
Erdem was inspired by a character who had a certain psychosis, where she would go into fits and think she was someone else. There was a character from the 1800s, I believe, who was South Asian – and you can see a lot of those references in the clothing. For me, it was really about pulling from characters in period pieces, like Anna Karenina or Joan of Arc, and bringing those qualities into a more modern version. We went from model to model, looking at what they were wearing and who they were, and created the beauty looks based on both the character and the model on the day.
Which products and techniques did you use?
All of the models were wearing the Essential Face Compact – we used that to conceal around the eyes, nose and chin. It was very much a less is more approach, because I didn’t want their skin to look like it had been touched, though I still wanted an overall velvety, perfected finish. For the lips, we used the Essential Lip Compact in Red 1 or Holiday 1 – very messily applied, an über-matte lip look. Lastly, a few of the girls got a subtle flush through the cheeks with the Essential Bronzer Compact. If we were doing more of a nude look, I was using the Smudge & Contour Lip Pencil simply to emphasise the shape of the lips, nothing more.
Were there any details in the beauty look that felt especially interesting to you?
I especially love that the lips were messily applied, faded around the edges. We also used an unreleased FH Beauty product on the eyes for some of the models to give them this haunted, greasy eye look. But again, all the looks were created off the cuff based on each person’s character and outfit.
You’ve always been a fan of beauty that doesn’t feel overly polished – does that apply here?
These looks were as hand-applied as possible. The thing about FH products is that everything is malleable, smudgeable, breathable, livable – you can literally apply all of these products with your fingers and achieve these looks at home, super easily.
Words – Sofia Ferreira
Photography – Dillon Rana
