Dior Shows Rain

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The entire Cruise collection, including the hair and makeup, paid homage to Frida Kahlo in her home city.

Putting on a full face of makeup and styling freshly blow-dried hair seems counterproductive when it’s raining. Dior’s answer: Strong, natural brows that welcome a bit of precipitation. At the Christian Dior 2024 Cruise show, on a rainy evening in Mexico City, the brand took a cue from Mexican painter and trailblazer Frida Kahlo and focused on powerful arches and glowing skin that held up against the inclement weather.

“Frida Kahlo embodied raw beauty–it’s not polished,” Peter Philips, Creative and Image Director for Dior Beauty, tells BAZAAR ahead of the show. “That's what makes her look so unique and why she’s been an inspiration for so many designers and artists over decades. Maria [Grazia Chiuri] always wants strong girls that don’t look like a made-up doll and that’s exactly Frida’s look.”

Instead of recreating Kahlo’s iconic unibrow on all 112 models, Philips followed the natural shape of each model’s brows, without accentuating the arch too much for a blunt effect. At first glance, the brows appear to be untouched, but a few strokes of Diorshow Brow Styler and Diorshow On Set Brow elevated each arch ever so slightly. “We wanted to enhance the eyebrows, but not fall into the trap of copying Frida’s unibrow as that feels too obvious and borderline disrespectful,” he adds.

While in past seasons, Philips opts for a dramatic eye (a favorite look of Maria Grazia Chiuri), this season he created undetectable depth in the eyes by smudging the new Diorshow On Stage Crayon at the root of the lashes and finishing with a coat of the Iconic Overcurl (refillable!) mascara. “I didn’t want to give length to the lashes–just add volume and more intensity,” he says.

For the skin, Philips kept the skin natural and relied on skin prep with the Capture Totale Le Sérum and a light touch of foundation and concealer. He enhanced the cheeks with the new shade of Rosy Glow, Rosewood, which is a pink terracotta hue that he says works on all skin tones. “It's not a pretty, romantic blush,” he says, adding that anything too pink would veer offtrack of Kahlo's look. “It gives the illusion that the girls have been running around and have a flush.” To add continuity to the face, Philips topped the lips with the Dior Addict Lip Glow in Rosewood for subtle sheen.

The collection itself featured embroidered prints from local artists, hues like magenta and red that were reminiscent of Mexico City, and butterfly motifs that extended into the hair. Hairstylist Guido Palau created two sleek braids that he intertwined at the ends to appear as one ouroboros braid (a nod to Kahlo’s unibrow) and added a gold butterfly clip at the nape of the neck that shimmered against the raindrops.

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