Exactly How To Create Michelle Williams's Louis Vuitton Look
Photos: Courtesy of Louis Vuitton
Luxury advertisements are nothing if not aspirational, and the pastel tones of Louis Vuitton’s autumn 2014 campaign featuring Michelle Williams left us clamoring for details on recreating the stunning hair and makeup IRL, stat. That structured, clean brow! Those perfectly undone (but, let’s be real with each other, done) platinum locks!
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The secret to this beauty concept? A stealth combination of multi-layered brown and black layered mascaras and a healthy application of dry shampoo. We caught up with hairstylist Odile Gilbert and makeup artist Angela Levin, who did the hair and makeup honors, respectively, to answer our burning beauty questions. Here, how to get Michelle Williams’ Louis look.
The Makeup
“I was asked by the LV team to create a modern beautiful look for Michelle and to find the interesting connection between simplicity, elegance and youth,” explained Levin. “They loved the idea that when we look at her, we see her strong eyes—even though she appears to wear hardly any makeup.”
Skin: Liquid foundation was applied to match her light skin tone, evening out her her skin: forehead, cheeks, lips, and eyelids.
Brows: Levin restructured Williams’ brows using a Sephora eyebrow pencil two shades deeper than Williams’ natural brows.
Eyes: Levin chose taupe and mauve matte eye shadows, “layering them and blending so that there is no visible edge,” she says. She then applied black and brown mascara, combing the lashes in between each of the three coats.
Cheeks: With a light cream blush, Levin dabbed a tiny amount of color, seeking an “innocent, yet strong look.”
Lips: Levin mixed a light beige lip color with a light pink matte one. She then brushed the mix over Williams’ hydrated lips, keeping the tone as close as possible to her skin’s.
The Hair
“People are obsessed with that look,” Gilbert says of the hairstyle she created. “Everyone is calling me about this. It’s a punk chignon kind of thing, but soft.” To begin, Gilbert applied a bit of Kérastase Mousse Bouffante to Williams’ damp hair before blow-drying. Gilbert used her fingers and a round brush to direct the hair from side to side and from front to back, infusing the roots with volume and imparting flexibility.
In typical Gilbert fashion, she styled with just her fingers for a more organic effect. She sprayed the hair with Klorane Dry Shampoo to texturize the strands, which made them stay put without needing accessories. “At the end, I worked the hair with my fingers and if a piece of hair needed to be in place, I used Elnett hairspray. That hairspray is very light,” says Gilbert.
The lesson here? Though it takes a lot of products to pull off a no-makeup, casually tousled beauty effect like this, with a little practice, it’s simple enough to recreate. Michelle Williams’ low-key but luxe look is a far cry from the Creek, no?
