Anna Sui’s famous for her throwback flair, but when it comes to beauty trends, she’s always been ahead of her time. There was last year’s Punk Rock Prom Queen look, where Kaia Gerber channeled Jem and the Holograms two whole seasons before it became A Thing™. There were the space buns of 2017, created by Garren and sported by Kendall and Bella en route to McDonald’s after the show… and then on every girl at Coachella eight weeks later. And way back in 1993, Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss, Helena Christensen, and more OG supermodels wore OG “Euphoria Makeup” on Sui’s grunge-glam catwalk.
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“We’ve been doing it for 20, 25 years now,” said Pat McGrath backstage at Sui’s Spring 2020 show. “Of course, we love Euphoria! We know a lot of the cast members; we work with them a lot! But we’ve always done [that makeup], especially at Anna Sui.
“It’s really just that whole fresh take on DIY, isn’t it?… So many things that seem ‘new’ have really been part of the design codes at so many shows, especially ones like Anna Sui.”
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The designer herself calls the latest look, “Victorian style, but different from what I usually do because there’s hardly any black. It’s all about dreamy colors, very airy and fresh. It’s my take on the Nouvelle Bohemian.” That translates to a Mentos palette of fluourescent and pastel shades, floral-on-floral styling, and—for McGrath—white star stickers or tiny Swarovski crystals under the eyes, a wash of buttercup-yellow shadow on the lids, and hyper-shiny shimmer powder (McGrath’s own Astral Solstice from the Mothership 6 set) applied wet over white eyeliner for a precise slash of sparkle.
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“It’s a very free-spirited, modern young girl,” says McGrath, who could indeed be describing the Euphoria characters… or their originators on the Anna Sui catwalk 10 years before they were born.
