London fashion week is doing the damn thing for your face, and a trend is popping up that fans of goth and danger-glam will go gaga for: slick pools of black tar on your lips, reflective as oil in a puddle. It’s like latex for the face and I am here for it all.
At Giles above, the lips matched the slick patent leather of elongated jackets and a-line skirts, and gave super prim, super-pomped Elizabethan collars a modernist feel. Because that kind of dead-gyal pout is so prominent, the rest of the faces were clean and minimal, dewy skin and a little bit of blush on the cheekbones and near the eyes, plus the omnipresent brow. Were these models ghosts of the 16th Century, or innocents rendered vampiric by like, the plague? Whatever they were imagined to be, the lip, created with a Mac pencil in Ebony and Lipmix in Burgundy and Black, was impossibly modern.
At Ashley Williams, though, the glossy lip was a bit more nostalgic, hearkening back to old punk and rave days, with a little bit of New Look Dior thrown in. Sk8rs Smile Sexy So Smile Sk8r Style, you know? In this collection the black lip was something more like a nod to vinyl records, but like the lips at Giles, it also reflected the clothing—flashy, glammy PVC dresses and skirts with shine to match. These faces were a little more complicated, gleaming with a photo-finish highlighter and a dust of shadow on the eyes, but they still made the black lips the focus, deep in cool-girl mode for club nights and… well, definitely not the office. What do other people do in the daytime when they’re not in an office? Gonna go with lamping, being cool, hanging out in Piccadilly Circus (cause it’s 1981) with their cool, black, glossy lips.
Incidentally, last year I was feeling black lips extremely hard and bought a Rimmel London Stay Glossy lip gloss in Black Diva, and I still love it. I also bought a perfect matte black lipstick called Pristine from Illamasqua, but that was before I knew about their ridiculous blackface campaign, ugh. Why do people who make good shit have to be so goddamn stupid. If I had to do it over again, I’d probably try Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics‘ Stained Gloss Lip Gloss in Sheer Glossy Black, or Manic Panic Lethal Lipstick in Nosferatu, because Tish and Snooky are the OGs of this shit. Or maybe just a kohl eyeliner on the lips, although that might be slightly drying, and you wanna keep your pucker hydrated for the slickness. Maybe top it with Mac’s Clear Lipglass, it’s the goopiest. Or not! Do what you want! See if I care! (This is me, practicing my gothy not giving a fuck, is it working?)