October 2, 2025 |
Backstage at Dior SS26, the energy was electric, the room buzzing with cinematic intensity, before the lights dropped and – suddenly – purity. A clean sheet. A new chapter. This was the moment Peter Philips, creative and image director of Dior Makeup, had been building towards: a luminous, almost spa-like reset that underscored Jonathan Anderson’s debut womenswear collection for the house.
“The idea was to do a very natural, minimal look,” Philips explains, perched for a virtual press conference amid the post-show chaos. “We went for very glowy makeup, very luminous. We needed to glorify each girl’s individual beauty… the most simple, the most pure, the most natural, the most effortless felt the most right for this collection.”
And so it was. Skin came first – always. Philips treated each face almost like a ritual. Dior Les Patchs Yeux under the eyes, a gentle layer of Capture Totale Le Sérum massaged into the skin (“it was like a little spa almost,” he says). The girls reclined, brows being tweezed, while their complexions rested into radiance.
From there, thin layers of Dior Forever Skin Glow were built up slowly, “depending on the skin condition of the girl, some need more, some need a bit less.” Imperfections softened with Forever Skin Correct, before colour was coaxed in. “For the Caucasian girls and Asian girls – the paler skinned girls – we added the Rosy Glow Stick in Rosewood, and for the dark skinned girls, we added the Berry,” Philips explains. Placement was intuitive – sometimes closer to the eyes, sometimes brushed high on the cheekbone – “blended into the foundation so it became almost like your foundation becomes a bit more colourful. Which makes it look more natural, more like its your skin tone that’s blooming.”
The eyes? Barely there. Lashes curled but left mascara-free. On deeper skin tones, Philips simply swept the residual warmth of Berry Rosy Glow Stick across lids; for others, he dusted the centre beige-gold shade of the Diorshow 5 Couleurs palette in Poncho across lids, “just like gold dust.” A touch of depth came from pushing the palette’s darker hues into lash roots. Brows were coaxed upwards with Diorshow Brow Styler and set with Diorshow On Set Brow – feathered, natural, alive.
And the lips – always a Dior talking point – were pared back with Addict Lip Glow Butter in 103 Toffee. “Toffee is a shade which is very neutral, very universal in a way. It neutralises lips that are a little too pinkish, and it gives a beautiful plumpy glow,” Philips explains. The trick? No thick layers, no liner, just the sheerest wash “massaged into the skin, so it becomes like a nice, plumpy, natural, soft lip.”
Even fingertips weren’t forgotten: Dior Le Baume for hydration, nails slicked with Dior Vernis in 108 Muguet, a delicate petal-white.
The result was a collection of faces that looked, quite literally, like spring incarnate – pure, fresh, undone and quietly symbolic of Anderson’s new Dior. “It’s a new chapter, new type of casting, new girls, new faces, new design, a new vision and a clean sheet,” Philips says. “It’s springtime. They’re coming out on the catwalk, being themselves in these amazing creations and voila. They’re supported by this.”
Where does this leave the catwalk’s role in shaping beauty? Philips is philosophical. “Catwalk looks nowadays are almost like a beast on their own, totally disconnected from red carpet looks, front row looks and social media looks. The catwalk look nowadays is really there to complete the designer’s vision… Now, all the attention goes anywhere else but the catwalk, except just when the music starts. Then it should be almost like a revelation. And here, the revelation comes because of its purity.”
If the 2010s were all about contour, and the early 2020s about “clean girl” minimalism, Dior SS26 might mark something else entirely: a rebirth of the natural look, but softer, more sensual, more alive. As Philips concludes: “I’ve done natural looks before, but the natural looks I did like a year ago for Dior, they were more like armour, almost militant. While this new look, it’s a bit softer, and almost bizarrely, a bit more feminine, a bit more delicate. Which is… a new look.”
A new nude, a new natural, a new Dior.
Photography courtesy of Dior Beauty.
