Click image for updates Monday, March 9, 2009 Chanel Beauty for Nina Ricci Fall 2009 Paris

model: Lily Donaldson

Makeup artist Peter Philips designed an approachable gothic look, with yet an element of classic taste, for the Nina Ricci show in Paris. "It's classic with a touch of kooky darkness," he explained.

To achieve the look, Philips focused on the eyes, starting with eye shadow in Ebony from Chanel's Ombre Essentielle range in the inner corners of the eyes. Lids were filled with a brownish-purple shade called Magic Night.

"It's a chameleon color that adapts to the clothes in the collection," he said. A touch of clownlike sadness came from a black kohl line added to the center of the models' bottom lids, then smudged.

The rest of the face received a light touch. Philips, who is also creative director of Chanel Beauty - Makeup, blended a clear lip gloss with glints of red, purple and bronze for the show. Cheeks were colored with a beigy-apricot color called Fresque, which will bow next year. Skin was pale in matte ivory tones.

Odile Gilbert, meanwhile, dubbed her dramatic hairstyle "pure sculpture." Long locks received a two-pronged approach. First, the top of the head to the nape of the neck was plastered down with Shiseido Design Tex 03 gel, then colored brown with a washable gel by Pro Styl from Ampro. From the nape down, Gilbert left the hair blonde and tonged in soft curls. A last minute spray of Brilliant Diamant by Capilo gave a high shine to the top half, while the curls were left matte.

The show might have been his swan song at Nina Ricci, but Olivier Theyskens saw it through with a fierce, surreal poetry no one who witnessed it will forget. Vastly tall, his strong-shouldered women were walking, trancelike, on what looked like an impossibility: a laced-up platform ankle boot with a sickle-shaped hole at the back. No heels at all. Their clothes—everything from strangely flowing pants to incredibly cut suits to probably the best black leather jacket in Paris and evening dresses with swooping, furling skirts—were a tour de force. Between the strange atmosphere, the supersharp, almost Mugler-esque jackets, and the sculpted forms, it rounded up everything fashion-watchers have known Theyskens is capable of, and went even further.

"I was thinking of a nocturnal mood," he said backstage, trying to explain how he'd orchestrated it. "Not nightclubbing at all. Something moonlit—a bit magical."

Oddly enough, it wasn't melancholy and never lapsed into the costumey gothic mindset Theyskens once inhabited. Instead, the collection was a proud—if not exactly defiant—series of reminders of the chic, precise way he used to cut a jacket when he was running his own line, a flashback to the corseted lingerie he perfected at Rochas, and an underscoring of the genius he has applied to making grand event dresses during his tenure at Ricci. Backstage, Theyskens was gracious and smiling as he received sincere congratulations for an outing that showcased all his talents, offered many things for many women to wear for many occasions, and was thereby the most mature and salable collection he's designed to date.