I made a very rare excursion yesterday, and that was to Somerset House, home to this season’s London Fashion Week. A rare excursion because I am, in fact, allergic to any kind of fashion week. The allergy harks back to the days when I had to attend show castings with about three hundred girls who were all about a foot taller than me. (Complex, much?) Anyway, moving swiftly on from those memories and launching straight into the backstage at Jaeger, where good friend and makeup whizz Alex Byrne (see Alex Byrne’s website here) was mistress of the MAC makeup. The Cosmetic Queen Bee. I hung around for a while, marvelling at how amazing the model transformations were – one girl had the pinkest skin I have ever seen, and Alex gave her this dewy, almost olivey complexion that looked completely natural.

Because I rarely do jobs with lots of other models (print campaigns and editorial is usually a lone model deal) it was quite interesting to sit and see how many different looks are out there. Some points of interest though: nearly all of the girls had long hair (nicely scraped back into high, sleek ponytails for the show) and many were wearing leather jackets. Just so that you know, I arrived wearing a ponytail and a leather jacket (as well as other clothes) – how on-trend am I?! I didn’t have any pre-warning, either, I chose it all myself.

Some pictures that I snapped on my ever-rubbish iPhone; the makeup inspiration, the instructions, and a blurry picture of me. You’ll see that I cheekily hopped into the chair for a quick lip-fix – foundation layered with MAC Morange layered with a different, beigey stain. I love that show makeup is so customised – nothing is ever straightforward. All of the makeup artists have whole palettes of mixed-up face shades on the backs of their hands – they rarely use just one shade of foundation or lipcolour, it’s usually a blend.