The Grass Is Greener on Karen Walker’s Side of the Runway

The color green really took center stage in Karen Walker’s autumn/winter 2013 NYC show, but not in the precise 17-5641 shade of emerald that Pantone has dubbed the “it” color; the Karen Walker girl is much too cool for that. A girl who wears over-sized circular sunglasses a la Audrey Hepburn in Charade (OK- a little more modern than Charade) isn’t a follower; she’s a trendsetter who doesn’t try. Every look she puts together is effortless whether she’s pairing olive green with construction cone orange, mixing floral with plaid, or digging through a box of crayons for eye make up inspiration. She’s not trying to stand out; she’s simply comfortable under layers of draping and a slouchy-but-chic suit, her bad-ass tangerine ankle booties and thigh-high socks, and her outlook is sunny behind those enormous, eponymous glasses.

Enough about the clothes… let’s talk about the highlight of the show: what Glamour online is calling the “tennis-ball-green cat eye”!

Models were given either a neon green or orange eye inspired by Siouxie Sue and the Banchees. Benjamin Puckey of MAC Cosmetics was the mastermind behind the look, obtaining the bright colors by applying MAC Chromacakes in either green or orange with an eyeliner brush all over the lid and into the crease of the eye. Puckey stated:

“We chose a very bright green and a very bright orange as a modern, yet unexpected, variation of the look.”

He also chose to mute all other facial features- even bleaching the models’ brows to make the color really pop.

Check out the entire Karen Walker show below! What do you think of the collection? Would you rock a neon cat eye?

KW Fall/Winter 2013 New Rose at NYFW from Karen Walker on Vimeo. 

Images: Courtesy of Karen Walker via Fashionising