The annual amfAR Gala in Cannes is always a glittering highlight of the festival season. This year, the amfAR Gala Cannes promised not just A-list glamour and fundraising for a crucial cause, but another iconic fashion show curated by the inimitable Carine Roitfeld in celebration of the Gala’s 30th edition.
Roitfeld, the mastermind behind countless iconic fashion moments, has become a fixture at the amfAR Gala Cannes. Each year, she curates a showstopping fashion presentation, and this year was no exception. The theme? “Fairy Tales.”
GRAZIA USA was lucky enough to get exclusive access backstage, witnessing the transformation from models to fairy tale characters and speaking with the amazing hair and makeup team in charge of these looks, along with the visionary Roitfeld herself.
The Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc buzzed with anticipation as stylists zipped racks of couture gowns and makeup artists wielded their brushes with practiced ease. Roitfeld, arriving on the red carpet in a stunning Rick Owens gown, spoke to GRAZIA about her inspiration for her personal look for the night, ahead of her highly-anticipated fashion show.
“I love Rick Owens,” she confides, “and people don’t expect him to make an evening dress. So here we are!” Her signature style turned heads under the French Riviera lights, a perfect first introduction before the fantastical world she was about to unveil.
Right before the fashion icon got ready to take the stage for the 15th time at the amfAR Gala Cannes Fashion Show, she admitted, “[I am] even more stressed because we did so many amazing shows and to make a lot of money, we always try to make [each fashion show] better and bigger” — revealing the pressure behind pushing creative boundaries each year.
For Roitfeld, the pressure translates into passion, a dedication to using fashion for a cause she deeply believes in.
As we made our way backstage, an electric hum of anticipation thrummed through the air. Hugo Villard, leading the makeup team, shed light on Roitfeld’s vision for this year’s fashion show.
The idea was to translate the fantastical imagery of fairy tales — think princesses princesses and villains — into the world of high fashion. It was a delicate balance between embracing the whimsy and ensuring the models felt confident and beautiful in their fairy tale personas.
Villard elaborated on the makeup approach. “It was pretty literal, quite easy to follow somehow because the characters are so clear. Just to make the little twists, the fashion twist,” he shares.
For the villainous looks, the makeup artists took inspiration from the original characters. “You see the bad villains, the bad queens, they are super drag,” Villard continues. “Somehow we had to soften it a bit.”
The biggest challenge, according to Villard, was striking a balance between the fantastical and flattering. “We have here those beautiful girls and everyone wants to be pretty also. So that was also the balance to see with the girls how they could still feel pretty with some of the quite strong looks because we have like Edward Scissorhands.”
Claudio Bertolini, head of the fashion department from Beautick, echoed the focus on storytelling through hairstyling. There wasn’t one singular inspiration for the hairstyles, but their goal was to complement each model’s overall look and create a sense of drama that transported the audience into a fairy tale world.
“We don’t really have an inspiration, but we want to make each model wonderful and feel very stunning and amazing from the beautiful night,” he admits. For one of the looks, they worked on a special wet effect that was pulled into a very tight ponytail with a bone in the back to showcase the face of the model and the beautiful makeup.
Model Debra Shaw offered GRAZIA a tantalizing hint about her look in the show and the products being used to create it by her makeup artist, Fred Mécène. “It’s her [Fred Mécène] own personal line. It’s organic. It’s like it transposed to every skin, and it has moisturizer in it, so you don’t even need moisturizer!”
Shaw continued to share insights behind the looks of the show, explaining the premise of the fairy tale theme lying in the inspiration of a Catherine Deneuve film. Each model’s look for the fashion show is said to be inspired by a different fairy tale character from the film.
“Some are witches, some are Cinderella, somebody, something else. I think I’m more of a Joker, but in a very chic couture way,” Shaw lets us in on.
As the clock ticked closer to showtime, a sense of focused calm with a flurry of activity arose as models began disappearing to start their night by hitting the red carpet, followed by getting ready to transform the Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc into a living fairy tale.
Roitfeld’s vision for the 2024 amfAR Gala Cannes fashion show was a whimsical and enchanting exploration. A coveted annual tradition, the show features a collection of couture pieces designed by fashion houses like Louis Vuitton, Givenchy, Miu Miu, and Balenciaga.
This year, the lucky winner of the entire collection would not only snag a piece of fashion history, but also contribute significantly to amfAR’s fight against AIDS research, as the collection sold for a staggering 500,000 euros at auction.
The runway was graced by a stellar lineup of models, including veterans like Mariacarla Boscono, Karolina Kurkova, Sasha Pivovarova, Toni Garrn, Barbara Palvin, Isabelli Fontana, and Carmen Kass. Each model brought a unique energy and presence to the fairy tale characters they embodied, making the show a truly unforgettable experience.
