All featured products are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, Vanity Fair may earn an affiliate commission.
American glamour comes in many flavors, but what we’ve long expected on the red carpet is the above-board kind—at least as defined by usual gatekeepers. But as Kristen Stewart made clear at the 2021 Met gala last night, she is here for a good time, in a louche Chanel-wearing kind of way, which is why she continues to be the patron saint of a certain subset of cool women everywhere. Stewart’s muse for the night was every bit a star from yesteryear, just not someone who enjoyed quite the same limelight. Then again, maybe Bettie Page wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
“This is kind of a take on a pin-up girl,” Stewart’s longtime hairstylist Adir Abergel explains, speaking by phone Monday evening shortly before the actor’s red-carpet arrival. It’s not the usual reference point when dressing in head-to-toe Chanel. “French classic minimalism is effortless,” he says of the Parisian school of born-with-it beauty, “but American idealism is ‘we work hard for what we want.’” Thus was the beginning of this split-personality hairstyle, which brings together stylized artifice—by way of a faux rockabilly bang—next to an easygoing high ponytail.
Those observing the return of red carpets in the past few weeks already have their eyes trained on Stewart, given her fresh shade of buttery blonde at the Venice Film Festival. “I pulled all of these older images of Marilyn and was thinking about a 1940s glamour color, but I was also very much inspired by Nastassja Kinski in Paris, Texas and early David Bowie,” Abergel says, alluding to those hits of strawberry pinks and pale yellows—tones that people have been shying away from in an era of icy cool platinum. Colorist Daniel Moon (“the king of bleaching,” says Abergel) masterminded the exact shade—less of a deliberate tone and more so a diffused veil. “I wanted it to feel almost like watercolor.”
At the Met, that paved the way for an unlikely twist on the jet black-haired pin-up icon—softened as much by the blonde as by Stewart’s hand-painted Chanel jacket. To create that faux bang, Abergel, creative director of the biotech-backed hair line Virtue, used the volumizing primer to set the look and “create memory in the hair.” He then sectioned a V-shaped swath of hair, blowing it out for the victory roll, before curling the remainder of the hair with an iron. A kiss of the brand’s Healing oil—formulated with a bioidentical form of keratin for long-term damage repair—lent shine. The ponytail band was intentionally left bare; a momentary thought to wrap it with a Chanel diamond bracelet gave way to the idea that unfussed was the way to go.
Meanwhile, makeup artist Jillian Dempsey found the softer side of ’40s-leaning makeup, undergirded by key architectural moments. “Considering the outfit and the rockabilly bangs, the eyebrows and the eyes were everything,” she explains. “Otherwise it’s just a bunch of hair sitting on a blank face.” She started off by laying down Chanel’s Calligraphie liner in Hyperblack across the upper lash—a first mark to set the tone. “I told Kris, let’s get you lashied up. Let’s do three coats of Inimitable mascara. Let’s curl away,” Dempsey says of instant transformation. Next came rosy-toned eye shadow from a Chanel palette called Candeur et Séduction (Page would approve), with softened black liner anchoring the lower lash.
Then, because the creamy blonde removes the usual face-framing anchor points of Stewart’s natural brown hair, Dempsey paid special attention to the brows, going in “very strategically” with a brow pencil to finesse the arch—this time skewing a “little bit severe.” A few more touches (including a subtly defined mouth), and Stewart was on her way, with only the essentials for the road: the Les Beiges sheer powder and the Boy de Chanel lip balm. “She doesn’t like to fuss with lips,” Dempsey explains, once again putting Stewart at the intersection of polish and ease. “She wants to be herself and has a strong sense of what she wants to project”—but the actor is all for experimentation. “She gets right into character and doesn’t ever hold back.”
Additional reporting by Arden Fanning Andrews.
— Natalie Portman on Britney Spears and the Scent of Love
— Behind Queen Elizabeth’s Surprising Wit
— Are the Literary Jonathans Still Relevant?
— The True Story of a Hollywood Partnership Built and Destroyed by Money, Sex, and Celebrity
— The Best Shampoo Bars to Lighten 2021’s Environmental Load
— Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez Make the Most of Summer’s End
— The Most Influential Pop-Rock Band Ever? The Monkees!
— Prince William and Kate Middleton’s “Normal” Parenting Tips
— From the Archive: Meet the Women Who Domesticated the Rolling Stones
— Sign up for “The Buyline” to receive a curated list of fashion, books, and beauty buys in one weekly newsletter.
