VALLEY VOGUE / CINDY LaFAVRE YORKS : New Looks for Lips and Limbs : Dark tints gain popularity for lipstick and nail color, while casts go from bland to bright.
Teen-age girls are puckering up with the season’s hottest lip colors--near-sinister shades of black, with nails to match, natch.
Who could have foreseen the rise of licorice lips and ebony talons? Probably only the big beauty companies, such as Clinique, YSL, M.A.C., Chanel and even such natural lines as Origins, which are offering the ultra-deep shades. They come in the form of rich purplish cocoa hues and neo-black shades like Chanel’s Vamp--and are changing the way women think about lip color.
At the Topanga Plaza Nordstrom store, the darker shades are selling briskly, confirms Wendy Stark, beauty director for the store’s entire Los Angeles region.
Stark says makeup mavens hot to follow trends are wearing the wine to near-black colors on their lips in a variety of matte, glossy and sheer textures. While age is not really a factor in determining who wears them, she says, the shape of the lips does make a difference--narrow-lipped women should shy away from anything too dark and go with something shimmery.
As far as the dark nails are concerned, Stark says it’s groovy if they match the deep lips, but another really haute color for nails this fall to complement the deep colors is no-nonsense nude.
“It goes with all lip colors,” she says of the noncommittal flesh-colored gloss.
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CAST BLAST: The same old signatures aren’t the only ways kids are individualizing their casts these days. At the Tarzana office of Dr. John King--where orthopedics are the specialty--kids can choose from a variety of whimsical designs: bright solid colors, teddy bears, balloons, dinosaurs and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Styles featuring professional football, baseball and basketball teams also are available. Best of all, the relatively insignificant additional cost of the novelty casts are not passed on to the patient, since insurance would not cover such frivolity. Why does the office offer them, then?
“It’s a psychological acceptance of the cast we want our young patients to have,” explains Debbie Martin, medical orthopedic assistant. “The benefit to the kids is that it motivates them to treat their injured limbs more carefully, and to keep the casts clean and dry.” The nouveau casts are so popular that they are requested three times as often as the plain vanilla style.
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SHOULDER CHIC: After a five-year hiatus, it seems shoulder pads are returning to the fashion forefront for spring ’95.
Bill Blass, Anne Klein, Oscar de la Renta and a number of European designers are refocusing their interest on the shoulder area, after a short de-emphasis spearheaded by Italian designer Romeo Gigli.
Does this mean that linebacker shoulders, first introduced by Norma Kamali and popularized in the late ‘70s and ‘80s, are back in style? Definitely not, explains Harold Lopato, president of Majestic Shapes, the New York company that makes many of the accessories sold to designers and boutiques for women to wear under their garments.
“I don’t know many women today who won’t occasionally put a shoulder pad under a dress, so it never really went out of style, but those Frankenstein football looks are not coming back,” Lopato says.
The pads add definition to petite women by adding height, he says. For others, pads narrow hips and chisel the waist. Locally, Flair boutique in Encino carries an array of shoulder pads, which sell in pairs for about $10 (price varies according to style).
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CHAIN GANG: Female baby boomers who are finding they need glasses to read the entrees du jour on restaurant menus are turning to eyeglass chains to avoid constantly searching for their glasses.
Classic faux tortoise styles to more elaborate antique versions are making fashion news, with many in silver or gold plate.
Chains made of turquoise, hematite and glass are $15 to $35 at Dr. Robert E. Brill’s Studio City optometry office. But more affordable designs featuring plastic beads and adorned cords sell between $10 to $35 at Sunglass Hut in Topanga Plaza.
