Rodarte Served Up the Coolest Hairstyle Ideas for Curls at Its Fall 2019 Show

Since their ultra-romantic baby’s breath-smattered Spring 2018 collection in Paris, Rodarte has reigned as the brand that launched a thousand bridal beauty moments. Backstage at this afternoon’s fall 2019 show, the setting had changed — Kate and Laura Mulleavy were back home in Pasadena California, at the Huntington Library’s botanical gardens — but the wedding inspiration was ripe for the picking.

Glamorous hair, makeup, and florals were at full volume. Atop heads of frothy disco curls, hairstylist Odile Gilbert deftly pinned crowns of silk flowers and sprays of pearls — inspired by bridal headpieces from the eighties — swarms of silk butterflies, and silk bows with live anthuriums dipped in cobalt and silver paint or served naturally in pale pink and rip-roaring red. “I’m sure Helmut Newton would approve,” said florist and longtime Rodarte collaborator Jonathan Free, overlooking his boxes of high-octane blooms.

Gilbert, for her part, had another seventies icon in mind. The heads of side-swooped curls recalled the era’s preeminent glamazon, Jerry Hall. “The moment you do this,” Gilbert said, pushing one part of her own brunette waves behind her ear, “it’s an attitude. It’s sexy.”

The natural curls of models like Shelby Hayes were combed out and fluffed, while those sporting short crops simply got a light zhuzh-ing for the runway. For va-va-voom volume with lasting power on the models with straight and wavy hair, however, Gilbert and her team first misted hair with Sultra Heat Guard Styling Treatment (available in April) and then painstakingly wrapped hair around a ¾ inch barrel curling iron using extremely small sections. The ringlets were generously sprayed with Sultra Dry Texture Spray (also available in April) — equal parts scaffolding and hold — before the models tossed their heads over and gently brushed through the curls. As Gilbert gave another heady dose of Texture Spray she emphasized, “The hairspray is very important.”