As the French Republican Guard horses in training galloped around Hermès backstage tents at Garde Républicaine this morning, inside, the runway canvas was being prepped. Rather than last season’s chunky red eyelashes and wet look calling in horse-girls-gone-wild, models with patent glossy lips and parted hair pulled into fuzzy low ponytails milled around backstage drinking green detox juices and snacking on tiny bowls of yogurt and honey granola.

Creative director Nadège Vanhee “has this amazing inspiration of creating a whole universe of an artist,” said Gregoris Pyrpylis, creative director of Hermès Beauty. In their conversations about the makeup look for an SS25 collection of sheer silk mesh pants, apron dresses, poplin smocks, and wood-soled sandals, “she was like, ‘I want the girls to look their best, but how would you transcribe my collection into makeup?’” he said. “And I’m like, ‘Really? All I can see is subtleness and optimism in your collection.’ So I wanted to create such a vibe, such a universe, also on the face.”

Nearby on a table, a slip of paper read The atelier as a space of creation, of optimism, of absorption: late to bed, back before the sun rises. The idea of bouncing light came into play for Pyrpylis’s interpretation; it could have been a moment to paint the face in a more obvious way, but instead, “I didn’t want it to fall into a cliche of a bright color,” he said. “For me, this would be a luminous texture that reflects the light, and that’s why we chose to give the lips a very shiny finish.” He wanted models to look like they’d done it themselves, too, and simply slicked on not-yet-released tinted lip balms (slated to launch in tandem with the collection’s fashion pieces, so sheer “you don’t need the mirror to apply”), powdered the face with Plein Air Radiant Matte Powder 01 Nuage, and used Le Courbe-cils eyelash curler to bend lashes to “let the light in.”

Hairstylist Gary Gill interpreted the directive as a girl who stays up late and works some of the spirit of the night before into her day. He talked with Vanhee about inserting “a subtle bit of offness” into the hair look, a hint of imperfection. There’s an “artistic element to it” he says, it’s a girl who “maybe had been out, had her hair quite tight and woke up the next morning and it had been broken up a little bit and just kind of pushed to one side.” It’s an artist’s version of bedhead, and a balance of hard and soft. “All the partings are very, very strict,” he said. “It’s kind of got some masculinity to it, but there’s also just that hint of beauty and softness around the edges and in the back, just to counterbalance that.”

To gloss the crown of the head, he misted L’Oreal Paris Elnett Satin Extra Strong Hold Hairspray into the part and pushed it through the top of the hair with a boar bristle brush he sources from Japan via a UK-based company called Session Kit. Lengths were then pulled into low ponytails with texture left natural (the fuzzier the better) at the ends. It’s a bit of “anti-glamour,” he says, which fits with his own signature and keeps with the “slight high-endness” of the house. “So there’s a strictness of tightness, kind of a tough girl, but there’s also a little bit of femininity,” said Gill. “It’s considered, but it still looks cool and unconsidered. I like that.”