BEHIND THE LOOK WITH FARA HOMIDI & PALOMA ELSESSER
Inside the friends’ creative kiki before the Met Gala.
Written by Laura Regensdorf
It’s the day before the Met Gala, and the creative team for Paloma Elsesser has gathered for a full afternoon of prep at IMG’s New York offices. Outside, a damp mist hangs low over the sidewalks, but the model arrives like a beam of sunshine, beatifically greeting everyone in sight: her longtime friend and makeup artist Fara Homidi, the hairstylist Joey George, even the unfamiliar people tapping on laptops in the corner. Elsesser is making her sixth turn at the Met, and her caramel leather jacket speaks to the moment. Custom-airbrushed across the back is the face of the inimitable late Vogue editor André Leon Talley, whose dandy spirit swans through this year’s Costume Institute exhibition, “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style.” She settles into the makeup chair—which, much like a pit stop, soon becomes the hair chair and nails chair, too—to begin her test run with Homidi. But this session is not built for speed. “Some people do glam for two hours,” the model says with a smile. “We don’t.”
No, the modus operandi for the longtime collaborators is languid, intuitive, deliberate. “It’s always a whole thing,” says Homidi of the fluid way they apply a lash, have a snack, finesse the lips, dish with friends. “It’s a kiki,” Elsesser confirms. The two have known each other for some 15 years, working together on Vogue shoots, runway shows, and campaigns for Homidi’s namesake makeup line, along with the previous three Met looks. “Applying the work we do outside of the Met to the Met is important,” Elsesser says of their editorial instincts, knowing how all the elements serve the big-picture vision. “We’ve always tried to bring a level of restraint,” she says. “While going for it at the same time,” adds Homidi.
The pair’s habit of finishing each other’s sentences mirrors their creative volley. For the 2023 Met, the two envisioned a spare constellation of Swarovski crystals around Elsesser’s eyes—an asymmetrical placement built solely on an innate sense of balance. “She’d say, ‘I feel like there need to be two right here.’ And I’d be like, that’s what I was missing!” Homidi recalls. Last year, the two decided on raw skin with a seemingly sunburnt cheek. “I was literally wearing a bust of my own body,” Elsesser says of her metallic 3D-printed look, like a biomorphic shield, “so we had to bring some softness.” Homidi toned down the eyebrows to a specific minky taupe and shaded the model’s eyes with a beetle-like green-brown shimmer—at once off and dead-on. “One of our doctrines is that we always have to find a little way to fuck it up,” Elsesser says.
For this year’s Met, Elsesser is leaning into sophistication and self-possessed ease, in the spirit of the exhibition theme. “I’m dandy,” she says. “I wear what I want to wear. I do what I want to do with intention.” The dress, by the Ferragamo creative director Maximilian Davis, was the starting point: an off-the-shoulder red column, with sharp tailoring offset by fluffy feather trim. Writing in an essay for Vogue, she describes the character in her mind: “A 1920s renaissance woman surrounded by poets and musicians who, after years of luxuriating, puts herself into a cryogenic capsule set to 2040.” This is a woman eliding past and future—though here, in the present, the team is still parsing out every last detail. George is weaving a discreet, upside-down braid at the center seam of Elsesser’s head, which will serve as a hidden anchor for pins for an ultra-sleek French twist. Homidi, after peeling off the Augustinus Bader eye masks and massaging in a dollop of Rich Cream, is finessing the complexion with her two-part Essential Face Compact. (The shade name, no coincidence, is Paloma.) Elsesser’s brows are staying naturalistic, the lashes wispy and brown—all to better highlight the showstopper of the look: a methodically layered red lip.
This punch of color—not matched to the dress, but more of an equal sparring partner—begins with Homidi’s in-the-know Essential Lip Compact, in shades, Red 1 and Red 2. “Then we’re making the lip very powdery, without looking too art school,” Homidi says. She taps a mix of sunset-hued pigments into a clear dish, signalling the hours of mad science ahead to determine the precise tone. The result, seen the next day on the red carpet, recalls a glowing ember trapped in velvet.
Elsesser’s agent pops in to ask if she’d like an evening facial after the test wraps. She and Homidi exchange a glance. “No, because it might irritate,” the makeup artist advises. “Because your skin is so perfect now.” And it is—a luminous, flawless foil to that matte mouth. This is what mutual support looks like: a well-timed word of advice alongside more concrete means. Elsesser, who is an early investor in Homidi’s brand, remembers being on set when the makeup artist mentioned she was starting a brand. “Fara would give me the unpackaged product, and I was like, I’m obsessed,” says Elsesser, who appeared in the debut 2023 campaign—spare, aquatic shots by the photographer Zoë Ghertner—and has been the face ever since.
“When it came time for me to really think about who the FH woman is, it really was Paloma. I feel like we kind of share the same brain,” says Homidi. It’s their exacting tastes and understated chill and appreciation for careful consideration, yes—but even more so their value systems, Elsesser says: “We’re both sensitive birds. I’m a bit of a hawk and she’s more like a bluebird. But we’re both birds nonetheless.”
SHOP THE LOOK
In collaboration with Audi.
CREDITS:
Makeup: Fara Homidi
Hair: Joey George
Nails: Dawn Sterling
Director: Victoria Mortati
Producer: Kim Squires
Director of Photography: Joel Wolter
Camera Operation: Joshua Charow
Production Assistant: Ethan Christensen
