The NEW '90s

Welcome (BACK) to the ERA of BROWN LIPS, DEWY SKIN, GRUNGE LINER, and SHAGGY CUTS. Here, why SPRING'S biggest BEAUTY LOOKS take a page from the DECADE of the SUPERMODEL-and how to make the trends FEEL MODERN.

- TIA WILLIAMS

AT THE SPRING 2023 RUNWAY SHOWS, models' faces were a minimalist blur of velvety taupe, beige, and brown-spiked with smudgy eyeliner-that conjured the Supers (Christy, Kate, Cindy, Linda, Naomi) and made it official: The '90s are back.

As a young Gen Xer who came of age during that decade, I'm conflicted. When did my past become vintage? Vintage is a poodle skirt, hippie fringe, disco dazzle. Our '90s-era aesthetic was raw and real, a modernist eff-you to '80s excess. We were too cool to become nostalgia fodder. However, as someone who also persuaded my high school pom squad to swap our red lip color for nut brown, who smelled like teen spirit, yes, but also CK One and the vanilla-scented M.A.C lipsticks I ordered from an 800 number-and who, by the decade's end, was reporting on trends as a beauty editor-I applaud it. Nineties beauty nostalgia feeds my soul.

As with any retro revival, though, it's about adapting the looks for today, lest you look like a relic. So, in search of the best ways to modernize '90s trends, I consulted the architects of some of the era's most iconic moments.

THE SKIN At Dior, Jason Wu, Fendi, and Chanel, the runway beauty vibe for spring was clean and slightly dewy-an updated version of the complexions at Calvin Klein's era-defining Fall '93 show, where legendary makeup artist Dick Page staged a fresh-faced revolution.

"It was Kate Moss's second season walking for Calvin, and the look got quite a backlash from the beauty industry," recalls Page. "The general sentiment was, did you really send models out with no mascara?" He did, in fact, and the models wore little more than Vaseline on their eyelids, cheeks, and nose. "The 'not caring' felt different," he says. "Less sportif."