With that in mind, I’d like to start with Chanel’s 26 S/S Haute Couture collection.

The animal sounds and fantastical staging of the opening felt like an allusion to instinct and freedom, while the classical music that closed the show seemed to speak to the power of self-restraint. What made the contrast so striking was the makeup: restrained, almost quiet, against all that spectacle. It reads as a contemporary reinterpretation of the freedom Coco Chanel sought beyond the conventions of her time, and of women’s layered, multifaceted identity. Just as fashion reflects the mood of its moment, makeup captures the sensibility of an era. This season, the emphasis shifted from perfection to presence, from technique to expression. The clothing was sculptural and bold; the makeup was held back. But that restraint was deliberate, closer to calculated minimalism than simplicity.

Skin was rendered light and translucent, with color acting as a medium for emotion rather than mere decoration. Taken as a whole, the 26 S/S Haute Couture season was defined by a makeup language designed to invite feeling.

1. Blush That Flows

This season, blush has evolved into something altogether softer. Sweeping naturally from the cheekbones up toward the temples and across the eyelids, it blends seamlessly into the foundation beneath. Sheer shades of orange, rose, and soft brown were layered one over another to capture ‘the warmth of summer.’

This soft draping technique, which connects the cheeks and the eye area in a continuous wash of color, played beautifully against the architectural tailoring at Julien Fournié, where bold silhouettes dominated. The contrast made the makeup feel all the more fluid and supple, the overall impression one of strength and delicacy held in the same breath. At Maison Novague, the quality of light on the skin reads less as shine and more as a kind of refined luminosity.

The base here is built around a silky, restrained glow. Rather than layering oil-heavy products, the approach begins at the skincare stage, stacking moisture to draw out the skin’s own translucency and allow natural light reflection to emerge without the need for highlighter. The result is what might be called a ‘semi-dewy glow’: luminosity that rises from within the skin rather than sitting on its surface, without tipping into greasiness.

What struck me, though, was a preference I encountered consistently among clients in both Japan and Thailand. In both markets, a glowy finish is clearly the goal, but without exception, powder is applied in the final step to refine the surface. This serves two purposes: extending wear and controlling the direction of light. The powder also adds a soft blurring effect, diffusing the look of pores and edges to bring the overall finish together.

What this season is really saying about glow, then, is that it isn’t about layering on more product — it’s about ‘engineered light.’ The more sculptural the clothes, the softer the face should be, yet with a dimension that remains clearly legible. That, I think, is the new balance this season put forward.

2. Natural Radiance on Skin: Hyper-Real Skin

The defining concept of this season’s makeup is ‘hyper-real skin’: a finish that looks like actual skin, imperfections and all. At the center of this shift is a fundamental rethinking of how highlight is applied. Where ‘glass skin’ in the past emphasized a uniform, all-over radiance, 26 S/S treats texture, pores, and natural luminosity into texture itself. At Chanel, rather than heavy highlighting, a sheer, finely layered base was used with luminosity applied only to specific areas, completing a look of ‘skin that breathes.’ Dior, too, leveraged the interplay of matte and glow to create dimension, allowing the skin itself to anchor the entire look.

Highlighter is used with a focus on placement rather than intensity: applied with a precise touch beneath the eyes or along the bridge of the nose, exactly where light would naturally settle, instead of relying on products heavy with pearl pigment. A micro water pigment formula, with its fine, moisture-rich particles, spreads thinly across the skin and builds with layering to create a healthy, authentic-looking luminosity. A texture that melts into the skin’s natural tone produces a far more refined result than color-correcting products with a white cast. This is precisely what sets it apart from the heavily sculpted contouring looks of the past.

In the end, what matters just as much as what you use is ‘how you apply it.’ The key is to warm both the base and the highlighter gently between your fingertips and press them into the skin along its natural texture in thin, close-fitting layers. Only then do you get the hyper-real glow that appears to rise from within, rather than sitting on the surface like a coat of lacquer.

3. The Ability to See the Whole