“There’s a fashion show going on and I’m on the way to calculus,” a student at The New School said as she showed me how to get to their school library. Which, for New York Fashion Week, was turned into backstage for Off-White’s spring-summer 2026 show titled “Pop Romance.” Between shelves of books, the lesson wasn’t on mathematics, but on one full of beauty.
“The looks are young, fresh, and cool,” lead hairstylist Virginie Moreira tells ESSENCE exclusively before the show. “We’re basically enhancing what just comes naturally but times 10.” As she’s curling a model’s hair—coincidentally, the one she says was her favorite look of the show—she explained how she added extensions to give more volume, texture, and movement using Oribe’s Maximista Hair Thickening Spray.
As for makeup, Isamaya Ffrench described the look as “refined” and “beautiful.” Just as she finished touching up creative director Ib Kamara, she tells me, “we’re not trying to do too much.” Using Refy Beauty and Dr. Emi Arpa skincare, the show’s lesson on beauty was skin prep. “It’s actually a quite elevated and sophisticated look,” Ffrench says, while using Dr. Emi Arpa’s Lip Tint with the Refy Lip Blur Liner.
Like the makeup, the nails were just as simple. “We have a short squ-oval shape with negative space and three different color palettes,” says nail artist and OPI global ambassador Coca Michelle, using black, a mix of cargo and yellow, and a grey-purple. The color was applied to the top of the nail as a French tip with an empty line slit through the middle. Playing off of the show’s location, “I created something that was fresh and back-to-school appropriate.”
