I very rarely attempt to wear any of the jazzier runway makeup looks; often they are interesting and edgy – or very theatrical – on the catwalk, but ridiculous in real life. I suppose you could say that the same goes for the clothes a lot of the time! But Chanel’s “Quilted Eyes” for the AW16 show really tickled my fancy – the iconic quilting from their gorgeous handbags and accessories, brought across to makeup. It’s not very often you can work with patterns on the face – usually it’s just certain colours that become the makeup trends for the season – but this pattern is, I think, surprisingly wearable.

Mine turned out a lot smaller than the Chanel quilting, but I like that it’s a sort of “soft snakeskin” effect – a texture rather than a design. (Also I couldn’t get my diamond shapes to go any bigger, it was just too fiddly without help, but let’s ignore that part.)
I used pieces of fishnet stocking as a stencil (I tried to find something that would be reasonably easy to get hold of) and settled on a mid-brown shadow to create the quilting design, rather than the dark gunmetal used at the show. So I have very definitely done a “version” and not a recreation of the show look; I can’t imagine that they were sat there cutting up bits of fishnet stocking backstage! If you have any suggestions as to how to create an easier-to-use stencil (it’s incredi...