Sept. 23, 2025

How Fara Homidi Brought Erdem’s SS26 Period-Drama Vision to Life Through Beauty

WORDS JACQUELINE KILIKITA

ERDEM

Fara Homidi tells EE72 about the threatrical origin story behind her Erdem beauty look — and why the finished result is surprisingly wearable.

It’s very rare that models queue willingly to have their makeup done at fashion week. It’s even rarer that, mid-application, they pause to ask where they can buy the very products being used on them. But at Erdem’s Spring/Summer 2026, the energy was different: Everyone was eager to have their faces adorned by Fara Homidi, whom Erdem Moralıoğlu — celebrating 20 years of fashion design — enlisted to dream up the beauty looks.

The vibe? “It’s more of an era,” Homidi tells EE72. “Think Joan of Arc. Think of people’s heads being chopped off at the guillotine.” Once the perfect venue, The British Museum, was selected, translating that into makeup came easily for Homidi. Glossy brown eyes created a sombre look, while dry red lips were smudged with a lip brush for a well-lived-in effect, and skin was left nearly untouched save for a pinprick of concealer here and there. Despite its theatrical origin story, the finished result was surprisingly wearable.

ERDEM

On the defining era of the show’s beauty look

It’s like a period drama. Sort of messy, dry red lips, a little bit of a pink tone to give a flush… Just really natural, raw skin. Sometimes we’re bringing a greasy brown eye to some of the girls to give them a sunken look. If you think about period pieces, how do you make that modern? The combination of the clothes and the casting that we have today really brings that into a modern space.

On the one detail that makes the beauty direction unmistakably Erdem

I think it’s the imperfection. One thing we really agreed on, for example, with the red lip, is that it’s thrown on in two seconds — it cannot be precious at all. It’s a little bit more on the matte, drier side and I think that with Erdem, there is this sort of pristine beauty matched with a bit of a real person on-the-go messy — bringing them into the now. Erdem let me look at the collection, told me the inspiration, and then let me craft what I thought would be the look. I find it really refreshing when someone is like, “I trust your vision.” For me, that was a sunken-in eye and then the juxtaposition of the drier, matte red lip, and then keeping the skin really raw. Honestly, it’s very out of character for me to do a messy red lip, so I hope that’s picked up.

ERDEM

On the one product she used on every model

Everyone is using my Essential Face Compact. The Smooth Veil Soft Matte formula has this bounce and glide but it finishes in a velvet texture. Per that era, if you think of an oil painting (that sort of poreless porcelain skin) all of the models are getting that.

If this look had a theme song, it would be…

Enigma, “Return To Innocence,” maybe.

ERDEM

On how this look will live beyond London Fashion Week

Oh my god, it’s so wearable. You truly don’t have to know what you’re doing and that’s what I said in my demo. I was putting on the cream shadows — an unreleased product — and said that you can’t mess it up because it just glides on and you can literally use your fingers to smudge it out to get the shape that you want. Same thing with the lip: it’s a messy lip, so it’s very cool and wearable and it’s now. Everything was very “clean girl” makeup for a long time and now we’re like, “Can I live a little? Can I just be a little messy?”

THE PRODUCTS:
Fara Homidi Essential Lip Compact
Fara Homidi Essential Bronzer Compact
Fara Homidi Shader Brush
Fara Homidi Essential Face Compact
Fara Homidi Petit Conceal Brush