Mustafa Yanaz and Isamaya Ffrench merged downtown New York grit with wild, animalistic artistry.

Across all cities, <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion-week/new-york-fashion-week-parties-spring-summer-2026">New York Fashion Week&rsquo;s</a> legacy lies in its contradictions: playfulness and modernity, dark allure and avant-garde risk-taking. And that identity isn&rsquo;t confined to the clothes or the dramatic, theater-like backdrops they&rsquo;re staged against. It runs just as strongly through beauty. The wildly asymmetrical hair, the <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/beauty/how-to-get-smudged-eyeliner-look-indie-sleaze-revival-charli-xcx" target="_blank" rel="noopener">rocker-chic smoky eyes</a>, the bold lips. They all serve as reminders that beauty at New York Fashion Week is as much a part of the story as the garments themselves. For <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion-week/celebrities-at-new-york-fashion-week-spring-summer-2026-front-row-runway">Spring/Summer 2026</a>, Collina Strada was no exception. In fact, it might just have been the blueprint for how far beauty can go when pushed past the expected.&nbsp;
Set at Manhattan Helicopters in the Financial District, the show was quintessentially New York: industrial, raw, and impossibly cool in ways few others could replicate. Backstage, the beauty direction wasn&rsquo;t subtle, nor was it tucked away in details&mdash;it hit you the second you walked in, with the open-air heliport and the East River as your backdrop. This season, lead hairstylist Mustafa Yanaz, who created hair horns for the label&rsquo;s Fall/Winter 2025 collection, drew direct inspiration from the city itself.&nbsp;

Hair details at the Collina Strada Spring/Summer 2026 runway presentation. Photography courtesy of Bumble and bumble.

Collina Strada Spring/Summer 2026. Photography courtesy of Bumble and bumble.

The hair wasn&rsquo;t about exaggerated color or towering volume&mdash;though, true to founder and creative director Hillary Taymour&rsquo;s love of brights, there were a few pastel olive green and blush-pink moments. Instead, Yanaz and his team crafted baseball caps and beanies made entirely from a blend of synthetic and human hair.&nbsp;
&ldquo;I wanted to do these baseball caps because I always say, &lsquo;A New Yorker with a baseball cap is a real New Yorker,&rsquo;&rdquo; Yanaz tells L&rsquo;OFFICIEL backstage.&nbsp;
&ldquo;It started out as a joke. [Hillary] said it would be amazing to do a hat made out of hair, and I said, &lsquo;Challenge accepted.&rsquo;&rdquo;&nbsp;

Beauty details at the Collina Strada Spring/Summer 2026 runway presentation. Photography courtesy of Bumble and bumble.

As for makeup, color took center stage. Lead makeup artist Isamaya Ffrench, who created animal-like prosthetics for Collina Strada&rsquo;s Fall/Winter 2023 collection, designed five distinct beauty archetypes: The Shane, The Sara, The Eva, The Athena, and The Taylor. The standout was The Shane, a dramatic reimagining of the classic cat-eye.&nbsp;
Ffrench&rsquo;s approach to The Shane drew on Collina Strada&rsquo;s perennial nods to the animal kingdom, with <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/beauty/maximalist-eye-makeup-dominates-fall-winter-2025-trends">feline-inspired shapes</a> opening up the brow bone and a widened nose bridge softened by cool-toned shades. To balance the boldness, she added shimmer to slightly desaturate the colors, keeping the look vibrant without tipping into majorly theatrical.&nbsp;
Pink, blue, and gold washed across the eyes and even extended to the lips, punctuated by delicate flicks of matching colored lashes, courtesy of Lashify. The rest of the face remained fresh and minimal&mdash;a deliberate contrast to the striking eye work.

Collina Strada Spring/Summer 2026 Transforms Hair Into Sculpture

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