New York Fashion Week: Backstage at BCBG with a Marrero Makeup Artist

By Susan Langenhennig
The Times-Picayune

Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week has found a fun new way to torture the media: make them stand outside in the 24-degree weather for 45 minutes to get credentials. About 9 a.m. this morning, the corner of Columbus Avenue and 63th Street was a sea of fashion journalists shivering in skinny jeans and fierce shoes.

Former New Orleans Hornets cheerleader Lynna Vo backstage at Fashion Week Thursday in New York: 'I didn't think I was going to be doing anything but observing today, but they were like, "Go ahead, we believe in you."'

It was an inauspicious start to my Fashion Week, but things quickly turned up when I met Lynna Vo of Marrero backstage doing a model’s makeup before the BCBG show.

Vo entered a nationwide contest for aspiring makeup artists, held last fall by Maybelline The prize: a chance to join the makeup team at New York Fashion Week. Out of thousands of submissions, Vo’s video entry was picked.

And though she has no professional training, the bubbly 23-year-old was thrown head-first into the backstage fray.

“I didn’t think I was going to be doing anything but observing today, but they were like, ‘Go ahead, we believe in you.’” said Vo, a student at the University of New Orleans. “It’s been an absolutely amazing.”

A former Hornets cheerleader, Vo’s not entirely new to showtime cosmetics. She fine tuned her makeup skills by helping her fellow Honeybees get ready for performances. She also has a YouTube channel, where she posts how-to makeup tutorials.

Working elbow-to-elbow with Maybelline global makeup artist Charlotte Willer, Vo got to see the whole backstage beauty assembly line at work, brushes flying, dryers buzzing, photographers swarming.

The look for the BCBG show was a soft, natural face, with brown and gold-flecked eyeshadow and no mascara. As Vo put the finishing touches on her model, Willer cast a critical eye over the work, and then gave Vo the nod.