Standout Beauty Moments From Milan Fashion Week SS25 | Essence

After London Fashion Week’s 40th anniversary— which delivered Chet Lo’s reversed nails and beaded wigs at Ahluwalia—fashion month made its way to Milan.

Throughout the week, the beauty memos nodded to the past. In other words, Models were turned into walking Italian archives full of timeless—yet, undoubtedly individualistic and wondrous— moments.

From antenna brows at Marni to new fall lip shades at Versace and Prada, here are the best beauty moments you may have missed from MFW SS25.

Versace

Channeling a moment of the past is not unfounded in Milan. But of course, for Versace, there is not just a single most iconic beauty moment. Think: their 2006 fragrance Bright Crystal and the house’s Spring 1997 Versus show. Similary, this season’s collection featured deep hues—on the mouth this time, instead of the eyes.

“This season the makeup at Versace is very fresh but also very rebellious. We started with a base of beautiful, spa-fresh skin and added a strong mouth in a deep mahogany brown shade,” says makeup artist Pat McGrath in a press release.

Describing the transition from dark eyes at the Versus show to this season’s lip look (keyed with Dramatique Mega Lip Pencil in the color “Flesh 3” to be exact), McGrath adds: “It’s a way to do nude makeup but with that Versace edge.”

Prada

At Prada, creative directors Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons delivered a SS25 collection with global makeup artist Lynsey Alexander at the helm. Like Versace, this season called for an inky lip number. Instead of warm reds throughout the collection, Alexander picked out only one model in a crowd of 52 natural lips to wear a dark berry shade.

“Mrs. Prada said the makeup concept was about revealing who the girls were as individuals,” Alexander tells Vogue exclusively moments after the show. “They’re very into not having a one-shape-fits-all kind of thing.” The color, a Monochrome Hyper Matte Lipstick in “Ultraviolet P57”, is Prada’s ultimate fall lip enhanced with Prada Balm in “Astral Pink” as a final touch for a shiny effect.

Marni

“Beauty is a white rabbit scampering across your yard… Though you fall short in capturing it, in the mad rush you find yourself somewhere wondrous,” read the show notes for Marni’s SS25 collection. “As creatures of routine and ritual, there are few things in life that move us here to there quite like the pursuit of the sublime. Beauty is a velocity, not a destination.”

Like the curve in which a rabbit jumps, makeup artist Yadim drew eyebrows with an antenna-shaped arch, etching on the most theatrical pencil-thin brows we’ve seen all month. Meanwhile, hair stylist Paul Hanlon’s mad dash of a hair moment pushed the hair back (as if brushed by chased wind) under a collection of sizable paper hats. 

Gucci

Makeup artist Lucia Pieroni and hair stylist Duffy keyed Gucci’s SS25 ’60s beauty look. “Exploring charm without excess, Sabato De Sarno’s beauty vision for Spring Summer 2025 is an ode to authenticity and elegance,” read the show notes.

To do this, neutral lipstick shades (like Rouge À Lèvres Satin Lipstick in “100 Linda Beige”) and smokey cat eyes were the hallmarks of the swinging era.

On skin, “refreshed radiance” characterized the balmy, end-of-summer finish. This was all made possible with beauty mist and mattifying primer, before Pieroni applied the Éternité de Beauté foundation and Concentré de Beauté concealer for a no-makeup look. Meanwhile, eyes were stretched and blended into an ephemeral wing.

Bottega Veneta

Front row guests—including Yara Shahidi and A$AP Rocky—sat in Noah’s Ark animal bean bag chairs to watch the SS25 show in childlike wonder. With metallic lashes and shaggy wigs, “this season was all about celebrating self-expression and the confidence of innocence,” Pat McGrath said in a press release.
“So we really wanted to highlight the individuality of each model.”

Focused on the skin, McGrath used Skin Fetish: Highlighter + Balm Duo to give a wet, dimensional look, and added faux freckles with the PermaGel Ultra Glide Eye Pencil. “We also had fun adorning the eyes with expressive elements like graphic black liner and metallic lashes,” she says, using the shade “Golden Muse” from the Luminous Legends: Mega Eye Shadow Palette in between the lashes.