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Zero + Maria Cornejo Brings Nature-Inspired Chic to the Runway

“It’s a look you would get if you were a bit chilly,” says makeup artist Dick Page backstage at Zero + Maria Cornejo’s Fall/Winter 2016 collection. “You want it to look as if the color came out of the skin.” He says this as he blends a deep pink cream blush into a model’s cheeks in a sideways V-shape so she does in fact look like she stepped out of the snow that’s pouring out from the sky outside of Pier 59 Studios in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood. In addition to the flushed cheek, Page created a softly glossy eyelid, leaving the eyelashes and eyebrows natural. Lips were made to look slightly windblown with a soft red tone.

It was interesting to see, too, how well this beauty look blended with Maria Cornejo’s nature-inspired collection, that “freedom of being immersed in the outdoors [that] allows the eye to refocus.” That naturalness of being outside, then, was not just present in models’ faces. Her ever-present geometric shapes found a new home in weatherproof textures like polar tech and natural fibers like alpaca and merino shearling. The color palette included what the designer called “earthy texture of terrain,” which include deep pine green, beige, black, blush, olive green and more. It was as if Cornejo had taken her citified geometry to the wilderness for a winter vacation, boldly using striped patterns and textured faux-furs to invoke a change of scenery. A black leather kimono wrap waistcoat, a black angled, off-the-shoulder long sleeve top, and a long beige coat patterned with thick black vertical stripes and cinched at the waist with a black belt, for starters, took us to a place where winter was not slushy city streets but rather leafy forest paths covered in a silent snowfall. One’s cheeks flush just thinking about it.

Check out more of our Fall/Winter 2016 fashion week coverage here!

Elyssa Goodman likes words and pictures a lot. She is a Style Consultant at Her Campus, was previously the publication's first Style Editor, and has been with the magazine since its inception in 2009. Elyssa graduated with honors from Carnegie Mellon University, where she studied Professional Writing, Creative Writing, and Photography. As an undergraduate, she founded and was the editor-in-chief of The Cut, Carnegie Mellon's Music Magazine. Originally from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Elyssa now lives and works in New York City as Miss Manhattan, a freelance writer, photographer, stylist and social media consultant. Her work has appeared in Vice, Marie Claire, New York Magazine, Glamour, The New Yorker, Artforum, Bust, Bullett, Time Out New York, Nerve.com, and many other publications across the globe. Elyssa is also the photographer of the book "Awkwafina's NYC," written by Nora "Awkwafina" Lum. She loves New York punk circa 1973, old-school photobooths, macaroni and cheese, and Marilyn Monroe. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @MissManhattanNY.
Alice is the Senior Associate Editor at Her Campus. She graduated from Emory University in 2012 as an English major and a Dance minor. Before joining Her Campus, she was an associate editor at Lucky Magazine. She is currently located in Salt Lake City, UT, where she spends her free time rescuing orphaned kittens, whose lives are documented on Instagram at @thekittensquad! You can find her on Twitter and Instagram at @alicefchen.