There is simply no confusing a Sandy Liang show with another designer’s. Liang’s aesthetic is singular, always sparkling (often literally) but ever-expanding.
For the FW26 show, her trademark bows, embellishments and candy sweet color palette were on full display, as were exciting new silhouettes and fabrics. The hair, by editorial and celebrity hairstylist Dylan Chavles, helped signify this new, more refined era.
Chavles tells The Tease, “For Sandy Liang’s collection, we focused on two main textures: one texture being this beautiful, smooth, glassy, very sweet blowout, and the other texture being this Renaissance-esque woman… I’d like to think of the wave as like an oil painting.”
“Sandy’s main references for me were Marie Antoinette and ‘Kiki’s Delivery Service,’” says Chavles. “When I thought about Marie Antoinette, in this case, I thought about what a painting of Marie Antoinette would look like, as opposed to maybe the movie or an actual depiction.” She clarifies, “less of the actual big wigs, and more of the kind of feminine, angelic hair texture that you see in her portrayals, in illustrations and paintings.”
Chavles brought together the perhaps tonally disjointed references with a Sandy Liang brand through line, tapping into girlishness. She explains, “The unifying factor between these two looks was this really distinct, very beautiful, very girly side part. I find a deep side part to be pretty cool.” She continues, “There’s also like a level of volume I wanted in the hair, which a middle part, unless you’re back combing it and making things, you know, a little more complex than they need to be, doesn’t always give you. There’s an organic kind of volume that comes with a side part. Even for the short Afros, we kept the natural texture, but cheated with the side part.”
Uberliss was the hair sponsor for the Sandy Liang FW26 show, and Chavles and her team put an assortment of their styling products to work. Below she breaks down the key styles.
Look 1: Kiki’s Sweet Blowout
- “I really did want that kind of ‘Kiki’s Delivery Service’ sweetness. There’s a youthfulness to the hair and there’s also finesse. I think Sandy’s collections, at least for me when I look at them, have a youthfulness and simultaneously have so much refinement, And are so well-crafted. So, I wanted the blow dries to really reflect that.
- I started by parting the hair and added some of the Bond Healing Spray Leave-in Conditioner and just gave the hair really, really beautiful, clean, glassy blow dry. No crazy over direction for a lot of volume, but also not trying to flatten it out. I didn’t want it to feel like fashion board, straight, crazy hair. And I also didn’t want it to feel, too ’50s sock hoppy.
- Fringes were blown out straight, as were all the short haircuts. Everything was transformed with a really beautiful proper blowout.”
Look 2: Wavy Marie Baby
- “For the wavier hair, the more kind of oil painting-esque texture, my hero products were the Powder Bliss Dry Shampoo and the Sea Salt Spray, and the Flexin Hairspray to work each section.
- I had everybody kind of brush everyone’s hair out, kind of check to see what the natural undulation of the hair was. I added some salt spray and diffused and over-exaggerated the wave a bit with a kind of twist on a classic Marcel technique and worked that all the way, from roots to ends, and then gave it a nice brush before they walked.
- The brushing and the fuzziness from the Marcel texture gives it that kind of oil painting feeling when photographed and when it moves versus something that is more coiled or defined. I always kind of lean into a more wild, fuzzy texture. I’m just, I’m so fascinated with the way lots of air can stay in hair, especially when kind of brushed and treated this way.”
If you get inspired to take on either, or both, of these runway styles, we want to see. Tag @readthetease on Instagram and TikTok.
