Why does Michelle Williams’ Willy Vanderperre-lensed AnOther Magazine cover feel so right on? Maybe it’s the collegiate sweatshirt and jeans topped with a veiled-hat/red-lip combo (which might be a nod to her role as Glenda the Good Witch in the upcoming Oz: The Great and Powerful). Or maybe it’s the hair-and-makeup magic of Gucci Westman and Jimmy Paul on the inside pages, where Williams channels everyone from an Upper East Side '50s socialite to Andy Warhol’s Candy Darling. That red lip is killer, and, naturally, we had to find out how to get it. Gucci explained via e-mail that she used Revlon’s Super Lustrous lipstick in Certainly Red and topped it off with a slick of Ultimate Suede lipstick in Couture “to make it more punchy [kiss-emoji’s here].”
As for Williams' various 'dos, Paul “definitely rolled up with a lot of bags of hair and a lot of assistants,” he told us on the phone this morning, noting that the peroxide-blond, pink-tinged wig was one he’d been “working on for awhile,” while the tighter-set dark wig reminded him of a young Isabella Rosselini. “Michelle has beautiful, beautiful hair and a very cute haircut,” he said, so for the shots where her natural hair was used, it didn't need much. “I use Bumble and Bumble’s Thickening Spray a lot, and I kind of overuse it,” he added. “I really soaks the hair with it, and that enables the hair to have a tremendous amount of hold and flexibiltiy and changeability' for the subsequent blow-out and top-up with Bumble and Bumble Styling Creme. “That’s my secret weapon and those two products are sort of my recipe.”
For the more boy-ish look (hello overalls, want to enter our Gloffice poll?), Paul blew-out the hair to make it “a little straighter, a little bit River Phoneix or Kurt Cobain texture.” (Fun fact: Paul actually did River Phoneix’s hair once; feel free to join us in swooning in unison.) “To get this very healthy boy hair, I add a little touch of the cream, because I always think that boys probably don’t wash their hair every day, so you want to give it that day-old, dirty, natural look...you know, maybe they're just off a skateboard.”
As for Michelle’s transformative prowess in front of the camera, well, we knew she had it down when it came to filmmaking, but still photography is something else. “The amazing thing, the most extraordinary thing about the whole experience, really, is that it’s so rare to have an actress be willing to play around like that,” Paul told us. “That’s the big difference to me. When you’re working with a model, that’s their job, that’s what they do. And they come and they say, ‘Okay, I'm going to be a part of the team.’ But with an actress, you’re working with another element—all of a sudden it’s like there’s another force, another boss. They’re not quite a team player, usually—if that makes sense—and I am by no means trying to sound anti-actress, but if I’m working with an actress, it’s a very, very, very different day than when I’m working with a model. The amazing thing [with the AnOther shoot] was that Michelle was completely the opposite. She was absolutely willing to experiment and play and try a million different wigs and get into the characters and I think she sort of—not to speak for her, of course—but that she approached it like she was acting,”
We don’t know about you, but we might be seriously falling for the Good Witch.
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