Toning down the red carpet

In this economy, extravagance is out for entertainment awards season

NEW YORK -- The Frederic Fekkai salon on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan was bustling two weeks ago as patrons sipped Champagne and chattered, waiting to have their frizzy locks shaped into coiffed 'dos. As often happens this time of year, gossip turned to the Golden Globes, the Academy Awards and what hairstyles would be hot on the red carpet.

"Hair will be simple, sexy," said Seiji Kitazato, the salon's creative director, as he coaxed a flip out of the tangled mop atop the woman seated in his chair. "Gentle curves, very old Hollywood. But updated this year, so it's a little messy."

As the economy has taken a turn, so too has the public's tolerance for extravagant display. And this year stylists expect celebrities to take their cues from stars popular during the golden age of Hollywood, edging toward classic looks and away from any trend that smacks of ostentatious consumerism.

Stylists agreed that curls will frame necklines, replacing jewel-crusted chandelier earrings, as the newest fashion accessory. Kohl-ringed eyes, like those peering beneath the Bond girl Eva Green's bouffant at the 2007 Academy Awards, will be replaced by softer, smoky colors. And if anyone is wearing handmade mink eyelashes like those promoted by Jennifer Lopez in recent years, it is likely they won't be bragging about them.

"Who is going to want to read about an actress wearing $500 false eyelashes when some people can't make their mortgage payments?" asked Pati Dubroff, a makeup artist who styles Gwyneth Paltrow and Naomi Watts. "No one is going to be pushing the envelope. It's going to be safe and simple, and I don't think there is anything wrong with that."

Such restraint in deference to economic turmoil or, for example, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, is not without precedent. Hollywood is hard-pressed to curb its overindulgent ways, but has proved it can tone down the pageantry when it wants. Five months after the 9/11 attacks, for example, Nicole Kidman appeared on the red carpet at the Academy Awards with elegant, subdued waves while Sandra Bullock and Julia Roberts swept their hair up in tight curls. Those styles are not unlike what stylists predict for the coming awards shows.

Unlike 9/11, which prompted organizers of the Academy Awards to cancel red carpet festivities, a longer-lasting economic pall over the industry will linger, perhaps for years. Sally Hershberger, a top celebrity hairstylist, said she expected beauty trends to revert to classic styles that saw their birth in the Depression and reached an apex in the 1940s when Veronica Lake and Lauren Bacall became fashion icons. In the 1950s, the porcelain-skinned Grace Kelly and her remote elegance reigned on-screen.