Backstage Beauty at Juliette Hogan 2010

Models backstage at Juliette Hogan. Photo / Supplied

Juliette Hogan's clothes are always serene, and feminine: a Juliette girl wouldn't shout at her friends, text while she's talking or use naughty words. So not surprisingly, her backstage presence is cool and calm, even as hair and makeup artists swarm around the pretty things.

"I wanted the hair and makeup to be a sixties housewife, melodramatic," she says.

Melodramatic, at Juliette Hogan? How?

"Well, true - in my world that's a slightly deeper tint on the cheek, a slightly deeper lip," she laughs.

The vibe is very much Mad Men's Betty Draper meets vavavoom Joan (and sure enough, one of the sexier dresses she sends out is named after the siren of the show).

With three looks ranging from angelic good girl at the beginning, through slightly dishevelled to way out there, Jo Roughan and the MAC team have played with lip colour and slightly messier eyes to mark the transition. You can imagine Betty's gradual decline as she finishes her third martini of the afternoon and the cigarette stub pile grows in the ashtray.

Skin is luminous, creamy and pale (a mix of Moisture Lotion with Studio Sculpt foundation) with more luminosity in a sweep of Emphasise powder across the cheekbones.

The sixties brow - emphatic, with an appealing flick at the end to open the eye - is balanced by the lids finished with liquid liner (another flick) and a stack of #34 eyelashes. The lip is finished in Hogan's favourite colour, soft pink Blankety.

Lauren Gunn's team from Stephen Marr have relished the brief to do real, grown-up up-dos.

"It's great to do something more structured and formal, to do a look that's really impactful. And to stage it from good girl to bad. Always Juliette is referencing retro - I think she'd happily take a time machine back to the fifties or sixties if she could. Her collections are all about femininity, but in the positive, confident way - not wallflower - so we amplified that conservative with a bit of edge."

Achieving the look of upswept beehive with French twist at the back is more complex than it looks (isn't it always?).

All the hair is set into huge curls, then the top sectioned off into a ponytail, backcombed and teased to create a good solid 'nest'. The front and back hair is then swept around - sleek and smooth for the good girls, increasingly random for the naughtier looks (anchored with Sebastian Volupt Spray and finished with Reshaper). A twist of ribbon - signature ballet pink through to clean black - finishes the twist.

Betty could do with the dose of happiness.

TRY THIS AT HOME: A modern brow is tricky to get right - light pencil, some setting and a very, very light hand can take everyday to more theatrical. Be brave with a little pointy flick at the end (and match with a flick of eyeliner).