Fall Beauty Bliss, via New Zealand Fashion Week

New York Fashion Week officially commences Thursday, but contrary to popular New Yorker opinion, there exists a world outside this fair city — as evidenced by New Zealand Fashion Week, which today provides us with our autumn beauty inspiration. Behold, the look backstage at Zambesi:

Even though this look was technically destined for Spring 2014 (or was it? Who knows since the Southern hemisphere has an opposite schedule from us...) the degradé red to black to red again lips and teal eyeliner are summoning us now.

What we love so much about the lip is the imperfection, as if the model layered on a few colors in the morning for staying power, and only brought one with her for the occasional touch up post morning coffee, lunchtime sandwich, afternoon coffee(s), etc.

Factor in an easy teal eye and an otherwise fresh, clean face, and you've got yourself a low-maintenance but quite bold beauty look for fall. The hair covering half the face doesn't hurt in making it so low-maintenance — it practically invites imperfection and a devil-may-care 'tude.

Layering lip colors in the morning (or evening, whenever you're first applying,) helps keep things in place. Start with a lip pencil in nude or the color you'll apply after — never darker — or for something with a bit more kapow, try YSL Beauty's Vernis a Levre and just wait a minute for it to dry before adding a second color.

For something a bit more wearable than black, try a darker red with a hybrid pencil/lipstick, like Nars Velvet Matte.

Slick on more of the first, and stash the pencil into your bag for mirror-free touch ups. For the complete look, don't forget the colorful eyeliner. Kat Von D makes a color that's a close match... and it's called Eyegasm. So.

Happy fall!

Image: Sephora.com