AFW Backstage Beauty Report: Bianca Spender X WELEDA
At Bianca Spender’s Australian Fashion Week show, TBTM went backstage with Weleda as the brand brought its skin-first philosophy to the runway. With fresh luminous skin, subtle gold accents and beauty direction focused more on texture than transformation, backstage beauty felt less about heavy glam and more about quiet, wearable luxury.
Australian Fashion Week has long been dominated by designer debuts, front row sightings and runway trends, but increasingly, beauty brands are becoming part of the main conversation rather than simply working quietly in the background.
This year, Weleda stepped into that space, sponsoring skincare and makeup preparation backstage across several key shows, including Bianca Spender, Nagnata and Karla Špetić throughout Australian Fashion Week 2026.
TBTM went backstage with Weleda on day two of the schedule at Bianca Spender, where the atmosphere felt less focused on heavy glam and more centred on skin that looked healthy, and lived-in, using Weleda products like the iconic Skin Food, their Ultra-Light Dry Oil, Super Serum, Body Lotion, and Body Butter. Fashion week beauty is shifting away from obvious makeup and toward skin preparation, texture and overall finish. The backstage glow has become part of the styling language itself.
TBTM spoke with head makeup artist Victoria Baron backstage, who explained that the subtle gold accents seen throughout the show were never intended to overpower the overall beauty direction.
“We don’t want the whole story to be about gold eyes,” Baron explained to us backstage. Instead, the metallic details were used sparingly and selectively, depending on the model, appearing more like jewellery across the face than a traditional statement eye look. Tiny flashes of gold caught the light subtly, adding dimension without distracting from the clothes.
Elegant, without looking too “done.” Fashion week beauty that looked wearable, but still editorial enough to hold its own under runway lighting and backstage cameras.
The beauty direction reflected that perfectly. Skin appeared luminous rather than polished, with makeup sitting lightly over fresh, hydrated complexions. Nothing felt overworked. Instead, the beauty look carried the same quiet ease and softness woven throughout the collection itself.
Weleda’s presence across multiple Australian Fashion Week shows also reflects a broader shift currently happening within fashion and beauty spaces. Beauty brands are no longer simply supplying products backstage for exposure. Increasingly, they are helping shape the overall mood, finish and visual identity of a collection before a model even steps onto the runway.
As fashion continues leaning further into wellness, skin health and understated luxury, backstage beauty partnerships are becoming more strategic, more visible and far more culturally relevant than they once were.
And increasingly, the glow backstage matters just as much as the clothes on the runway.
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