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Oscar red carpet beauty: Get Vera Farmiga’s high-low up-do

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Supporting actress nominee (for ‘Up In the Air’) Vera Farmiga took a fashion risk with her huge, ruffled fuschia-toned Marchesa gown — so her hairstylist, Lona Vigi, wanted to keep her tresses low-key but big enough to balance out her bombastic ensemble.

‘It’s a lot of dress,’ Vigi said, ‘and it’s beautiful and vibrant, so we basically wanted to keep the hair off her face, but also keep it strong.’ Key to the look was making sure Farmiga’s hairstyle complemented her narrow face shape. ‘We wanted to make sure we saw hair on the bottom when you looked at her straight-on -- it’s good with her face shape. I didn’t just want to have no hair.’

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Here’s how Vigi achieved volume on top and bottom, without losing the pretty proportions:

--She dried Farmiga’s hair with a Velecta Paramount Paris blow-drier, using Volumizing Catalyst (a product that helps lift the roots) from LiQWD. For added volume on top, she round-brushed it dry, concentrating on the roots.

--Vigi gently back-combed the hair on top and in the back to get a little lift all-around.

--Then she tied the bottom section to the nape of her neck with an elastic, wrapping the ponytail, section by section, into a loose chignon secured by bobby pins. ‘Vera’s like me, we don’t like hair super constricted, so it looks really serious,’ she said.

--Next, the hairdresser added a Fred Leighton diamond brooch to her hair on the left-back side for a little razzle-dazzle.

--And finally, she sprayed the entire look with L’oreal Elnett hairspray for a light hold.

--Emili Vesilind

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RELATED: More Oscar fashion | Red carpet interviews | Cheat sheet | Printable ballot | More A new Times database puts readers on the sidewalks of Hollywood, using more than a century of archives to track the lives of the stars, including current Oscar nominees Jeff Bridges, James Cameron, Matt Damon, Morgan Freeman, Sandra Bullock and Meryl Streep.

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