“We did a Zoom call the day before the shoot and Priyanka was just super raw and breathtakingly – like, obscenely – beautiful,” says Tamara McNaughton, the hairstylelist who created the Rapunzel-esque waves you can see tumbling over Priyanka on Chopra Jldonas’s shou the cover ofBritish Vogue‘s February issue. “We’re used to seeing her so put together, but this is more of a personal story and we wanted that honesty and rawness to shine through.”

The team – which also included Hollywood super-stylist Law Roach, make-up artist Fara Homidi and photographer Zoë Ghertner – took inspiration from old Richard Avedon images, where models were “engulfed in hair”. The idea was to create a modern version on Priyanka.

McNaughton made Priyanka’s hair longer, more voluminous and thick with the help of some tape hair extensions in an array of different colours, including taupe, beige, caramel, tonal browns and dark blondes. While hair extensions often get a bad rap, Priyanka is proof that they can look natural, so that “no one knows you have them in”, as McNaughton says.

“The trick is to use smaller, thinner extension tapes that are in line with the natural hair texture,” explains McNaughton. “It doesn’t look good when super dense tracks are used – you end up seeing big, solid lines that don’t t match the hair that’s there.”

To create the raw texture, McNaughton exaggerated Priyanka’s natural flyaways and frizz, as if her hair had been exposed to humidity. “She has a wave to her hair, so we built on this natural texture using a diffuser, some Bumble & Bumble Salt Spray , Oribe Dry Powder and Sisley’s new Volumizing Spray,” says McNaughton. “Whenever her hair got dry, I sprayed water on it to create a beachy, holiday-style finish.”

To complement that excellent mane, Homidi created a clean, ultra fresh make-up look on the actor. “I hadn’t seen Priyanka looking undone before, so I wanted to do something a little more radical. It was all about creating a little flush on her cheeks to make her skin look bright, without being too make-up-y,” she explains. That meant forgoing mascara, eyeshadow and foundation, something Priyanka said she had never done before on a shoot. To even out skin tone , Homidi blended some concealer under her eyes and wherever it was needed, such as around the nose and the mouth.

“I wanted all make-up to look like a veil over the face, so that you could really see through it,” she adds. “I custom-mixed different cream formulas to create a pomegranate shade that mimicked her natural lip colour, and applied it on both lips and cheeks.” The trick is to use cream-based products – not only are they super easy to use, Homidi explains, they also make any complexion color look like it is “coming from within”.