Dame Pat McGrath has been creating the makeup looks for some of the world’s biggest fashion houses for years, including an over 20-year run as Louis Vuitton’s cosmetic creative director. Now, she and the house’s artistic director, Nicolas Ghesquière, have taken that working relationship somewhere more tangible: a limited-edition makeup collection.
La Beauté Louis Vuitton’s first collaboration between the two draws on the house’s signature Monogram, now celebrating its 130th anniversary, to create Monogram Dune and Monogram Infrarouge in a selection of eyeshadows, lipsticks and balms. The two expressions essentially become two very different beauty wardrobes: one soft and neutral, the other dark, red and considerably more dramatic.
The collaboration seems like a natural evolution when you consider how long McGrath and Ghesquière have been working together. Much of their creative relationship has happened backstage, where makeup is developed alongside clothes rather than afterwards.
“Nicolas and I have been building looks together backstage at Louis Vuitton for so many years now there is a shorthand between us: a trust and a creative cohesion,” McGrath says. “The products did not begin with a brief. They began with a feeling.”
That feeling takes two forms.
Monogram Dune is the quieter of the two. Its LV Ombres 724 palette combines icy white, rose gold, bluish-grey and a soft anise shade with pink reflections. The accompanying LV Rouge 724 Satin Lipstick is a warm rosy beige, while the Stellar Veil Topper adds transparent, holographic sparkle that can be worn on its own or over another lip colour.
If Dune is about subtlety, Monogram Infrarouge is considerably less interested in blending into the background. Its four-colour LV Ombres 715 palette moves from rosy beige and cool taupe to sparkling anthracite and burgundy. The matching lipstick is a deeper take on Louis Vuitton’s red, with blackcurrant tones, while the Galactic Veil topper uses holographic glitter for a more multi-dimensional look.
Ghesquière describes Dune as “poetic” and luminous, while Infrarouge is its “fearless heroine”. McGrath sees them less as opposing personalities than different sides of the same one.
“Both of these women: the luminosity of Dune and the fearless intensity of Infrarouge are real,” she says. “They are all of us, at different moments, in different lights.”
The packaging follows the same split. Dune comes in matte off-white aluminium with rose-gold hardware, while Infrarouge moved towards black and red. The collection also extends into small leather accessories, including lipstick pouches, mini vanities and a sleeve for blotting papers.
There is a practical consideration beneath all that branding, too. The eyeshadow, lipstick and balm cases are designed to take recyclable refills, so the outer cases can remain in use while the make-up itself is replaced.
For Ghesquière, moving the relationship beyond the runway was always part of the appeal. “Beauty has always been complementary to how I conceive a silhouette,” he says. “It completes the character, the attitude, the emotion of a look.”
Wanted
