Luxury cosmetics brand Lancôme has teamed up with the Louvre Museum to launch a collection of cosmetics. The aim of this project is to create a dialogue between art and beauty, highlighting female icons from all eras and cultures.
The beauty of women in art is a real source of inspiration for the world of fashion and cosmetics. And it would seem that Lancôme’s collaboration with the Louvre Museum for its new collection is the perfect embodiment of this ideal.
This six-piece limited edition collection includes some of the brand’s current bestsellers, as well as new products, all presented in packaging inspired by the Louvre. The famous Advanced Génifique serum is presented in a reimagined bottle inspired by the goddess Hygie.
Ancient Muses of the Louvre
Each of the four shades of L’Absolu Rouge Drama Matte lipstick is presented in packaging that refers to a muse from the Louvre: the Sleeping Hermaphrodite, Diane de Gabies, the Echo Nymph and the Scorpion Nymph.
The Richelieu Wing eyeshadow palette stands out with its five shimmering new shades, all linked by a relief representing the sculpture of the Greek poet Corine. The shadows themselves are inspired by the lights reflected in the Louvre’s Richelieu Gallery, each named after a different area: Richelieu Galerie Lumière (a muted gold tone), Cour Carrée Cuivre Lumière (rusty bronze), Cour Marly Marbre (a two-tone swirl of white and yellow gold) and Palais Royal Rose (dusty pink gold). The only non-neutral pigment (a cool-toned, shimmering emerald green) is named after the Cour Puget, a ceiling window overlooking the plant-filled courtyard and home to garden sculptures dating from the 17th and 18th centuries.
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“This palette evokes Corine’s struggles, because back then, being both a genius and a woman was difficult,” said makeup artist Lisa Eldridge, Lancôme’s creative makeup director. “Today, [women] can make their own choices and decide how they want to look. One day, we can choose to wear colored lipstick; the next, we can choose not to wear makeup at all. It may not sound revolutionary, but believe me, it is”.
Spotlight on women
Beyond releasing dazzling products clearly intended for festive occasions, the Lancôme and Louvre teams began this collaboration with a broader intention: to shift the spotlight traditionally directed at male artists onto the women who inspired them, according to Rachelle Mladjenovic, Lancôme’s head of marketing.
“There’s a lot of tragedy in artwork, and we want to represent the beautiful stories of women,” she explains. “When we read the profiles of the women who inspired these statues, we immediately thought, ‘This is a Lancôme woman’. We didn’t just want to choose the most famous artist or muse, we wanted to choose the most powerful one.”
The beauty brand called on its roster of celebrity spokeswomen – the women who embody what it means to be a “Lancôme woman” today – to insert themselves into the collection’s artistic campaign, each associated with a specific sculpture housed in the Louvre. Thus, Aya Nakamura, Zendaya, Amanda Seyfried and He Cong mingle with those of the Venus de Milo, the Victory of Samothrace and Diane de Gabies.
In this collab, Zendaya embodies the goddess of victory, Samothrace, reproducing the spread wings of the famous Greek statue with her floaty dress. “To me, her posture shows a confident and victorious woman,” says the actress who became a brand ambassador for the first time in 2019. “A powerful symbol of success. And that’s the real beauty: drawing on our own history to give us wings, a way of empowering ourselves.”
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Read also>AYA NAKAMURA BECOMES THE NEW LANCÔME MUSE
Featured Photo: Lancôme
