It's just a few hours before it's officially 2016 here on the East Coast, so with that in mind, here are the Curator's picks and pans in makeup packaging/design for 2015. I'll start with the picks.
1. PaiPai! This new-to-me brand captured my heart when I read that for each season's collection a different artist is chosen to create the packaging. Additionally, the line pays tribute to Mexico's cultural heritage by featuring only Mexican artists, which I think is genius.
2. For her first limited edition/artist collab, Charlotte Tilbury did an excellent job borrowing the work of famed Vogue photographer Norman Parkinson to appear on a carefully selected lineup of face products and bags. Nars, please take note – THIS is how you team up with a fashion photographer.
3. I squealed out loud when I first laid eyes on Paul & Joe's precious Cap'n Kitty face powder. It's the most adorable cat they've done in a while, and Paul & Joe is no stranger to putting cute cats on their packaging.
Lastly, I'm going to toot my own horn and give an honorable mention to my own (entirely fictional) Broad City collection. 🙂
And now for the pans* – items that I think could have been a little (okay, a lot) better.
1. I am still scratching my head over Dior's Kingdom of Color spring 2015 collection. Apparently it was inspired by Dior's "love of color" (really, who doesn't love color?) and the items were embossed with the Dior crest. However, I have no idea why they went with the crest for this particular collection; it sounds like their marketing team decided to slap it on everything and dreamed up a faux majestic name that weakly attempts to tie into both the crest and Dior's "love of color". Eh. Compared with Dior's previous releases this could have been more inspired and less muddled. I would have focused solely on the crest or the use of vivid color in Dior's collections instead of trying to make some vague connection between the two.
2. It was a tie between Yaz Bukey for Shu and Philip Treacy for MAC. Both collections had the same problem: great idea, not-so-great execution. Shu and MAC had the luxury of collaborating with some very talented designers, but their visions just weren't reflected well in the finished product (at least in my opinion.)
3. And another tie (I know I'm kind of cheating here but again, these items suffered from the same affliction in my eyes, making them one and same): Craig & Karl for Sephora and Keith Haring for Clarisonic. I admit that maybe these weren't so bad packaging-wise, but I find both Haring's and Craig & Karl's work to be extremely ugly. There I said it.
(images from sephora.com and nordstrom.com)
Do you agree with my picks and pans? Take a look through the archives if you're so inclined and let me know yours. Oh, and you can also see picks and pans for 2014, 2013, and 2011.
*I would have included the Nars/Steven Klein garbage in my most disappointing items of the year, but 1. I don't want to revisit the collection as it still pisses me off so much; and 2. I initially thought the packaging was interesting before I found out what a tool Mr. Klein is.