While my primary focus is the relationship between art and cosmetics, this Vogue article on perfume was too interesting not to post about.
The magazine reports that Sophie Matisse (yes, she's the granddaughter of the famous Henri Matisse ) has hand-painted a series of new perfumes by Kilian Hennessey. Several things caught my attention while reading the article: 1. Matisse actually painted the design on each bottle herself – this is very different from having an artist create a design and having it mechanically reproduced onto thousands of the same product. 2. There is an actual catalogue of items listing each bottle. "And just like in an art gallery, each $1,500 flacon will appear in an illustrated catalog at the counter (and online at bykilian.com), tagged with a tiny red dot upon sale."
Each comes with a beautiful box as well:
(all photos from bykilian.com)
This is such a great idea, and I wish that makeup companies would come up with something like this. The perfume bottles are refillable, and I think a refillable compact would be the logical counterpart. Of course, the paint would have to be durable enough not to flake off or fade from being thrown into a purse, but I think it could be done…it would be quite literally the intersection of art and cosmetics.
French company Bourjois came out with these palettes for the 2006 holiday season, which was a nice tie-in to Sephora's circus theme that year. By definition, a circus is meant to be purely for entertainment, and these definitely capture the spirit.
(gift of Melissaginparis)
The illustrations in each remind me a bit of this 1891 Seurat painting, The Circus:
There are several similarities between the images on the palette and Seurat's work. First, both the painting and the Tantalizing Tamer image contain an audience, and the latter's audience is not contemporary but appear to be from the late 1800s, which is particulaly evident in the men in top hats in the background on either side of the tamer. Second, there's a sense of motion in the Acrobat palette and the painting – the acrobats are flying through both images. Third, both the palettes and the painting have something obstructing the image slightly on the sides. In Seurat's work the clown seems to be pulling the floor of the circus (or canvas - a delicious little touch), which is slightly blocking the view on the right and cutting off part of the tamer. In both Bourjois palettes the images are cut off a bit by the flowered pattern.
Finally, Bourjois is French and so was Seurat, plus the acrobat perched on the swing in her showgirl costume reminds me of Satine in the film Moulin Rouge.
In any case, I think Bourjois did a great job capturing the feel and motion of "the greatest show on earth!"
I decided to dedicate this installment of Couture Monday to Shu Uemura's newest in false eyelashes. Each year the company adds a host of new pairs to their Tokyo Lash Bar collection. These lashes are not for the faint of heart. Featuring bright colors, rhinestones, and unusual materials, these are meant for those who want to make an impression. Some examples:
(photos from shuuemura-usa.com)
As if these weren't elaborate enough, this year Shu significantly upped the ante by collaborating with high-end fashion duo Viktor & Rolf to create "couture" false eyelashes. "Blink couture this fall with Viktor & Rolf's luxurious handmade false eyelashes designed for Shu Uemura," the promotional e-mail reads. At $95 per pair, these definitely have a couture price tag (although still not as expensive as Madonna's $10,000 mink lashes, but that's another story.)
From left to right: Wing Couture, Swirl Couture, and Rhombus Couture:
And the promo ad:
These were inspired by Viktor & Rolf's spring/summer 2008 line, which in turn was inspired by Marcel Marceau, a pioneer of pantomime1 – hence the white mask the lashes are adhered to as well as on the model. The diamond pattern on the rhombus pair is reminiscent of a harlequin's costume and this pattern also adorns the model. What I love about this collection and the promo ad is that they really do go along with the designers' vision for their spring collection – a conflation of traditional clowns and mimes. Fashion reviewers pointed out the "Pierrot" collar and one of the looks is a quite literal interpretation of Pierrot, a stock "sad clown" character from French and Italian theatre. Compare it to Antoine Watteau's 1718 painting of Pierrot:
(photos from style.com and louvre.fr)
In keeping with the harlequin theme several of the pieces featured diamond patterns as well:
I think this is a terrifically well-executed collaboration between Shu and Vikor & Rolf – couture, art and makeup all come together in such a cohesive, meaningful way. And the lashes are really spectacularly designed around the concept of the silent mime…when wearing these lashes, you can let your eyes do all the talking!
1 Ally Pyle, "Pantomime Flair", https://www.vogue.co.uk/beauty/news/080506-shu-uemuraviktor-rolf.aspx
The Curator is visiting Philip Johnson's Glass House for the weekend and enjoying the crisp fall weather up there. Stay tuned for a post on fun packaging next Friday. :)
(all photos from time.com)
Today I'm taking a look back at Yves Saint Laurent's Fauve palette from the fall 2005 collection. It's a square compact filled with a shimmery leopard-print powder.
Fauve translates to "large feline" or "predator" in French so it's a fitting name, but I was curious as to why the company named it that instead of going with plain old leopard. So I asked City Girl, Brooklyn-based author of a very informative blog on city lifestyle (and whose first language is French!) if she could shed some light on this. According to her, the French have several words for this kind of creature: guepard, panthere and léopard. She hypothesized that since léopard is not usually used in the fashion sense, and Cartier has a "panthere" collection, and "fauve" is more encompassing than guepard, it made the most sense for YSL to name the palette fauve. Interesting, no?
Now let's look into why YSL chose a leopard print. The copy for the palette said that the palette was "inspired by one
of the most distinctive fashion features of the legendary design house." While I don't think the use of leopard print is the number-one icon of YSL, the company does utilize it frequently (and wisely, I would say) on accessories:
(photos from ysl.com/us)
Although sometimes the brand ventures out and uses it on clothing:
(photo from style.com)
(photos from bergdorfgoodman.com – note that you can't actually click to zoom…these are screenshots and I didn't want to cut off the model's feet so I didn't crop out that part.)
Judging from these, I'd say it's appropriate for YSL to use the leopard print on a compact – it definitely goes with the fashion the company produces (even though Yves stepped down in 2002). Plus, in my opinion even in compact form there's something about leopard print that makes the wearer feel powerful, a bit dangerous and definitely wild. Call it the Fauve effect.
Speaking of which, now it's time for a little art lesson! The palette's name brings to mind one my favorite (though short-lived) art movements: fauvism. Starting around 1905 and led by Henri Matisse, fauvism was characterized by an unfettered use of intense colors, strong brushwork, and a flat, almost 2-d approach to the picture plane. Fauvism got its name from an art critic who, upon seeing the colorful work of this group mixed in with a conventional, Renaissance-type sculpture, exclaimed, "Donatello au milieu des fauves!"1
Some examples:
Andre Derain's Charing Cross Bridge, London (1906)
(photo from National Gallery of Art)
Maurice de Vlaminck's The River Seine at Chatou (1906)
(photo from Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Luxe, Calme et Volupté (1904-1905) by Matisse – the title is taken from an 1857 poem by Baudelaire.1
(photo from wikipedia)
So what can we conclude from all this? Perhaps it's that in makeup as in art, the wild beast within us sometimes cannot be tamed. ;)
1 Arnason, H.H. and Marla F. Prather. History of Modern Art, 4th edition. (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1998) p. 132. For more comments on the title, see this essay.
2 Arnason, p. 131. For further reading: Whitfield, Sarah. Fauvism. (Thames and Hudson, 1996.) You can also check out this online exhibit of Fauvism at the National Gallery.
Oops, they did it again! That is, Shu Uemura has released a new advanced formula cleansing oil, and in honor of its launch created a limited-edition, Asia-exclusive bottle. It's not clear when the advanced formula will hit the States. But what's bothering me more than that uncertainty is the fact that I don't know if an artist collaborated on the bottle's design.
It's impossible to tell whether this is something the company has come up with or if an outside artist was brought in. (As mentioned earlier, Shu has a history of working with artists on designs for the cleansing oil bottles.) I'm guessing this is something the company did itself since there's no mention of an artist on the bottle or box.
The abstract flourish is reminiscent of this painting by Franz Kline:
(photo from moma.org)
I think it's fitting that Shu chose an abstract design for this product. The idea of a product having a new "advanced" formula is difficult to express visually, so a simple abstract brushstroke in silver works well in terms of signaling the release of a new and improved product.
Lancôme has released its fall collection: "Inspired by the rich colors of India, from the raw earth
browns to the intensely vibrant reds, plums and oranges reminiscent of Indian
dyes, Maharani Jewels brings back artistry to Lancôme collections." The star of the lineup is the Sun of India bronzing powder, a golden shimmery powder embossed with a rearing elephant wearing a brilliant red cover on its back.
It reminds me a tiny bit of this painting by Théodore Géricault:
(photo from art.com)
Of course, 19th-century French Romanticism doesn't have anything to do with a 21st-century bronzer, but I find it interesting that Lancôme chose to have the elephant standing on two legs rather than four, since the placement and stance of the elephant doesn't affect the application of the product. In any case, I'm thoroughly enjoying the sumptuousness and richness of the colors as well as the detailing surrounding the elephant. Hopefully Lancôme will delve more fully into elaborate palette designs.
I received this e-mail from MAC recently and was struck by the artist name-dropping.
The website continues: “The endorsement of Make up as a medium that mimics Art. The references; calligraphic brush strokes of colour, street art doodlings, the golden gilding of Gustav Klimt, the underage naïfs of artist Egon Shiele. Despite their differences, all are art.”
Klimt-style gilding? Vermeer shading? Pointillism? Egon Schiele? It’s great that MAC is trying to make the art of makeup application as literal as possible, but the artists and techniques mentioned, for the most part, don’t have much to do with the looks MAC has come up with.
First, compare the shading in this Vermeer with any of the looks in the MAC e-mail. The lighting and shadows are much more subtle. As much as MAC tried, the colors used in those looks don’t have the softness of a Vermeer.
(photo from essentialvermeer.com)
I don’t see any of the gold used in a Klimt painting, like this one:
(photo from wikiepedia)
Georges Seurat, painter of A Sunday on La Grande Jatte (you might recognize this painting from the 1986 comedy “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”), would be very curious to see how MAC interpreted his pointillist technique for their applications. Compare a closeup of his work to the MAC looks:
(photo from webexhibits.org)
There’s nothing remotely resembling pointillism. Bits of eye shadow dotted on the lid would not have the same optical effect as dots on a canvas. Surely MAC knows this so I’m not sure why they would bring up pointillism.
Finally, I’m guessing that the “Colourwash” look is supposed to be the reference to Egon Schiele‘s “underage naïfs”. But red lips by themselves don’t necessarily evoke Schiele.
(Schiele photo from ibiblio.org)
MAC is wonderful for making a connection between makeup application and high art, but their execution could have been a little better. For example, I see a bit of Franz Marc in the “Flora and Fauna” eye look. The similarity lies in the large swaths of bright color and a darker color for depth – yellow all over the lid and dark greenish brown in the crease in MAC’s look, yellow for the horses’ bodies and dark green for their manes in the Marc painting.
(Marc image from soho-art.com)
Perhaps they should retain an art historian (me!) on staff to consult on any promotions mentioning famous artists. 😉
