Couture Monday: Black pearls from Armani

June 4, 2012

While this summer palette from Armani is essentially the same as their 2011 holiday palette (only with black of mother-of-pearl instead of white), I'm in love with it…and the whole summer collection, for that matter.  I rarely connect to the descriptions that come with collections – I find them to be fairly empty – but the copy for Armani's Les Ecailles really spoke to me and is definitely part of the inspiration for the Museum's summer exhibition (coming soon!).  "This summer, Giorgio Armani Cosmetics reveals a new facet to uncover the mysterious allure of the sea: women’s beauty linked with the depths of the sea, where reds and oranges disappear, giving way to cooler liquid tones."   Linda Cantello, International Makeup Artist for Armani, says, "This collection is inspired by the play of moonlight on the ocean, by myriad shades from inky depths, by white and black pearls. The complexion is pale and luminous, lips are soft and feminine."  I love these two ideas:  the mystery held by the depths of the sea and the patterns light makes when it reflects off the ocean.

Onto the palette, which contains "a harmonious blend of deep sea blue, algae, lagoon turquoise and shimmering crest-of-a-wave white: colours to awaken eyes with a splash of natural radiance."

With flash:

Inside:

With flash:

As with the holiday 2011 Madreperla palette, this one draws on Armani's spring/summer 2012 fashion collection.   As one review says,  "The theme was aqua—or perhaps more accurately, what happens to aqua when moonlight hits it and causes all sorts of ripples and reflections."  I chose to highlight some of the darker-hued pieces from the collection:

In looking at the spring-summer collection again, I noticed that the colors on the runway are identical to some found in the summer makeup collection.  For example, these blue and aqua dresses are the same shades of the two middle colors in the summer palette. 

And this shimmery blackened teal blouse  is exactly the same as the summer collection's Eyes to Kill eye shadow in Obsidian Black (shown in natural light on top and with flash below):

(runway images from vogue.com)

Again, while a mother-of-pearl palette is more or less a repeat of holiday 2011's star product, I feel Armani took it in a new direction.  When you see the palette with the rest of the colors in the collection and compare them to those on the runway, it does feel more inspired and distinct from the white mother-of-pearl palette we saw a few months ago, rather than merely recycled.

What do you think?