“It was horrendous, and it was quick. The entire thing was over earlier than I’d really drawn a breath,” says make-up artist Lisa Eldridge, recounting a second of stomach-dropping triumph: successful Audrey Hepburn’s lipstick case at Christie’s in 2017. (Public sale information present a wholesome five-figure tag, therefore the Fifties relic “lives in a really massive secure,” she provides.) The Cartier tube, made from 18-karat gold with a cabochon sapphire, hails from a time of on a regular basis pageantry, earlier than plastic upended cosmetics packaging. Now, amid a push for extra fanfare and ideally much less waste, lipstick is once more an object of infatuation. What’s inside nonetheless counts—Eldridge gleefully found the actor’s shade of salmon pink, which can but spark concepts for her personal line—however glamour calls for a bundle deal.
A ceramic-clad lipstick in grisaille toile de Jouy—Dior Magnificence’s feat with French porcelain maison Bernardaud, known as Rouge Premier—is a becoming place to start out. “It’s as shut as you’ll be able to hyperlink it to a high fashion gown,” says Peter Philips, artistic and picture director of Dior Make-up. Supplied in a dozen interchangeable shades, the brand new system options pink hibiscus extract (pores and skin reviving) and pure gold (why not). “It catches folks’s consideration,” he says of the design, “however in a really discreet, very elegant manner.” That’s, if one manages to not drop it.
Lipstick, after all, can talk as a lot in hand as on the mouth. This season for Hermès, Pierre Hardy has given his striped bullet a dip-dye impact, a moody gesture in three variations. In contrast, Chanel’s 31 Le Rouge is ethereal and architectural. The refillable glass case, belted in gold and constructed to accompany a roster of 12 shades, has an inconceivable Cinderella attraction: fragile but prepared for the ball. “The Japanese grasp glassmaker labored an absolute miracle,” says Sylvie Legastelois, Chanel’s director of packaging creation and graphic id. “This lipstick is sort of a jewel.” In the meantime, Guerlain’s vacation entry is unmistakably a bauble: a gem-studded bee perched on a Rouge G case by Turkish jewellery model Begüm Khan. Bee-stung lips certainly.
There’s a historical past of lipsticks enjoying exterior the cylinder: Elsa Schiaparelli’s trompe l’oeil melting candle (c. 1940), Louis Nichilo’s Leaning Tower of Pisa (c. 1960), Salvador Dalí’s fluted tube with a 3D mouth (c. 1990—an inspiration for Pat McGrath Labs). However Isamaya Ffrench’s LIPS places the innuendo entrance and heart: Its shiny phallic case appears to be like as if Louise Bourgeois and Jeff Koons partnered on the design. (A set of refill shades arrives later this month, becoming a member of the prevailing three.) Ffrench, who collects “bizarre and delightful objects,” is happy so as to add to the canon. “Surprisingly, such a easy idea might be so exhausting to execute,” she says. “No pun supposed.”
