Giambattista Valli, famous for his breathtaking floral-inspired dresses, announced a collaboration with Mac Cosmetics on Friday. The range consists of 5 matte shades of lipstick: a pale pink, a deep plum, a peony shade, mandarin and a warm, deep rose. Oh, and as if this wasn’t enough awesome news for one day, a lipgloss will be released as part of the collection as well.
The packaging is just gorgeous, with the tubes matching the colour of the lipstick inside. My question is: Why don’t they always do this? It would save lipstick hoarders like me so much time in the mornings.
The collection is set for release in Summer 2015. For South Africans, that translates to winter 2015, assuming that the collection is actually ever released in my country. Positive thoughts, positive thoughts…
Valli based his collaboration with Mac on “the idea of dressing your lips” and the inspiration for these wonderful lippies can be traced across Valli’s past collections. Recognise these hues below?
As a cool-skinned beauty junkie, I can’t wait to try on the deep plum on the far right. Imagine how deliciously witchy it would look paired with a long black maxi dress and black fedora?
Which colours are your favourites and how would you style them? I always love to hear from you!
Kendall Jenner dwarfing half-sister Kim Kardashian out and about in LA
I almost choked on my morning tea when an announcement by Vogue popped up in my Facebook news feed declaring Kendall Jenner to be the new face of Estee Lauder. Of course, if I was one of Jenner’s 9.08 million Twitter followers , I would have saved a few valuable minutes by finding out the big news from Ms Jenner herself. Kendall Jenner is best known for being Kim Kardashian’s half-sister, although she has modeled for 2014 New York, Paris and Milan fashion weeks.
At 19 years old and with her roots in reality TV, Kendall Jenner could not be more different in both age and background from previous faces of Estee Lauder like Elizabeth Hurley and Gwyneth Paltrow. Both women became representatives of Estee Lauder in their late-thirties or early-forties when they were well-established in their modelling and acting careers respectively. For this reason, many see Estee Lauder as the beauty brand for the discerning older woman: elegant, mature, refined.
Electing Kendall Jenner as the new face of Estee Lauder is therefore a controversial move that could potentially alienate the brand’s existing customer base. I visited the Estee Lauder South Africa Facebook page and saw the following comments: “Already had plastic surgery on her face, get a real girl” and “Estee Lauder you have just lost a loyal customer!”
Ouch… So, why take a risk with reality-star-turned-model Kendall Jenner? This video, created by Estee Lauder to introduce Kendall as their brand ambassador, makes everything clear:
In the video, Jenner refers to her social media influence, stating that having so many people interested in what she does makes her want to be the best person she can be. As well as the 9.08 million Twitter followers that I mentioned earlier, Kendall Jenner also has an astounding 15.8 million followers on Instagram.
This kind of influence is something that Estee Lauder definitely need to cash in on. 2014 hasn’t been a good year for Estee Lauder with shares in the company declining by 5.3% this year. When looking at the figures, the company’s only option to remain relevant in the beauty world is to attract a younger audience. And who better to help them out than social media queen Kendall Jenner?
Boosting sales isn’t the only benefit of using Kendall Jenner and her social media cultural capital to attract a younger audience. More importantly, Kendall Jenner has the power to influence the values that customers associate with the Estee Lauder brand, for better or for worse. In her introductory video, Kendall shares a video clip of her as a child playing dress-up with her mother’s Estee Lauder makeup. I have similar memories of playing at sophistication with the Estee Lauder lipsticks, polishes and powders in my granny’s red leather vanity case.
As we get older, we forget about the playfulness at the heart of makeup and become more concerned with using cosmetics to conceal the passage of time. As the face of Estee Lauder, a brand typically marketed towards older women, Kendall Jenner is in the position to remind us that we should not lose sight of this playfulness in our experiences of cosmetics at any cost.
Giambattista Valli, famous for his breathtaking floral-inspired dresses, announced a collaboration with Mac Cosmetics on Friday. The range consists of 5 matte shades of lipstick: a pale pink, a deep plum, a peony shade, mandarin and a warm, deep rose. Oh, and as if this wasn’t enough awesome news for one day, a lipgloss will be released as part of the collection as well.
myfrienddecadence.wordpress.com 
