Clear definitions of luxury are rare, but we usually know when it’s encountered. Beauty, when done right, is always a luxury. It can be felt in the weight of a compact, the weightless texture of powder, the saturation of lipstick. It can be sensed in design – often refillable and engineered for longevity.
La Beauté Louis Vuitton embodies these qualities. The new category, created in collaboration with legendary makeup artist Pat McGrath, pushes past the boundaries of what it means to launch a luxury beauty line. And it makes perfect sense. Since 1854, Louis Vuitton has been focused on exquisite craftsmanship. With origins in trunk creation, the house has always paid close attention to beauty. Even then, the trunks were created with cushiony insides to protect fine fragrance on long trips. They invented the modern vanity case alongside other beauty objets: tortoiseshell hair brushes, ivory mirrors and compacts.
Now, La Beauté reimagines this in a modern sense. The curation includes 55 lipstick shades of LV Rouge (55 being a nod to LV as a Roman numeral), 10 shades of LV Baume, eight shades of LV Ombres and additional beauty accessories including cases, blotting papers and brushes.
The jewel in the crown is LV Ombres, an exceptionally beautiful eyeshadow palette. Each contains four shades, three designed for easy wearability and the fourth to surprise and delight. Like pressed cashmere, they wash the eyes with beautiful pigment – “bold, intentional and made to be remembered,” muses McGrath.
The palette itself is a keepsake – refillable and designed by industrial furniture designer Konstantin Grcic, it draws on the golden ring motif, a well-known LV house code. Made of aluminium and brass, it’s heavy but sleek; a weighty compact that looks and feels like a little piece of art.
LV Rouge provides a lip gesture in two finishes: satin and matte. The shade range is vast: soft nude through to bold red, rich fuchsia and deep berry. Enriched with up-cycled rose, jasmine and mimosa flower waxes, plus shea butter and hyaluronic acid, the formula is hydrating and supremely comfortable. If the preference is sheer colour, LV Baume affords rich hydration and lip-enhancing pigment.
The bullets are also infinitely refillable, and carry a custom scent. Designed by Louis Vuitton in-house perfumer Jacques Cavellier Belletrud, the note profiles are inspired by flowers used in the personal perfume metier, Les Fontaines Parfumées. "Creating fragrance for a lipstick is a completely different challenge than for skin. The scent sits much closer to the wearer’s nose, so it must be delicate yet expressive, something that seduces first the wearer herself before anyone else,” Belletrud explains. “We were inspired by classic lipstick scents of the past, but I wanted to break that tradition to offer something truly modern and immersive, rooted in Louis Vuitton’s codes of excellence. We used flowers native to Grasse: mimosa, jasmine, rose."
In line with Vuitton's history, La Beauté also includes a number of accompanying accessories: blotting papers in leather notebooks, vanity cases designed exclusively to hold your lipstick. It's beauty but it's also accessory – collectables and keepsakes designed to last.
And with Pat McGrath as the creative director, arguably the most decorated makeup artist in the world, it's everything you'd dream of from a luxury house: brilliant colour, unexpected details, wearability, longevity, wonderful textures and finishes. To hold it and to wear it is to know that's it's precious.
Louis Vuitton La Beauté is available on the Louis Vuitton website, as well as in selected Louis Vuitton boutiques.
PHOTOGRAPHY Sam Armstrong
FASHION Hannah Cooper
MODELS Bakhita Lual @ Merci Management,
Lily Hallgathjolly @ Priscillas, Sherry Lin @ The Scouted
HAIR Darren Summors @ AP—REPS
MAKEUP Katie Angus @ AP—REPS
PHOTOGRAPHER’S ASSISTANT Remy Mitchell James
STYLIST’S ASSISTANT Koby Dulac-Daley
CREATIVE STUDIO & CAMPAIGNS MANAGER Olivia Repaci
