INSPIRATION

Noir” and “Blanc,” the CHANEL absolutes, made elegant, timeless and iconic by Gabrielle Chanel and still the enduring signature of her House today. For Fall-Winter 2019, black and white, the ultimate symbolic (non) colors of CHANEL, are explored and reinterpreted by Lucia Pica, CHANEL Global Creative Makeup and Color Designer, for a stylized and sumptuous beauty collection. Find the collection here. 

From the formalized and abstract to the silken and sensuous, Lucia Pica infuses her new approach to these power colors of CHANEL with both an appreciation oftheir transcendent absolutism and an eye for the nuanced gradations of the spaces in-between. In tune with the Modernist architectural and cultural environment of Paris, part of the embracement by  CHANEL of black and white could be seen as a reflection of her time; the ebony and ivory of Art Deco interiors, the delineated graphic lines of the Moderne, the stylized photographic and cinematic images that proliferated, even those images of Mademoiselle herself…

THE FACE
An aura of shimmering glamor envelops the face. The lighting of stage and studio, transformative in its intent, turning the new stars of the twenties and thirties into the gods and goddesses of film and photography, is called upon in a new way.

Transmuted into a gel, both silken and sparkling, light is caught and reflected by the wearer veiled in LE GEL PAILLETÉ. Here, nourished and highlighted by this rich formulation, the wearer embraces a heady world of twilight shimmer for the face and décolleté. Alternatively, it might simply and sparingly be used as another texture to transform and highlight the everyday.

THE EYES
The cinematic and dramatic, emotional and sensuous, stylized and shadowy… The eyes have it in the world of NOIR ET BLANC DE CHANEL. Playing against a subtle backdrop, the eyes are the intense focus of the collection. A gradation of blacks, browns, silvers, greys and whites evokes screen sirens of an earlier black-and-white era.

White and Black are at their most literal and purposeful in the STYLO YEUX WATERPROOF. Here, the Blanc Graphique is contrasted against the classic Noir Intense, a brightening and refreshing white liner against the deep and penetrating black.

LES 4 OMBRES eyeshadow palette is revived and reinvigorated this season, with more sumptuous pigmentation and diffusion. Here, in the Noir Suprême palette, the rich, complementary browns of early black-and-white photography are evoked, velvety, warm and seductive. Modern Glamour, the sister palette, deals with more sparkling, contrasted tones of the silver print, where chilly whites
and satin greys are contrasted against intense black matte.

OMBRE PREMIÈRE TOP COAT features sumptuous yet subtle shine, a
glamorous outer layer, to be built on more familiar contrasted textures and
colors. Here, the Pénombre is a luminous black with gold reflections, while
Carte Blanche, its inverted twin, white with silver sparkle.

THE LIPS
“There are moments of lightness with a sparkling tone and that was very much from photography; from photographing light at night. There is also something borrowed from the way color changes in the dark.” Lucia Pica In NOIR ET BLANC DE CHANEL nature is transfigured, particularly in lip color. Here it is color at night that proves so evocative, natural yet supernatural, an in-between world of hues observed anew.

For the ROUGE COCO GLOSS, Laque Noire, a deep black cherry is summoned to slick the lips with high and rich shine. Crystal Clear is the counterpart, a transparent top coat redolent with subtle sparkle and suggestiveness. In contrast, ROUGE ALLURE LIQUID POWDER is nature smoothly tamed, gently blurred and matte. Bois de Nuit, is a light, warm rosewood and Timeless a light caramel beige. ROUGE ALLURE VELVET EXTRÊME extends the idea of a garden at night with Rose Nocturne, a deep matte rosebud, almost like a second skin. While Rouge Obscur, a deep, rich, burgundy, stains the lips like a fine wine.

THE NAILS
“I love the power of black and white. I like the idea that they could almost be seen as quite abstract and yet are so clear.” Lucia Pica

“Noir” and “Blanc,” the purity of absolutes, is fully embraced for nails, their beauty and harmony unbowed. At once abstract and part of a new reality for LE VERNIS, the optic white and intense black betray no compromise on their opacity. LE VERNIS Pure Black is both sumptuous and enveloping, proving itself a new kind of classic for nails. Playing with ideas of pop and the profound, the new black is seen as most at home on the fingertips.

LE VERNIS Pure White is both startling and appealing, almost aggressively innocent in its approach. Its opacity and purity together with its spirit of abstraction feel like a CHANEL classic from the future.