Le Métier de Beauté, the prestige color and treatment line launched in 2008, has collaborated with Marchesa for a capsule collection of fall cosmetics.
“We have always been huge fans of their designs, the attention to detail, beading and tactile nature of every gown,” said Joanna Vorachek Austin, president of Le Métier de Beauté. “They embody from a couture standpoint what we embody from a beauty standpoint.”
“We love makeup, and have always enjoyed experimenting with different colors and looks,” said Keren Craig, co-founder of Marchesa. “The partnership with Le Métier was a natural evolution of our brand into cosmetics.”
Marchesa for Le Métier de Beauté offers two five-pan facial palettes each retailing for $65, four lip glosses at $35 each and a liquid-to-powder highlighting pen for $48.
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Craig and Georgina Chapman, Marchesa’s designer, personally composed the facial palettes to reflect their individual styles. Chapman’s palette, dubbed La Lune, is a smoky, high-contrast look, while Craig’s compact, Le Soleil, mixes a bronzer with vibrant hues for eyes and lips.
“We wanted to create a palette that was glamorous but also functional,” Chapman noted. “With a shadow, lip gloss, blush and liner, everything you would need for touch-ups during a night out is accessible and easy to use. The sleekness of the palette was also important to us because evening bags are so small and often do not have room for multiple beauty products.”
The Marchesa products made their debut exclusively at Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman in the U.S. and abroad at Selfridges, Liberty, Printemps, Joyce and Lane Crawford.
Packaging was inspired by the shimmering metallic Marchesa gown worn by Sandra Bullock when she won her first Academy Award in March.
Le Métier de Beauté already had a relationship with the Marchesa duo, styling makeup for their public appearances and runway shows. Next year, the company will expand the Marchesa mark with hues inspired by its spring fashion collection.
In the competitive realm of color cosmetics, Le Métier’s point of differentiation is formulas intended to make application easy and, in some cases, to deliver antiaging treatments, Vorachek Austin said.
Eye shadows, for instance, are finely milled to create veils of color instead of heavy blocks. Peau Vierge Anti-Aging Complex, one of its bestsellers, is a tinted moisturizer that also delivers retinol to the skin’s deepest layers.
The New York-based company is slowly growing distribution and began shipping to select Nordstrom units in August, Vorachek Austin noted.
It also sells to independent specialty stores for a total of 85 doors worldwide.