Behind the Scenes at Our PS1 Move! Weekend

Lancome was the makeup sponsor for PS1 Move!, the performance art/fashion event that took place over Halloween weekend with the likes of Rodarte, Proenza Schouler, Calvin Klein, Cynthia Rowley and others. Here's a behind-the-scenes video shot by our friends at Phear Creative. Eagle-eyed makeup artist fans will spot some of our favorite MUAs, including Alice Lane, Kim White and Andrew Sotomayor. Can you believe those silver Calvin Klein models? Or the Cynthia Rowley models and the paint?



As you can imagine, we went through quite a bit of the blue Bi-Facil eye makeup remover and our cult Eau Fraiche Douceur cleansing water at the end of each day.



The weekend was a lot of fun and quite a stretch from the usual makeup event. Let us know what you think!

Meet Danny Roberts, Illustrator Extraordinaire!

So "Entrepreneur Week" continues. As I mentioned yesterday, this week we're featuring some artists, designers and entrepreneurs who inspire us with their work. This is in honor of the 75th anniversary of Lancome, which started all those years ago as a small brand with a few fragrances.



Today, we'd like to introduce Danny Roberts, the talented illustrator behind the Igor + Andre blog. Hopefully, many of you already know about him and his beautiful work. We first read about Danny on the Fashionista web site and the entire P.R. team fell in love. We ordered some prints from his Etsy store and decorated our P.R. closet (where we store all the product) with them.



Since then, Lancome has comissioned two illustrations from Danny. One was a drawing from the Chris Benz Spring 2010 collection at which we launched the Chris & Tell Pout-a-Porter lipstick. The other was for our Holiday 2009 card.



We had the pleasure of meeting Danny and his brother backstage at Chris's Fall 2010 show. They took pictures for future sketches and Danny even did some preliminary sketching. Danny's very inspired by the world of fashion and it's wonderful to see clothes and models come to life through his imagination. I look at Danny's blog a few times a week and it's almost like meditation for me. There's something so peaceful and lovely about his work. Even the inspiration photos and videos he posts are beautiful to look at.



He's a very special invididual and the team and I consider ourselves lucky to work with him!



In honor of Danny, we're giving away a Chris & Tell lipstick from our secret stash (the lipstick sold out this past spring so it's a bit of a collector's item), our new Definicils Precious Cells mascara, a Bi-Facil makeup remover and one of the Chris & Tell prints (the size is 19 inches by 13 inches in case you want to measure your wall space!). We'll also pick five runners-up to receive just the print. To enter, take a look at Danny's blog or his Etsy boutique and tell us which of his drawings you like the best and why.



Please post a comment by Thursday night. Good luck!!

Coffee with the Mascara Master, Jean Louis Gueret--and an Oscillation Giveaway!

Oscillation_final4
envoyé par lemodalogue. - Regardez plus de vidéo vie pratique.

Presentation de l'exposition Soulages
envoyé par centrepompidou. - Films courts et animations.

Day four in Paris. Had coffee at the Ritz Hotel this morning with a Lancome legend, Monsieur Jean Louis Gueret. JLG, a very dapper Frenchman with his red pocket square, cuffed gray flannel trousers and striped shirt, guided us through his mini-Lancome museum of mascaras from the 70s to now. JLG helped create all of them. His most recent baby is Oscillation, which is my current fave. (I put it on this morning, then reapplied to the tips before I went out for dinner. It's incredible stuff.) We learned some interesting things, such as the number of bristles on a Definicils mascara brush. Answer: 210. That's JLG above, from 2008. If anyone wants to translate the video, please do!



We were at the Ritz to talk about our top secret new mascara coming to Europe soon and to the U.S. later this year. It's completely different than Oscillation, but very, very exciting. I promise I'll give you the details as soon as I can.



From there we headed to the Centre Pompidou museum, which the Lancome Paris team refers to simply as Beaubourg. There was a mesmerizing exhibit by Pierre Soulages, France's most famous living painter. His early paintings were mainly black and white and morphed to all black in later years. The texture he achieved with a single color in a single painting was beautiful. (See what I mean in the video above.) It was an interesting exhibit to see after visiting with Jean Louis because several of the all-black paintings looked like giant cakes of mascara formula. When JLG visited almost two years ago for the launch of Oscillation, the labs sent over a big plexiglass box of gooey black mascara formula. (I honestly don't remember why. Maybe we wanted something cool to decorate the room with for the editor appointments?) It had dried out a bit and resembled soft black candle wax.



I'm not sure what Mr. Soulages would think of this.



Kae asked what I'm eating every day. All bad stuff, Kae! Macarons, crepes, pasta, hot chocolate, wine, lots of coffee. And a salad here and there. I'll detox a bit next week. But at least I've been walking a lot. Makes me feel less guilty.



Let's do a quick giveaway. In honor of the effervescent JLG, let's do a fab lash trio giveaway--Oscillation mascara, Oscillation Powerbooster primer/lash booster, and Bi-Facil eyemakeup remover, which everyone in Paris loves. They pronounce it bee-fah-seal.



Please post by Thursday night. We'll pick one winner at random. Off to check out a fragrance commercial shoot tomorrow starring one of our lovely spokesmodels. We'll do another giveaway and name some past winners. Talk to you soon!