Dame Pat McGrath fetes Louis Vuitton beauty pop-up, predicts more in the pipeline

“The one thing that I always said to everybody from day one, Louis Vuitton and beauty was meant to happen,” insists Dame Pat McGrath, as she celebrated the brand’s 14-week La Beauté Louis Vuitton pop-up in Seoul.

It’s located in one of just three customised perma-pop-up spaces which the brand has developed, designed to rotate different celebratory pop-ups by Louis Vuitton. Previous installations in Seoul have included the co-branding with Japanese superstar artist Takashi Murakami; and the premier drop of Pharrell Williams’ menswear, where a customised golf buggy stood outside the building, wrapped in golf Damier print.
 
Scores of fans and beauty editors gathered Tuesday in the pop-up for selfies with McGrath, probably the most legendary makeup artist in her profession today. McGrath has done the makeup for all Vuitton shows, since Marc Jacobs’ first LV catwalk display in 1998 and for every Nicholas Ghesquière catwalk since he became women’s creative director in 2015.

“What makes this project so special is the sheer quality, the creative craftmanship. So, I was like ‘let’s make a great trunk,’ and they were like, ‘no, we’re going to make a whole new way of making trunks.’ So, they customise exactly the way you need!” explains McGrath, standing in front of her duet of monogram trunks, which open to make the perfect makeup station.

“They think of absolutely everything, like the way the lighting works- daytime, early evening and night,” Pat explains on her first visit to Korea. Pointing to an almost miraculous mirror that alters lighting angle, intensity and scale gently– mimicking day, night, or evening. The set-up has special glass iPhone holders, and wracks for lipsticks, makeup, pencils, and mini trunks within trunks.
 
“It was so much fun going to their atelier in Asnières-sur-Seine to design this. Now, it’s obviously my dream to take it out on the road,” smiles McGrath with her trademark belly laugh.
 
Ever since she emerged from London in the early nineties collaborating with Alexander McQueen and John Galliano, Pat McGrath has been devising the make-up at upper echelon runway shows. She worked her magic for Prada and Giorgio Armani in Milan for many years and even had a makeup line with Giorgio. In the past decade, she dreamed up the makeup for what’s currently the hottest catwalk show in fashion, Miu Miu, and for the most acclaimed couture show of the decade, John Galliano’s final couture display for Maison Margiela.

 
She has her own indie beauty range called Pat McGrath Labs. And admits she spent six years working on La Beauté Louis Vuitton, which debuted on August 29, and now retails in 100 doors, exclusively in Vuitton stores, except for a recent shop-in-shop in Harrods. And, of course, on Vuitton’s website.
 
The London-born makeup artist eventually created 55 lipstick shades, ten balms, and eight eyeshadows for Vuitton. All displayed in a curvilinear display in multiple shades of red, and bearing alluring titles. Lipsticks have names like Monogram Touch, Red Pulse, or Rumbling Storm. While the LV Ombre eyeshadow range is entitled Beige Memento, Nude Mirage, or Force of Nature. Besides their cool colour palette, their packaging is hard to beat. Each comes in a brass metallic compact case with interior mirror. The black monogram case, whose hinges open with uber precision, allows easy refilling. Priced at around €200, they come in a perfect back pouch with two brushes.

Designed by Konstantin Grcic, parallel to an olfactory signature unique to the collection by Louis Vuitton Master Perfumer Jacques Cavallier-Belletrud. The pop-up displayed a selection of Vuitton scents presented before retro futurist oval store windows. Early results show that placing the beauty line near to LV scents has boosted fragrance sales, in a useful synergy.

 
“I always knew Vuitton could produce a great beauty range and accompany that with perfect little vanity bags. It’s a no brainer to actually add lipsticks or eye shadow powder to this world of travel and timelessness and accessibility,” enthuses McGrath, who has lived in New York’s West Village for the past two decades.
 
Next step will be a Vuitton makeup line though she was mum on details, “Oh, my goodness. There’s lots in the pipeline, let me tell you!”
 
Dotted around the pop-up were LV beauty accessories including grained leather lipstick cases, little leather cases with mirrors, and blotting paper. 
 
Recyclable objets d’art that can be kept and passed on. Just like Louis Vuitton.