Chanel's new global creative makeup and colour designer

| Lucia Pica |

Makeup artist Lucia Pica, in a Chanel jacket and a Margaret Howell scarf.
Photographed by Daniel Jackson, Vogue, September 2015

'With her singular beauty vision, the makeup artist Lucia Pica is bringing a cool new attitude to Chanel.'

The Italian makeup artist has been named Chanel's new global creative makeup and color designer, a new position that entails developing products in conjunction with the makeup studio in Paris. It's not Pica's first time working with Chanel: she created the looks for its most recent Rouge Allure, fall and holiday campaigns. And while those hit the more classic end of the beauty spectrum, her bolder, more graphic work for i-D and House of Holland has us excited to see what else she's capable of.
Bold pops of color are her thing, and Pica—who will be responsible for conceptualizing and developing Chanel’s cosmetics—represents something of a brave move for the French luxury house. She thinks nothing of applying glossy acid orange to lips, dusting lids in canary yellow ombréd-out to sooty black, or artistically painting a single stroke of Wite-Out white just below brows with the style of an Abstract Expressionist. But that’s not all she can do; Pica can just as skillfully turn her hand to a natural no-makeup makeup look. It’s a versatility honed on set with photographers Mario Testino, Mikael Jansson, Alasdair McLellan, and Willy Vanderperre, and backstage at shows like Roksanda and Peter Pilotto. She’s also behind Chanel’s beauty campaigns, making up the faces of Keira Knightley and the model Sigrid Agren.

“Coco Chanel was such a punk in the way that she approached style and feminism,” Pica continues. “She gave power to women, made it about how we wanted to look and not about dressing to please others. She pioneered that, and it couldn’t have been easy.” The heavy-fringed brunette pauses before adding, “Yes—I’m reading a lot of her biographies. . . . ”

Though Pica’s first full collection for Chanel won’t launch until late 2016, she is already clear on one thing: “I want the lineup to be modern and very straightforward. I want it to be super now, precise, and strong.” In preparation, she has been spending her time creating mood boards, gathering visuals that inspire her. Her references are broad: Art Deco postcards, images of Brutalist architecture, a snap of an edgy young girl spotted in an L.A. nightclub, a series of Polaroids of single-stem flowers pulled from the vast congratulatory bouquets she received when news broke of her appointment, and a handwritten note from an ex-boyfriend. When we duck into the florist Grace & Thorn on Hackney Road, a spriggy purple shamrock—otherwise known as a love plant—catches her eye. “Everything translates to a palette or a lipstick,” she says. “Whatever I look at, I see makeup.”

Pica's holiday work for Chanel. Photo: Instagram/@picalucia

Bold lips and brows by Pica in the October 2014 issue of Vogue.

Photographed by Mario Testino, October 2014

http://www.vogue.com/6444591/chanel-beauty-lucia-pica-creative-makeup-and-color-director/

| PREVIOUS CHANEL WORK |

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FASHIONISTA: http://fashionista.com/2014/12/lucia-pica-chanel-beauty - article by ELIZA BROOKE, DEC 15, 2014

VOGUE: http://www.vogue.com/13357692/lucia-pica-makeup-artist-chanel-beauty/- article by OCTOBER 6, 2015 2:00 AM by SARAH HARRIS