WARNING: Catching glimpses of the pretty, pretty colors in the NARS Guy Bourdin Holiday Color Collection has been known to make knees buckle.
It’s gotta be the bold brights… They get me every single time.
I’m getting a decidedly MAC-esque vibe from this new 17-piece limited edition release, AND I LIKE IT! If there ever was a collection capable of converting the most die-hard MAC mavens to hard-core NARS nerds, this would be the one.
With saturated, high-intensity lipsticks, blushes, eyeshadows and nail polishes, it holds nothing back.
Rather than releasing just enough products to complete one look — like a blush, a gloss, one lipstick and a few eye pieces — which is what NARS usually does with their collections, they expanded their horizons this time around, offering multiple options — three blushes, four nail polishes, five eyeshadow singles (in the new Cinematic formulation) and five lipsticks (also in Cinematic).
Very MAC-like, I must say.
But this collection is more than bold brights. It’s also, in a way, an ode to one of François Nars’ childhood heroes, french photographer Guy Bourdin, who François credits for inspiring him to become a makeup artist.
Bourdin’s work graced the pages of top fashion magazines like Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar during the later half of the 20th century. He was one of the first to create complex narratives through his fashion photography. He often staged his shots in strange and mysterious ways to tell stories through imagery, sometimes with violent, surreal themes or sexuality.
I gotta say, I really like it when collections have provocative, interesting stories behind them, and I think it’s cool that Nars gives props to a fellow artist who meant so much to him.
My makeup spider sense is tingling about this collection. I can see it being one of those launches that people talk about with a twinkle in their eye, like five or six years down the road over coffee one day. “Gah! Remember NARS Guy Bourdin? I still dream about those lipsticks…”
