The luxury fashion houses muscling back in on beauty
The beauty market is big business – reaching a projected $580 billion by 2027 – so it makes sense that the world’s heavyweight designers are coming for a slice. Can they compete?
In September this year, Italian fashion house Dolce & Gabbana launched Fefé, a $165 fragrance designed specifically for canines. That’s right, dogs. A tongue-in-cheek nod to designer Domenico Dolce’s beloved caramel poodle, the musk and sandalwood scent is even housed in a dresser-worthy bottle emblazoned with a gold-plated dog paw. Cute? Yes. A bit hoity-toity for Fido? Perhaps. But that’s beside the point as heritage fashion houses advance further into beauty. For it was also this year that fashion’s high church, Prada, debuted a fully-fledged line of skincare and cosmetics. Likewise, Parisian powerhouseCeline launched a single red lipstick,Le Rouge Celine,with the promise of an additional 14 shades to come in 2025.
We know beauty (that’s to say, makeup and skincare) is big business. According to Torrens University, the category is set to grow by 6 per cent a year, reaching a projected $580 billion by 2027. It’s about price point: while a handbag from many of the luxury houses may set you back tens of thousands of dollars, a lipstick or blush palette taps into a different customer base.
As luxury price tags and freight costs continue to soar, it makes sense for brands at the pointy end of the market to offer a slice of their luxury sphere for a fraction of the price.
Of course, Chanel famously pioneered the fashion-to-fragrance pivot over a century ago with the world’s first “designer” scent,Chanel No. 5. In the modern era, Chanel’s nail polish and lipstick shades set the Zeitgeist.
Famous names in couture now routinely adorn perfume, but had been slow to do more in beauty. This is changing, and happily, it means greater choice for us.
It’s a welcomed counterpoint to the rise of fast beauty. In a market where dupes and celebrity beauty lines are common currency, legacy and craftsmanship stand for much. I visited Hermès’s Parisian leathergoods workshop for the beauty launch a few years back, observing as their artisans – many of whom have worked for the company for decades – hand-stitched the leather trims of a bespoke, fluoro-pink Birkin bag. This enthusiasm for quality filters throughout many heritage houses and is appreciated by mature beauty customers in particular. (Hermès, which debuted its long-awaited lipstick collection in 2020, has steadily been expanding into skincare and nail polishes).
As it prepares to mark 40 years in business, Dolce & Gabbana’s first cosmetics line since bringing its beauty arm back in-house two years ago is an ode to its Italian heartland. The result of strategic collaborations between the house and local farming communities, the 11-piece collection champions Italian raw materials and homegrown ingredients. Still, most consumers wouldn’t even know that the subtle pillowing effect of the Dolce & GabbanaMint Lip Oil Plumper is courtesy of an oil extracted from locally-sourced mint leaves. Or that its equally new Face & Eyes Match, a bronzer and eyeshadow powder duo, is infused with hydrating raspberries and grapes harvested from Italian farms.
Whether it’s beauty or high fashion, they don’t call it quiet luxury for nothing. Except, perhaps, when it comes to perfume for pooches.
More Coverage
This Australian paradise leaves both Fiji and Tahiti for dust
This island in the Pacific is secluded, safe, gloriously beautiful, packed with wildlife and adventure – and now there is a place to stay that rivals its natural wonders.
My link to the greatest Egyptologist of them all
Forget Howard Carter. The polymath Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie was the greatest Egyptologist and is rightly deemed the Father of Egyptology.