Live from Paris, Dior unveiled its Haute Couture Spring-Summer 2022 collection on January 25. We had the chance to speak with Peter Philips, Creative and Image Director of Makeup at Dior, a few hours before the show to hear about the creative process behind the beauty looks he created for the occasion. Spoiler: It’s all about natural skin and bold white eyeliner.

On the Looks He Created

It’s another take on eyeliner—we quite often do an under eyeliner at the Dior shows. We [created a look] in white which is kind of amazing because it kind of pops and looks beautiful. We [also] did natural looking skin. I had the opportunity to use the new Forever Foundation, the new formula. Then natural lips with Rouge Dior Lip Balm in Velvet Finish, so it’s not too shiny. And then a white line on the eyelid, like a really thick line, and under the eye, we put a coal line with the eyeliner to make [it a] strong graphic white.

How He Reinvents the Eye Looks Each Season

Maria Grazia likes eye makeup and she feels comfortable with eyeliner. There are so many variations you can do with eyeliner, you can play with shapes and colours and there are thousands of possibilities, so it’s nice to reinvent it over and over again. It’s a challenge, but it’s interesting to find a way [for the eyeliner] to look good on all the girls that doesn’t overtake from the collection, and completes the vision.

On What Inspired Him

Maria Grazia is very direct, since she knows what she wants so she has a complete vision of a collection. [She said she] would like something white and so I did research on products with white mascara, white eyeshadow, eyeliners—and then she sent me a picture of Willow Smith with a big white eyeliner, and she said something like this could be cool. It’s like the same eyeliner that I’ve been doing for many years at Dior but in white. I saw the collection and it totally makes sense. The collection is a lot of grays, and blacks and whites and off-whites. But the set design is almost like an art gallery—there are beautiful embroidered tapestries done by two Indian artists, and they’re very colourful and very expressive [so] it’s nice that the models are kind of toned down. It’s a nice balance.

On the Cycle of Makeup Trends

It’s nice to see [eyeliners] back on a whole new generation and how they interpret it and how they play with it. They combine it with makeup elements that 20 years ago were not relevant. It gives a whole new meaning. There’s also an irony to it, they do it in a playful way, and I love it. It’s fun to see them back in a new context [and] that’s the fun of makeup, you can play an experiment. I’m sure that people from the 50s and 60s had the same feeling about how we play with eyeliners, the way we now react to young kids playing with lip liner and blue eyeshadow.

How Beauty Can Inspire Us During the Pandemic 

I think makeup in general, with or without pandemic is something positive. Because it’s a tool that you can use to express yourself, to cover up what you don’t want to show and to enhance what you do want to show. It can help to boost your confidence, if you use the tools correctly. Even if you do dark makeup, like gothic makeup, it has something positive because it helps you to express yourself. In all its shades, in all its colours, in all its textures, makeup is something positive. I think the pandemic showed us, because of [wearing] masks, how much we actually miss makeup. We are a bit limited, and the things we take for granted, like a lipstick application or blush, you kind of miss that. The pandemic made me realize it’s fantastic to be able to play and have fun with it.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Watch the full Dior Haute Couture Spring-Summer 2022 show here.

Read more:
See the Looks From Dior’s Haute Couture Spring-Summer 2022 Show Live in Paris
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