admin Prada is set to launch its own skin-care and makeup ranges, Jennifer Weil reports in an exclusive story for WWD‘s Beauty Inc.
The brand, which holds a licensing partnership with L’Oréal Luxe, has seen success with its recent fragrance launches, so these new categories are seen as obvious next steps. Prada’s makeup and skin care will debut direct-to-consumer via prada-beauty.com and prada.com on Aug. 1, with subsequent rollouts at Harrods and Selfridges in London on Aug. 18; then Douglas in Munich, Frankfurt and Dusseldorf, Germany and Rinascente in Rome in October. The U.S. retail launch is slated for Jan. 2024, according to WWD.
“After the spectacular launch of Prada Paradoxe in 2022 that reinstated the brand’s leadership in feminine fragrances, the skin and color launch opens a new chapter that will propel the brand to new heights,” Cyril Chapuy, L’Oréal Luxe president, told WWD.
Prada co-creative directors Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons “jointly” said: “Abandoning all the clichés of the past, we believe that beauty today is the representation of one’s personality, freedom and self-confidence.”
While many of the specifics of the range have yet to be unveiled, WWD reports that it will include six four-color eye palettes and a “soft-filter” foundation in 33 shades, developed with the use of artificial intelligence. Also per WWD, the product range will be priced from 45 euros (for a lipstick) to 360 euros (for a face cream). (The eye shadow will be 80 euros.)
Prada Beauty tapped Lynsey Alexander and Inès Marzat — aka Ines Alpha — to serve as the brand’s global creative makeup artist and “e-makeup” artist, respectively. Both have worked closely with Prada and Simons to develop the line over the past three years.
As for the skin-care range, WWD reports that it will feature a cream, serum and makeup remover that are different from existing skin-care products because they’re “not about correcting faults.”
L’Oréal first acquired the Prada Beauty license at the beginning of 2021. While its public-facing focus since then has been mainly on fragrance, the brand has indeed been subtly teasing this move since last summer, when it first launched a beauty-specific Instagram account. Though that feed has been largely dedicated to fragrance promotions, it seemed to pivot somewhat to conversations of color cosmetics over the last 24 hours, with posts asking “Why correct and not adapt?;” “What if pigments turn to pixels?;” “Is brown the new red?” (That last post also seems to visually tease a possible forthcoming lip color from the brand.)
It’s also worth recalling that this isn’t the label’s first foray into the color cosmetics realm: In 2000, it debuted a makeup line, but it discontinued it not long after, instead focusing its beauty efforts solely on fragrance.
The designer makeup category is one that’s been expanding over the past few years: Hermès introduced makeup in 2020, Valentino launched its color cosmetics line in 2021 and Dries van Noten got into beauty last year. Meanwhile, other designer labels like Giorgio Armani, YSL, Chanel and Dior have continued to ramp up their makeup and skin-care businesses in that time. (Valentino, Giorgio Armani and YSL Beauty are all within the L’Oréal Luxe family of brands.)
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