The Italian Job

When masterminding Chanel’s spring beauty offerings, makeup artist Lucia Pica took her cue from the palette of her storied birthplace. The result? A hyperluxe collection that’s as classic as it is modern.

- April Long

Naples, Italy, is a crush of crumbling baroque churches, daredevil motorcyclists, yellow rock cliffs plunging into a turquoise sea, and multihued houses, resplendent beneath the watchful eye of romantic—but menacing—Mount Vesuvius, the still-active volcano that swallowed nearby Pompeii and Herculaneum in 79 A.D. It’s also Chanel global creative makeup and color designer Lucia Pica’s hometown, and the inspiration behind the brand’s vibrant spring collection, Neapolis (taken from the metropolis’s original Greek name, meaning “new city”). “I wanted to translate the grandeur of Naples, as well as all of its oppositions—ancient and contemporary, mysterious and energetic—into color and texture,” Pica says from her perch in a picturesque hillside villa, waving a hand toward the city below, which still bears the distinct architectural imprints of the Roman, Byzantine, French, and Spanish cultures that have held sway over the centuries.