Chanel's New Colour Collection Is More About The Lack Of It

This season's hottest colours aren't actually colours at all

- Janna Johnson O'Toole

IT MAY SEEM PREDICTABLE, even bordering on cliché, that the latest makeup collection from Chanel is inspired by Paris. The brand is, after all, a national treasure, and Paris is the fashion industry’s most beloved muse. But Chanel’s X factor is Lucia Pica, global creative makeup and colour designer, and her MO is anything but ordinary. Forget the classic Parisian trope – there’s no red lip around here. Instead, Pica finds inspiration in the nuances, and for the new AW19-20 Noir et Blanc de Chanel collection, she was inspired by black and white – the literal absence of colour. How’s that for unexpected?

“I started with the black and white concept — which is, of course, the pillar [palette] of the house — but I wanted to bring more of an urban feel to it,” says Pica. So she set off around Paris with a duo of creatives, photographer Max Farago and videographer Clara Cullen, taking in the details of the city through their respective lenses. “We were in the studio and outside for about four days, documenting Paris in a fresh way,” says Pica. “It’s a very monochromatic city, with the greys of the rooftops and creams and whites of the buildings. It became clear that black and white represented two universes: the light and the dark. So shadow and light became a huge inspiration throughout the collection as well.”