The Vuitton Lipstick Is Here

Makeup legend Dame Pat McGrath has been working hard on something special.

- By Kathleen Hou

Pat McGrath can tell you, but she would rather show you: “Start with the first question, my angel.

” We are meeting about her first major beauty project since launching her eponymous brand, Pat McGrath Labs, 10 years ago. Her wide cheekbones and smooth hair—encircled with her signature black, bejeweled stretchy headband—fill the screen, and I don't need a Zoom popup to tell me that the queen of beauty has entered the conversation.

“How could I not?” she coyly says when I ask her why she agreed to become the creative director of cosmetics for La Beauté Louis Vuitton. Louis Vuitton's artistic director of women's collections, Nicolas Ghesquière, and McGrath have had a long creative relationship, which includes creating rainbow faces inspired in part by obscure 1980s sci-fi movies. True to the brand that she calls “luxury in motion,” she ran into “that candy store of color, texture, excellence, and luxury,” she says, her voice filled with glee.

A peek into beauty brand development.