For Autumn 2016, CHANEL LE ROUGE · Collection N°1 explores the abstract and expressive resonances of the colour red while reconfiguring its role in beauty. At times, Lucia Pica seeks to transform the traditional role of red, at once celebrating and subverting its classic status as the preeminent colour for lipstick, blush and nail varnish. While still partaking in the search for the iconic and classic in each area of the collection, Pica also confounds expectations and takes the red into unexpected realms, particularly that of eye makeup, evoking emotion and passion here too.

It is no surprise that red is one of the power colours of CHANEL Fashion and a foundation colour of CHANEL Beauty. Introduced in 1924, CHANEL’s red lipstick, both a signature of Gabrielle Chanel’s personal style and an icon of the beauty house, has never been out of fashion or out of production. Through its many incarnations, it has been used from the beginning for both its attractive and combative qualities, with Gabrielle Chanel saying “mettez du rouge et attaquez*”. It was a fascination with this iconic red, and her own personal obsession with the colour in general – red is often a signature in her editorial work – that led Lucia Pica to explore the colour further. Here, in LE ROUGE · COLLECTION N°1, Pica’s concept of feminine power, passion and emotional preparedness for everyday life, is expressed through the multiplicity of reds to be found throughout.