Francois Nars Preps First West Hollywood Store, Opening in October

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Alexa Chung and Francois Nars

This is very good news for Los Angeles makeup mavens!

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Francois Nars -- the glamourous French makeup artist who used to do Madonna's makeup, as well as all the Paris shows before he created one of the coolest makeup lines in the world -- is coming to Los Angeles for a rare visit on Oct. 20. Even better? He will open his first L.A. free-standing store on Melrose Avenue, right in the heart of the Melrose upscale shopping area during the visit.

Nars makeup rose to fame shortly after MAC Cosmetics launched, MAC being the very first makeup artist's brand. Nars stood out and jumped off the department store counters for its matte black packaging and -- at-the-time -- the outrageous names for lipsticks and blushes and nail polish: Jungle Red, Orgasm, Promiscuous, Catfight and Funny Face, among them.

The store will be located at 8412 Melrose Avenue and will have a private party -- with the maestro himself -- on Saturday, Oct. 20. This will be a hot ticket and, no doubt, there will be some celebrity and stylist presence around.

This is good news for consumers, but perhaps not so good for the department stores such as Barneys, where the brand sells particularly well. Luckily, they won't be in the same neighborhood. 

It's interesting that while retail has not fully come back to the level of prior to the recession, beauty sales have never dropped off. Women might balk at a $2,000 handbag, but they don't stop in their tracks over a $30 lipstick.