Nars Boutique Alessandra Ambrosio - P 2012
If you don’t know what Nars is — on the packaging, it’s “NARS” — or if you haven’t heard of Francois Nars, then you clearly are someone who knows nothing about makeup, or magazines.
Nars was the makeup artist to the stars in the days when Madonna was just starting to get famous. He did some of the early edgy makeup looks and created colors — red or pink for eyes, jungle red for nails and Orgasm for cheeks — that no one used in interesting ways before him. Now he’s pioneered something else: His second free-standing store in the U.S., which opened this past Saturday on Melrose in West Hollywood.
The store is a clean, pristine and unbelievably-designed 1,500 square-foot melange of red, white and black, and the design was conceived by Monsieur Nars himself, in collaboration with creative director Fabien Baron of New York design firm Baron & Baron. Yes, NARS makeup and skincare sells in department stores, but here you get NARS-trained artists, special limited editions and every color they have ever made is on display. It’s enough to make a makeup lover swoon. And those names: La Dolce Vita indeed!
It was quite a collection of beauty, fashion and celebrity at the Bryan Rabin-produced event, including Mandy Moore, Zoe Lister Jones, Francesca Eastwood, Jody Watley, plus models Kirsty Hume and Alessandra Ambrosio, stylist Rachel Zoe and designers Laura and Kate Mulleavy of Rodarte — and the Rodarte girls actually had makeup on). We have a feeling the NARS artists did it before they arrived.
