Dior celebrates its passion for colour in this book, inviting the major names behind the House Make-up to take inspiration from 12 key shades, illustrated in sumptuous photographs, and to compare them to great works of art.
This unexpected journey through colour sees Peter Philips, Image and Creative Director for Dior Make-up, as well as Tyen and Serge Lutens, talk about their own creative processes, and reveal the rich history of Dior Beauty.
In 1949, with the first “Rouge Dior” lipsticks, the House on Avenue Montaigne saw its Beauty history begin, indelibly linked to colour. A striking silhouette and scarlet lips were the original, infallible weapons of the New Look and triumphant femininity.
In 1967, in the same great visionary spirit, Dior chose Serge Lutens as its first Artistic and Image Director for Make-up. The history of these flamboyant, founding years is imbued with remarkable creative freedom.
Tyen, who arrived in 1980, impressed everyone with his audacious use of colour and his versatile talent. Today, Peter Philips’ radically modern approach characterises the upsurge in Dior Make-up, and he continues to emphasise the importance of colour, which shaped the house’s destiny.
The House of Dior invited author Jerry Stafford and art director Marc Ascoli to participate in creating “Dior, The Art of Colour“, a book that chooses to visit these remarkable artists’ worlds through 12 chapters that reveal as many colours. White, silver, nude, pink, red, purple, blue, green, yellow, gold, grey, and black: each chapter presents a make-up look inspired and illustrated by a major photographer such as Guy Bourdin or Richard Burbridge, in a portfolio orchestrated by Peter Philips.
Each colour also evokes works of art by Malevitch and Cocteau, Modigliani and Warhol, Rothko and Brancusi, as well as Buffet, Picasso, Van Dongen, and Soulages. Other great names also open dialogues, and add their own element of mystery and intensity to each of these colours.
An open book in which multiple influences cross paths, “Dior, The Art of Color” is a vibrant tribute to a House that always knew color would make women happy. It is an invitation to discover Dior’s foremost quality: audacity.
