PARIS — Sir John has been named Kilian Paris’ first makeup creative director, as the beauty brand delves deeper into the realm of color cosmetics.
Kilian Hennessy, founder of Kilian Paris, and the makeup artist for A-list celebrities such as Beyoncé, Mary J. Blige and Serena Williams, first met at the Hôtel Costes during a Paris Fashion Week.
“I knew so much about the brand,” said Sir John, who had been introduced to it by his best friend. “He brought me to the boutique in New York, and I got enveloped in this world. It was just intoxicating.
“I felt something — like wow,” continued Sir John. “It was super decadent.”
He reminisced that sales associates there knew how to be provocative, making people laugh — or blush.
For Hennessy, the time is ripe to expand his brand’s color cosmetics offering, which launched in February 2019 with Le Rouge Parfum scented lipstick, inspired by Kilian Paris’ Love, don’t be shy, perfume.
“We wanted to see what would be the response of my customers to the brand giving them another weapon of seduction,” Hennessy said.
“Ultimately, when you think about what are the strongest weapons of seduction that a woman could have in her pocket, perfume and makeup are by far the greatest ones,” he continued.
Hennessy said by finding the right scent or color cosmetics product, people can feel better in their own skin and protected from the outside world. “But at the same time, you feel prettier, you can feel sexier,” he explained.
The idea is to offer people today “a total arsenal of weapons of seduction,” Hennessy said.
Both he and Sir John knew immediately they would work well together, and have set out creating a makeup wardrobe.
“We have the chance here, which is really cool, to redefine what beauty in luxury looks like,” said Sir John. “That’s what is exciting — looking at the landscape, and how do we create something new, provocative, to make people feel something.
“We’re at a turning point, and not just in cosmetics, but in society, to shake things up, to move things around, to ask why,” he added. “The ‘why’ provokes us to be different and also be rebellious.”
Sir John has identified an approachable luxury in the Kilian Paris brand.
“There’s a connection of wanting to get in with the people, wanting to own the night, wanting to feel good,” he said. “Scents and beauty, they run parallel. They provoke the senses and move the needle emotionally inside first. That’s why I always say beauty is a feeling,” continued Sir John. “It’s not something you can always see.
“In the lab, in product development, in marketing and the way we’re going to go into education, that’s going to start a really great dialogue that people — he, she and they — are going to really adhere to,” he continued.
Hennessy and Sir John have been reworking Le Rouge Parfum scented lipsticks first, with refillable packaging.
“The second element is that we felt like in today’s world, women carry many things at night, so that we wanted a lipstick that would be smaller, slimmer,” Hennessy said.
The first elements of the brand’s new makeup offering will be unveiled in fall 2024. But in the meantime, the pair is reassessing what’s on counter and how to develop Kilian Paris’ color cosmetics products, as well as the atmosphere surrounding them.
“The motto of the brand, ‘Don’t be shy,’ goes hand-in-hand with ‘owning the night’ territory,” reasoned Hennessy. “At night, you want to have a bolder look. You can actually play with the different facets of everyone’s personality.”
“It’s really compelling to see a brand that actually wants to lean into the p.m.,” said Sir John, highlighting how in that respect, Kilian Paris goes against the grain of most other brands, which launch into makeup with daytime products.
Kilian Paris’ color cosmetics will be in keeping with the sultry positioning of its fragrances, which have names such as Good Girl Gone Bad, Voulez-vous Coucher Avec Moi, Woman in Gold and Straight to Heaven.
“Those names are look names,” said Hennessy, who plans to give people a total makeup look. “You cannot do that only with lips, you need to bring color. We knew in the brand that we needed an amazing makeup artist to take us there.”
That’s where Sir John comes in. To create their wardrobe of color cosmetics, he and Hennessy are first focusing on essentials.
“I love how expressive eyes are,” said Sir John. “They communicate so much. So for me, after lips, what are other ways we can emote, evoke a feeling, or make people feel a bit more themselves, sexier, more powerful, more anchored in where they want to go?”
Sir John’s makeup artistry is being featured in Kilian Paris advertising campaigns, starting with the recent January launch of the Can’t Stop Loving You perfume.
He is to star in digital backstage sessions, TikTok makeup tutorials and Instagram lives. Fans of the brand will be able to take part in polls to have a say in product creation, such as shades or textures.
“We’re going to start reaching out to our audience, start creating culture, so they can feel our tempo, feel the beat, [and] there won’t be a missing step,” Sir John said.
Hennessy sets out to be a storyteller for each element of his brand, which is owned by the Estée Lauder Cos.
“What stories are all about provoking emotions,” he said. “They are what connect human beings throughout the world.”
Within the Kilian Paris portfolio the same three or four perfumes are the top sellers in each country worldwide.
“Like great songs, a great opera, a great movie, they have the capacity to touch human souls, whatever your background, whatever your culture,” Hennessy said.
Makeup should do the same.
“We want everyone to feel a part of beauty. Beauty is equitable — for us all,” Sir John said.