FRANCE. In a first for both the men’s market and the cosmetics sector, avant-garde French fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier is poised to launch a make-up range for men, in conjunction with licensee Beauté Prestige International (BPI). Le Mâle Tout Beau – the make-up – and Le Mâle Tout Propre – a complementary toiletries collection – will make their debut in selected domestic and travel retail doors worldwide this October.
“Why make-up for men and not for women?” mused BPI director international travel retail Louis-Benoît Barth. “Because we are lucky enough to have in Gaultier a designer who loves to transform ordinary or classic concepts into very original creations. He has always done it with his fashion; he did it with his fragrances”¦and now he’s doing it with the beauty market for men. Of course there are plenty of men’s skincare products out there but it’s the first time anybody has come up with a [colour] concept like this. We have created a completely new market.”
The Tout Propre (All Clean) collection comprises a soap duo, a shower gel, a stick deodorant and an aftershave lotion. All are fragranced with the distinctive Le Mâle juice and feature retro-chic outer packaging inspired by old-fashioned Savon Marseille soap.
The Tout Beau (All Handsome) collection features a firming anti-ageing lotion; a mattifying bronzing powder; a coloured lip balm trio; a roll-on lip gloss; a nail nourisher; and a double-ended kohl eyeliner/concealer. Like the new body ancillaries, this range also boasts quirky, eye-catching packaging. For example, the nail product is encased in what appears to be a writing pen and the anti-ageing lotion in a flip-top, Zippo-style lighter.
The product names are also suitably playful: the lip balm line has been dubbed Sneaky Kiss, for example, and the bronzing powder Better Than Tan.
“All these products have been created to answer specific male needs,” Barth told The Moodie Report, emphasising that men and not women were the bona fide target consumer. He added: “The goal is to help men enhance in a very natural way how they look already.”
A full interview with Louis-Benoît Barth will be featured in a forthcoming issue of The Moodie Report.
