Strokes of Genius
Creative director PETER PHILIPS unlocks the secret to a flawless face with his Dior Backstage collection. tama lung gets schooled by the master
Ask Peter Philips, creative and image director for Dior Make-Up, what he would put in a desert-island beauty kit and he doesn’t skip a beat. “Well, first of all, sun protection,” he says, laughing. “Then you can have your foundation, your contouring palette, your glow palette, your lip palette and maybe it would be nice to have a Lip Glow.” In other words, the newly launched and Philips-designed Dior Backstage collection. “It’s a line that’s inspired by backstage expertise,” Philips explains. “These are very essential, basic beautifying products. They’re no-brainer products for a woman who doesn’t want a complicated life. It’s a foundation and some palettes. You don’t have to be stressed – it’s been thought through for you.” Indeed, everything in the Dior Backstage collection has been created with ease and efficiency in mind. The foundations, available in 40 shades in Hong Kong, aim to do away with the need for mixing and matching different shades or formulas to achieve the perfect finish. Philips and his team developed 21 universal shades in varying intensities and undertones – including rosy, olive, yellow and beige – and then consulted with different regions around the world. “We could have done 400 shades,” Philips says, “but we edited it by listening to what our regions wanted – really listening to what shades are the best-selling, the best-selling combinations, what’s missing and so on.”
The two complexion palettes, Glow Face Palette and Contour Palette, each house four professional-level products in a lightweight compact with a clear lid that makes it easy to see what you have to work with. The buildable formulas provide subtle to intense finishes thanks to a high concentration of pigments. The Glow Face Palette also includes mother-of-pearl powder, while the Contour Palette offers two lighter shades and two darker matt shades. For eyes, Philips created an easy-to-use Eye Palette and Brow Palette, both available in two colour tones. Each Eye Palette comes with a creamy primer plus eight shades in a variety of finishes in either cool or warm tones. “You can go from very natural to very dark, you can go smoky, cat-eye, go for matt, shiny or combined,” Philips says. “Just play with it; you can’t make any mistakes.” The Brow Palettes, meanwhile, feature a setting wax and two powder shadows in either light or dark tones. “It’s easy,” Philips adds. “Use the middle shadow to set the shape of the brow, the dark shade to add hairs and fill in gaps, and the wax to set.” Finally, the Lip Palette, with its nine neutrals in varying finishes, is designed to work for any and every occasion. “You don’t want to carry nine lipsticks with you,” says Philips, whose busy travel schedule led him to pay close attention to packaging and portability. “There are three formulas – sheer, satin and matt – and they’re easy to combine however you want.” To top it off, Philips recommends the wildly popular Lip Maximizer and Lip Glow collection. “This is one of our most successful products,” he says. “Once you have it, you’re addicted to it. Most women I know can’t live without it. “Lip Glow is a stick,” Philips continues. “It boosts your natural colour and plumps your lips. They are colour matched with the Lip Maximizer to really go to the max. What we did here is we boosted the pigments and then we boosted the shine. You don’t need to, but if you combine both it really has a great plumping effect.” The new Lip Glow to the Max comes in a dual-toned stick for a blend of deep colour and shimmer. The new Lip Maximizer Star Plumper also comes in bold new hues, infused with hyaluronic acid for 24-hour hydration and protection.
“Make-up should not be a stress factor. It should help you to relax or enjoy yourself”
If anything, Philips sees Dior Backstage as a way for women to feel comfortable and confident. “Make-up should not be a stress factor. It should help you to relax or enjoy yourself,” he says. “It’s important to observe and to listen when you’re in this business. And the Backstage line is a response to a lot of the questions I received, the most common being, ‘How can I do my make-up in five minutes?’ or ‘How do I choose my shade?’ There have always been questions about the problematics of make-up and they needed a solution.” And Philips clearly understands there are as many solutions as there are women when it comes to looking and feeling beautiful. “Beauty for me is not to do with a makeup trend or a colour. It’s how you feel, how you wear your appearance,” he says. “Beauty for me can be someone who doesn’t wear any make-up and feels confident or it can be a woman with a full-on face and hair who feels the same way. It’s all very personal and very individual. Every woman has her own insecurities and strengths, and it’s how you play with them, which you make the most important.”