Beauty news: Lancôme all stars for Advanced Génifique

It has to be said that the Lancôme name is synonymous with some of the most fabulous faces out there. Their ambassadors are always as unique and ground breaking in nature as they are beautiful, and the brand has long been celebrated for its love of women across all ages and races.

This has come together is a seriously beautiful campaign, AKA the Lancôme all stars for Advanced Génifique.

In 2009, Lancôme introduced the world Génifique, the first serum inspired by the fabulous field of gene science. I remember the launch and being blinded by the science, which involves the use of transcriptomics, which studies gene expression, along with proteomics, which demonstrates their activity via skin protein synthesis, to identify the signature proteins of young skin.

The success of the little black bottle was immediate, incredible and lasting. Génifique was applauded all around the world and an amazing 150 international awards later, 15 million bottles have been sold worldwide. In other words, four every minute. In Asia, its glass and mirror amphora-shaped bottle even has a code name amongst women in the know, the aforementioned “Little Black Bottle”. Fabulous.

For the last 80 years, Lancôme has often talked about “the aura: the indefinable quality that makes women more beautiful, expressed by each woman in her own unique way”. They decided to capture this aura in a series of portraits that has united four of its current ambassadresses in a single advertising campaign.

Kate Winslet, Penélope Cruz, Lupita Nyong’o and Lily Collins made the final cut, as the four actresses each embody a facet of the happy beauty that Lancôme aims to offer to all women.

What unites the fab four? A “form of radiance, the light that emanates from them, a light that seems to come from within and that transcends notions of age and ethnicity”.

Lancôme asked three artists to capture the special aura of each of these women by uniting them in the campaign: Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott - whose talent has been behind most of the Lancôme visuals for the last two year - took photographs, whilst the legendary Peter Lindbergh staged the Lancôme ambassadresses in an advertising film.

Too perfect, and a wonderful way to kick off the week!

** the above behind the scenes images are by Stefan Rappo for Lancôme © 2015 **