Shu Uemura, Maison Kitsuné to Collaborate on Makeup
The holiday collection spans 23 cosmetic items and two hair-care products.
By Miles Socha Plus Icon
Miles Socha
International Editor, Europe
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July 14, 2015, 12:01am
PARIS — In another East-meets-West project, Japanese beauty brand Shu Uemura is to collaborate with Paris-based Maison Kitsuné on a holiday makeup collection, WWD has learned.
The range, spanning 23 cosmetics items and two hair-care products, is slated to arrive on counters from October to December.
Disclosing its latest artist tie-up exclusively to WWD, the L'Oréal-owned beauty brand said the new range would fuse "Parisian timeless elegance with Eastern influences."
Known for its fox logo — the brand is named after the Japanese word for the animal — Maison Kitsuné is a clothing and music label that prides itself on strong Parisian roots.
Gildas Loaëc cofounded the brand in 2002 with Masaya Kuroki, marketing contemporary classics for men and women that blend influences from Paris and Tokyo. The brand operates eight freestanding stores worldwide, and a small enclave of branded cafés, including one in the Upper Marais district of Paris.
In total, Maison Kitsuné counts four boutiques in Paris, two in New York, one in Tokyo and one in Hong Kong. It also wholesales its collection to some 300 doors worldwide.
A former artistic director for Daft Punk who also oversees the development of Maison Kitsuné's in-house music label, Loaëc and Kuroki recently expanded their accessories offering.
Maison Kitsuné's apparel business had sales of $16 million in 2014, and the aim is to increase that figure to $18 million this year.
Shu Uemura and its international artistic director Kakuyasu Uchiide recently collaborated with Paris-based jewelry and accessories designer Yaz Bukey and has also done tie-ups with Karl Lagerfeld in recent years.
Founded in 1983 and controlled by L'Oréal since 2003, Shu Uemura is said to do about 80 percent of its business in Asia.
The line's namesake, a Tokyo-born Hollywood makeup artist, began mixing and selling his signature Cleansing Oil in 1960; it continues to be one of the brand's best-selling stockkeeping units in Asia. Uemura died in 2007 at the age of 79.