Photographer duo Mert & Marcus launches a make-up collection with Lancôme - Full-coloured lipsticks, eye shadows and mascara

In the mid-1990s, Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott met and decided to work together. Since then they became two of the most interested and influential contemporary photographers. During their career, the duo has made editorials and projects for the most important magazines and brands and captured music and movie stars such as Madonna, Kate Moss, Rihanna and Lady Gaga. Their success is due to an aesthetic influenced by Guy Bordin and pioneer in the use of digital manipulation within the fashion photography industry, characterized by a hyper-realistic style, made of saturated colours, intense contrasts of light and tone, super shiny images. This sophisticated and powerful photography is the inspiration behind Mert & Marcus first make-up collection for Lancôme.

We were never really interested in beauty in its original form. Somehow, what excited us over the past 26 years, was transforming and creating characters with light, make-up and stories, and this is what we tried to achieve with this collection.

The creative couple told and added:

From Debbie Harry to Grace Jones, Kate Moss and our moms, we thought about all these incredible women who impressed us. They all have in common a vintage sensuality, sparkling audacity and unlimited strength. That's what we wanted to translate into each of the pieces in this collection. That's why we saturated certain colors or increased the size of the sequins, to arrive at unreal, almost magical formulas!