Heavy Metal

Peter Philips, the new creative director of Chanel Makeup, has two favorite scenes in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 film Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The first is when Lucy, played by Sadie Frost, rises from the dead, wearing all white in her burial vault. The second is when Dracula (Gary Oldman) is reclining in a long gold-trimmed Klimt-like coat. Dracula and its decadent gothic vibe were Philips’s inspiration for this photo shoot—as were Gustav Klimt and the gold statue of St. Joan of Arc at Place des Pyramides in Paris. “I had the application mask made at Lesage, the house that does all of the embroidery for couture,” Philips says. “It’s an old technique using gold sequins and pearl, which I cut like puzzle pieces and glued to her face, so it almost has the effect of skin.” The result lies in some mystical fashion land between the ancient and the futuristic, especially when matched with the fall Chanel couture dress and its metal-frame head accessory. Philips predicts that gold is the color of the season. “Gold never goes out of style,” he explains. “For Chanel this fall we have gold in powder, nail polish, lipstick . . .” Vampires and beautiful women will be lighting up the night everywhere.