Byredo Debuts Lucia Pica’s First Drop as Creative Image and Makeup Partner

In late May, as the fashion community awoke in New York, a news alert sent a collective shock wave through Manhattan’s oat cappuccinos: Byredo, the Scandi-chic fragrance brand turned beauty and lifestyle juggernaut, had been acquired by the Spanish luxury conglomerate Puig for a reported $1 billion. The sheer size of the deal transcended industry circles, reverberating with fans of the gender-neutral brand that Ben Gorham founded in 2006 linking emotion to memory through scent. Talk turned to Gorham’s serious ambitions, and how Byredo would now become a major player in the luxury beauty space. But anyone paying attention could have connected those dots a few months earlier. In March, Byredo announced that it had signed Naples-born makeup artist Lucia Pica as its new creative image and makeup partner.

Pica wasn’t necessarily looking for a new job when Gorham slipped into her DMs. A mutual friend let him know that her six-year tenure as the global creative director for makeup and color at Chanel had recently come to an end, and as Pica was considering small collaborations, she agreed to meet Gorham in Paris. But when she arrived at Café de la Mairie, Gorham was not alone. Well aware of Pica’s beauty bona fides—chief among them bringing a cool factor to one of the most prestigious legacy brands in the world (the makeup cognoscenti will recall Pica’s first collection for Chanel, Le Rouge Collection No. 1, which recontextualized red eye shadow)—he figured another opinion couldn’t hurt. “I brought my eldest daughter, who was with me at Fashion Week,” Gorham recalls with a smile. “I later asked her, ‘What did you think?’ ” “She has really good energy,” his daughter replied. “I think you guys will work well together.”

This month, Byredo reveals its first launch with Pica: a 10-piece line of liquid lipsticks in a palette of tonal nudes. “More muted colors always inspire me,” she says of the vinyl-like gloss with a high-shine finish and creamy texture, describing a mental mood board that includes Rodin watercolors, rust-hued Rothkos, and Cy Twombly photographs awash in soft, burnished peaches and brick pinks. It is a decidedly different visual direction than the campaign that launched Byredo into the makeup stratosphere in 2020, featuring a CGI-­generated cyborg covered in saturated splashes of acid-​bright pigments. 

“My first idea with makeup was just to break the mold,” Gorham says of his initial collaboration with the subversive makeup artist Isamaya Ffrench. But while Ffrench encouraged self-​​expression through experimentation with color sticks in hues of metallic green and glittery purple, Pica has latched on to the sensuality at the heart of some of Byredo’s first scents. They had an intimacy that she sees in makeup, too. “Simplicity can be something that is quite striking and even confrontational in a very sophisticated and graceful way,” she says, hinting at the nuance she plans to apply to forthcoming complexion products—and revealing her favorite liquid lipstick shade: a clear gloss called Fantôme that can also be worn on eyes. As the surprising makeup statement in her first campaign, it’s a stunning palette cleanser. Says Pica, “It’s a new beginning.”