Artists reshaping the beauty industry
In the beauty industry, since forever testimonials have been enliven visions.
The faces behind a brand not only show its versatility and how it can be recognized and interpreted in different ways, but also create trust. Different personalities stand with their identity behind a brand and thus stand for its values and goals. Nevertheless, it is precisely the beauty industry that selects the faces behind a brand according to careful criteria. Everything seemed to revolve around a fundamental perfection, in the context of which above all people were presented in whom every feature of the face seemed to be almost flawless. A huge part of the industry been represented by the classic image of perfection and drew people into a spell of imitation and an aspiration to this one-sided view of a person's beauty.
In recent years, a change could be observed, slowly but surely various brands oriented themselves in a direction in which puts diversity and authenticity now in the foreground and one is looking for the special again. In this context, people often talk about a trend, but we see it more as a change in society. It is about presenting real people and realities again, to make a brand more accessible and not to show an unattainable image. It's about putting personalities in the foreground again, who inspire us, exude a certain magic, get stuck in our heads. Brands are making a statement by starring a person with a certain attitude, motivating people to be themselves and stand up for themselves. Through a step like this, the entire image of the brand can change and brings a vision to life.
However, the brand Gucci Beauty finds itself in an industry which is graving for new and different approaches. Under the leadership of creative director Alessandro Michele, they are celebrating the diversity and individuality of a variety of personalities. Beauty here means authenticity. It's not about pure perfection, but about ways to express one's own character and feel good in the own skin, whatever that may look like in the end. We want to convey the same values and likewise reach a point where personalities play a greater role than their IG reach and that there might be more place for realities in the whole industry.
The Italian rock band Måneskin, which been personally chosen by Michele for this campaign, finds itself in its very own revolutionary post-punk reality, which each of the four members interprets for themselves. Whether pale skin and classic red lips as in the case of bassist Victoria De Anglis, or smudged smokey eyes that the other members Ethan Torchio, Thomas Raggi and frontman Damiano David applied in their own sequences uniform, but unique and in a way personalised.
Gucci Beauty also relied on a fusion of different worlds in previous campaigns: Whether model Elli Goldmann who been giving the brand a completely different delicate side, or singer Miley Cyrus, who most recently been starring the newest campaign as the face of the new fragrance "Flora", creating a true fusion between modern rock 'n' roll and the innocent nature of the "Flora Fantasy".
Nevertheless, advertising remains advertising and must be beautiful and inspiring. And of course there is also the question of how much reality consumers want to see behind campaigns. For decades, we have been used to seeing images on billboards and also all over the internet that we want to strive towards. Because we want to have exactly this perfect skin, or these long black eyelashes. It's all about our own perfection and the products that are supposed to help us achieve this result. But when brands get to a point where it's purely about inspiration and showing diverse personalities, each instrumentalizing the "beauty industry" as it were to express themselves instead of putting some sort of reality filter, maybe we move away from the urge to bring everything to a point where we're chasing promotional representations.
Yes, the industry is already changing, and perhaps there are many campaigns that are now no longer filtered. Still, there is a huge role for big brands like Gucci Beauty making room for realities within an almost fictional industry image, showing that beauty is in everything and everyone, and all of these things are ultimately meant to support us in showing the outside world how we feel inside, who we are. Not as the compulsion doing something every morning to feel “ready for society”, good enough or beautiful.
For us at Oracelle, it is significant to observe how brands are making their campaigns and generally their entire brand image more authentic and bringing more reality into the industry. We watch with excitement and enthusiasm how more and more brands follow this example, learn and evolve. And we are tuned about what is next.