Up Close with Lucia Pica’s New Byredo Palette ‘Vesuvio’: Eruption, Elegance and Expanding Byredo’s Colour Language

• Beanie Stolper: Hi Lucia, I am so excited to discuss the new Byredo ‘Vesuvio’ 18 shade eyeshadow palette. This launch captures the extraordinary colours and grandeur of 18th century Neapolitan paintings depicting the volcano Vesuvius and the surrounding landscapes of Naples. Having studied history of art I loved the references and bringing art history into the product. So, let’s talk about it. Did you know the Neapolitan paintings already?

  Lucia Pica: To be honest, I didn’t. It all started from seeing an exhibition of Neopolitan paintings and then my friend gave me the exhibition catalogue. She was like, “Oh my God, Lucia, you have to see this because it makes so much sense”. I’m from Naples. I obviously work with colors and I work on these extended palettes where you have the space to create a big story out of it, it’s a great canvas for expressing a story. Naples used to be just as exciting as Paris and London; a lot of artists and painters would visit there to experience the small eruptions of Vesuvius. I was so fascinated with the contrast of emotions. I always work with flow, but I like to work with contrast. To me, this palette was all about that stillness of the landscape and then the excitement of what was happening. The artists were using all these pastely colours mixed with the orange of the lava, the light pinks of the clouds, and then the blue in the background of the sky. Then, thinking about Vesuvius and the greys and browns that would have made that ground, the terra. With Byredo as a brand, through our products we always recall a memory. This is obviously not a memory for me, but I like to think that there is a cellular memory that stays within you if you are part of where you come from. So, this is something I definitely resonate with. I try to make all the colours wearable on the face, you can have artistic inspiration and it is all great but it is important to think that it is going to actually sit on someone’s face.

BS: Art can sometimes be perceived as overwhelming or inaccessible, whereas you are creating a consumer product for the public. An eyeshadow palette, designed to be worn on the skin, to be personal and intimate. How do you balance the grandeur and intensity of the references with the immediacy of personal expression to the Byredo wearer and customer?

LP: Exactly, I think about this all the time. This could seem like a pro-makeup artist palette, but in fact, if you look at each color and swatch it on your hand or on your eyes, it is very wearable. Makeup artists will be able to obviously create amazing things with it, but they would be able to create amazing things with anything. For consumers, I had to make sure that the pink is bright but not too intense that it’s impossible to wear, or that there is shimmer through it so it glides a little bit easier. You could easily do, in fact, I’ve done it for the campaign, a 70’s smoky eye, Guy Bourdin vibe. I used all these colors at the bottom (the grey, the purple, the mauve, the pink) and blended them all into one another. The copper and the bronze on darker skin is fantastic. The blues are so modern because it’s been thought through to be mixed with the next one, or to create a little bit of depth with the black, or to lighten it up with the silver. It gives it that roundness so it’s not just a flat light blue like it used to be worn in the 70s. I make colours wearable by thinking about the undertones, the texture, the fluidity of it, and the application. If it’s a more difficult colour, I will make it maybe more shimmery or more transparent so that it doesn’t feel too heavy and doesn’t feel like an oil paint.

BS: It’s a nice way of introducing the more minimalist Byredo consumer to the brighter colours, but then also satisfying the professionals. It is opening up who the Byredo customer could be.

LP: Yes, and also that Byredo has a colour identity. We’ve been working on this quite a bit. When I first started talking to Ben Gorham, he told me that perfume for him was the invisible medium to express emotions and memories. I thought, okay, well, makeup and colours are my visible medium to express all of these things. We’ve been building up on that colour language and there is space to go a little deeper.

BS: The idea of the sublime is quite important with this product. The sublime is all about hiding things under more quiet surfaces. Byredo packaging is usually quite minimal however for this palette you’ve opted for acidic eruptive colours on the front with the eyeshadows housed in a mirrored casing.

LP: I really wanted it to feel modern and abstract rather than like a Vesuvius explosion. I felt like maybe all of those things are behind there and are happening. It feels like you could hear it in these colours.

BS: This palette is described as “a new rendition of a collectors object”. With higher-end products, they do become collector’s items in themselves, they become more than just something that can be used; it’s design, it’s art.

LP: Yes, it’s representing the work that goes behind those things, the craftsmanship and the ideas can be in one piece. There is the whole colour story, it’s all really thought through, and that’s why I think something can become an object that you want to keep. BS: A bit of a simple question but what is your favorite colour?

LP: It’s a hard one! I like warm colours. I like those three in the middle, but I also like the three at the bottom; the grey, the pink, and the violet. I’ve used them all in the campaign, I loved mixing them together. You could get different depths, like a grey with a purpley undertone, it becomes a really interesting colour.

BS: Have you used them in any other ways? Could you use them on a lip?

LP: I did actually! I used this pink, the really bright one, in the campaign on the lip. You put a little balm and then you put that on top. I’ve used it on the cheeks as well. There’s one image where I’ve used a lot of the colours all over the face to represent a soft explosion of colour. One colour goes into another one; all the warmer toned ones are around the sides of the face, the gold goes on the eyebrows, and then the pink is placed high on the cheeks so it feels like she’s also going through some kind of emotion with it.

BS: And it’s launched in February which is very apt, a colourful start to the new year!

LP: Yes, a bit of brightness! Exactly! Perfect for the start of the new year.