Peter Philips

Born in Antwerp in Belgium, Peter Philips is currently the global creative director of Chanel Make-up. Credited with the reinvigoration of Chanel's beauty division, his range of trend-setting collections has recently included the 2009 sell-out nail polish colour Jade Le Vernis - a bottle of which was reportedly resold on eBay for $100.

• He initially toyed with the idea of becoming a hairdresser but eventually settled on graphic design, and completed a degree in the subject at university in Brussels.
• He then returned to Antwerp from Brussels to study fashion design at the prestigious Académie des Beaux-Arts, whose previous alumni include Ann Demeulemeester, Dries Van Noten, and Martin Margiela.
• He became inspired by make-up whilst working backstage as a dresser during Paris Fashion Week, and decided to focus on make-up rather than fashion after graduating from the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1993.
• He built up his portfolio by collaborating with photographers like Willy Vanderperre and Olivier Rizzo, and doing shoots for magazines such as i-D.
• His career took a pivotal turn in the late Nineties, when he drew a Mickey Mouse face perfectly to scale onto a model whilst working on a Raf Simons shoot. "For years I was known as Mr Mickey Mouse," said Philips in a later interview in 2009.
• He began to achieve global recognition for his work and collaborated with major labels and photographers such as Dries Van Noten, Fendi, Inez Van Lamsweerde and Peter Lindbergh, and shot with nearly every international edition of Vogue.
• He came to the attention of Karl Lagerfeld while the designer was at Fendi's helm, and was eventually invited to meet the then creative directors of Chanel Make-up, Heidi Morawetz and Dominique Moncourtois, who had jointly held the position for more than 30 years.
• He formally accepted the position of creative director of Chanel Make-up in 2008, a role described by Vogue as being "one of the most coveted jobs in cosmetics".

In The Eyes

 

                                     

IT was all about the eyes for spring/summer 2013, and with its striking silver shadow, the Chanel beauty look was no exception to the rule.

"The inspiration of this look is a few key words that Karl [Lagerfeld] gave me: shine, focus on eyes and silver. So I tried to put different 'types' of shine in the look," said Chanel Make-Up's creative director, Peter Philips. "Starting with luminous, shiny skin, by using Vitalumière foundation and avoiding powder (except for on the T-zone), I did a metallic 'shine' on the eyes - using a full cover layer of Illusion d'Ombre eye shadow. For this show I exclusively created a platinum shade which you can apply sheer, for a subtle luminous effect, or for a metallic result you can put a thick layer."

The third element of shine was on the lips, and involved a clever combination of  Chanel's Lèvres Scintillantes in Plaisir and its Rouge Allure in Gracile to create the pretty shade of shell pink sported by the models.
And the nail look, that we all so eagerly await each season?

 "We did a discreet, shiny French manicure, using Le Vernis in Ballerina," Philips said. We certainly haven't seen French manicures for a while, but Peter Philips does have a way of turning the things we didn't even think we liked into the most covetable nail trends of the season. We'll just have to wait and see.