Rihanna's Last Collection For Mac

LONDON — For Rihanna, life couldn’t be better. Sure, there’s the ongoing media fascination over her relationship with Chris Brown, but that’s counterbalanced by her Grammy-winning singing career, and, now, a new, groundbreaking deal with MAC Cosmetics.

• Rihanna Last Collection For Mac Holiday
• Rihanna's Last Collection For Mac 2016
• Rihanna's Last Collection For Mac Download

This story first appeared in the February 20, 2013 issue of WWD. The only downside is all the media attention.

Rihanna's Autumn Winter 3013 MAC Cosmetics Collection: First Look Last London Fashion Week in February we interrupted the usual schedule of backstage beauty reports and trend spotting to bring you news that Rihanna had inked a deal to create a make-up collection with M?A?C Cosmetics.

“The only thing the media really can get in the way of is my privacy,” said Rihanna — fresh from taking her runway bow in a cavernous former post office sorting space in central London after the Rihanna for River Island show last weekend. “Privately, yeah, it’s a pain in the ass, but at the same time they help me to get my message across. My creativity — I’ll never let anyone interfere with that — because that’s something I love. And if I’m not doing that, I’m wasting my time.”.

RiRi Woo will be sold at the Rihanna concerts and online, and a summer collection will follow, which will also be sold online. A third will land in brick-and-mortar stores for fall, and there will be an on-counter holiday collection. The signature piece of the lineup, RiRi Woo, will be sold with all four collections. The summer collection also includes two additional lipsticks, a Lustre Drops shade and a powder blush duo. Fall’s 16 sku’s include four lipsticks, a deeply pigmented Lipglass version of RiRi Woo, two multishade eye shadow palettes and false lashes. (“She likes to wear two pairs at a time,” said Jennifer Balbier, MAC’s senior vice president of global product development, in an aside.) Holiday will bring another 10 items, including nail polish, a makeup bag and additional lipsticks. Demsey stressed that the collections did not involve Rihanna slapping her name on generic product.

Rihanna Last Collection For Mac Holiday

“This was not a front,” he said. “This is a true, organic collaboration based on mutual admiration and respect. These four collections are like four tracks on a Rihanna compilation. Each one has its own vibe, look, special makeup packaging and flavor. This is really the convergence of pop culture, fast fashion, and iconic style and makeup,” he said, adding that he had been closely following the singer — with an eye to a potential deal — since she released her first single in 2005. “She’s a star.

The world follows her look — how she wears her hair, her nails, her clothing, how she styles herself.” While Demsey declined to discuss sales projections, industry sources estimated that the complete lineup could do $15 million at retail globally. Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott have shot the campaign for the fall and holiday collections. “And that’s a #wrap on my shoot for my new #topsecret ad campaign!!!” the singer tweeted Jan. 27, sparking Internet speculation that she was doing a Chanel campaign, as she left the shoot wearing a Chanel necklace. Seemingly everything Rihanna does makes news on an almost-daily basis — including her on-again, off-again relationship with Brown, her allegedly abusive boyfriend. When asked if that coverage was a potential downside for MAC, Demsey didn’t skip a beat. “She’s a grown woman, and whatever makes her happy makes us happy.

Life’s complicated. Far be it for us to judge,” he said. Rihanna said she loved working on the collections — and even got her girlfriends involved. She said MAC gave her free rein with regard to packaging and colors, makeup textures and finishes, which she concocted with Balbier and James Gager, senior vice president and creative director of MAC.

“I really got to play,” Rihanna said. “There’s so much to choose from, and you can mix different textures with different colors and different greens in different eye shadows.

I learned so much about the detail of makeup and what makes things look different. What makes it apply different is really important. Every little detail is important.” Among those details were the rose-gold packaging, which will be used for her fall collection, and compacts in a pearly white with pink accents that will be used for the holiday collection.

She said that one of the biggest surprises was seeing the result. “The package that we designed and the product that we created, to see it sitting there in your hand was kind of scary. It was like, ‘This cannot be real,’” she said. Creating RiRi Woo was a particular challenge, she said: “Working with MAC, it’s difficult to get a red lipstick that beats Ruby Woo, because it works on every skin tone. I had so many different samples to choose from and so many different colors underneath — blue, yellow, orange and pink bases.

And I got to pick one that worked, and I tried it on all my friends to make sure it worked on all of our skin tones.” Balbier noted that Rihanna approached the task with a laser focus. “She wanted RiRi Woo to be slightly more blue-red and retro matte — a matte with moisturizer finish we’d used in a collection years ago and currently only have in one product,” she said. “She was especially adamant that the color be suitable for every skin tone.” Gager was similarly impressed. “She could name all of our creative collaborations for years back and was pulling many of them out of a bag she brought to the meeting as she explained what she wanted in her collections,” he said.

As excited as she is about the MAC project, the entertainer is also reveling in her collaboration with the British high-street retailer River Island, a 120-piece collection for spring featuring sexy crop tops, hooded jumpsuits and skirts with high slits that will be sold through the retailer, and exclusively in the U.S. And Japan at Opening Ceremony. “When it comes to creating things, I like to get my hands in there,” she said. “Tonight just blew my mind, it was like a dream come true. I mean, to have a fashion show in London Fashion Week. For this to happen so quickly was just sick. It was the same with MAC.

I never thought I’d be able to create makeup with such a big brand so quickly at such a young age. It’s kind of sick to even say aloud when I think about it.”.

The proper, official breakout of an actor might seem a sudden overnight appearance to the casual filmgoer — ‘isn’t this the guy that was in that other movie?’ — but, as evidenced by the career path of actor Stephan James, it involves years of carefully selected roles, all converging to get you in front of that dream director, for that latest big project. And if those happen to come out during the same awards season? Well, that confirms breakout status even more. James’ season began at the start of November, opposite “this little indie actress by the name of Julia Roberts” in the Amazon series “Homecoming.” James plays Walter Cruz, a military veteran under the care of Roberts’ Heidi Bergman, a therapist who treats vets at the Homecoming facility for post-traumatic stress disorder. 14, he will be seen in “If Beale Street Could Talk,” written and directed by Barry Jenkins in his follow-up to his Oscar-winning “Moonlight.” The story, an adaptation of the 1974 James Baldwin novel, follows Fonny (James) and Tish (KiKi Layne), a young Harlem couple in love dreaming of a future together while trying to free Fonny from a false crime accusation. “For me, when you look at doing things that are important and doing art that reflects life, and art that reflects your society, this is sort of a no-brainer,” James tells @leighen of the projects. Read more on WWD.com.

📸: @timothysmith Styled by @thealexbadia #wwdeye #stephanjames.

Rihanna's Last Collection For Mac 2016

Our favorite Instagrammer Tweeter, Rihanna took to social media to share her next big project: her second Viva Glam Collection with MAC. The ad for the collaboration was very colorful as Riri donned a green crop top and skirt and even greener hair. She also wears the mauve frosty lipstick from the new collection which will benefit women and children living with AIDS. The Viva Glam Rihanna II collection will be available on MAC’s website and MAC stores on September 11.

Rihanna's Last Collection For Mac Download

While the collection is unapologetic like Rihanna’s style, the prices are modest: the lipgloss will be $15 while the lipstick will be $16 both frosty with mauve undertones. Will you be getting Rihanna’s new Viva Glam collection? We know we will!