Lush Lips Reigned At Rouge Dior’s Beverly Hills Launch

A host of couture-clad creatives turned out to test-drive the reinvented lipstick line

Words by ELIZABETH VARNELL

Alexandra Daddario, Peter Philips, Alexandra Shipp. PHOTO: Marc Patrick/BFA.

Lips were anything but locked at the launch dinner held on Monday, February 5, for Rouge Dior, the French house’s newest lipstick line reinvented under its longtime makeup master, Peter Philips. From barely there nudes to ripe reds, the hydrating formula’s shades took center stage at La Dolce Vita in Beverly Hills on a rainy winter evening. Friends of the house such as Anya Taylor-Joy, Rachel Zegler, Alexandra Daddario, Brie Larson, and Alexandra Shipp swiped on favorite hues from the line’s 70 refillable shades, pairing them with couture designs by the house’s creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri. In particular, shade 300 — a lush nude — looked boldly dramatic or elegantly muted, depending on the wearer.

Also on hand were Awkwafina, Nikki Reed, Kiernan Shipka, Banks, Anna Diop, Monica Barbaro, Lucy Hale, Madeleine Arthur, Simona Tabasco, Dominique Fishback, Tania Sarin, Amelie Zilber, Anna Sitar, Emma Brooks, Marianna Hewitt, Kelsey Merritt, and SouKeyna Diouf, all of whom got a first look at the reworked line, which now incorporates floral ingredients and is based on floral essences.

The menu at the Northern Italian restaurant with Rat Pack roots — Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. were regulars at the opened-in-1966 spot revived recently by Genghis Cohen’s Med Abrous and Marc Rose — included branzino piccata and New York strip steak. Other courses of baked manicotti and bucatini al limone proved to be ideal dishes for the seated dinner amid red leather booths before guests reapplied lipstick amid lamplit tables and headed back out into the stormy night.