NARS celebrates 30 years of seduction with Ciara, Pom Klementieff and Camila Morrone

Three decades ago, makeup mogul François Nars laid the foundations of his eponymous beauty empire with a modest 12-shade lipstick launch at Barneys, New York. Since then, the Frenchman has amalgamated class and scandal, making his Climax mascara and Orgasm blush a staple of every beauty guru’s makeup kit. Now, to celebrate their thirtieth anniversary, NARS have launched Explicit, a modern take on the brand’s provocative DNA. 

With three times more colours than the 1994 collection, it’s only fitting that the Explicit release is backed by an equal number of new brand ambassadors: Ciara, Camila Morrone and Pom Klementieff. “Lipstick has always been about confidence for me,” says Nars of the full-circle milestone moment. It is for this reason that the brand’s founder handpicked the en vogue provocateurs to mark the occasion. 

Though each of the new ambassadors lie at the intersection of NARS’s Venn diagram — where modern innovation meets timeless allure — they each represent a component of the brand’s values. Just as Ciara, the chart-topping “How We Roll” singer, stands for makeup as a tool for expression, Daisy Jones & The Six’s Morrone symbolises mystery and seduction. Meanwhile, Mission Impossible star Klementieff’s polished-cum-punk aesthetic is an apt example of the brand’s duality.

While Ciara, Klementieff and Morrone endorse authentic self-expression, the Explicit collection embodies it. Amid the 36 shades, which span elegant nudes to eccentric neons, the collection is as unashamedly seductive (think shades in Dirty Talk, On Top and Bite Me) as it is sophisticated. And, while the smudge-resistant formula gives room for naughtiness, its ‘nice’ counterpart comes in the form of refillable packaging, a long-awaited blend of sustainability and luxury beauty. 

Explicit may pay homage to the Original lipstick collection (whose dozen shades remain firmly on department store shelves), but it also marks a new era for NARS. “Here’s to thirty years of character-building colour, and the Explicit content that’s still to come,” Nars concludes as he takes the beauty industry’s most seductive brand into its fourth decade.