From FKA twigs’ conceptual dance video to collabs with DVF, the fashion and music worlds have begun to embrace Google Glass in 2014 – but what about beauty? Closing out the year with a view to helping out with festive beauty routines, Yves Saint Laurent Beauté are launching the very first Google Glass make-up tutorial, exclusively at Selfridges London.
Taking the traditional make-up counter makeover and injecting it with hi-tech, the collaboration gives Glass to YSL make-up artists in order to capture the make-up application through the eyes of the professional. Once the application process is fully recorded, customers receive a personalised video, ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures, and a customised list of products you can purchase. As my make-up artist Fred Letailleur, who admitted to being a total “Glass geek”, told me, the trick is to “become a camera”.
So how did the experience compare with the usual counter “makeover” experience – one that ordinarily, after an initial Cher Horowitz-style high, leads to complete cluelessness as to the smokey eye step-by-step once you get home? Once you get over the make-up artist’s intermittent glancing into the top right hand corner of their vision, it was pretty much business as usual. And when you get home, there’s an email waiting for you containing your recorded make-up tutorial, along with everything you need to know to recreate the look.
As the aesthetics of Glass continue to be sneered at by some, maybe the device’s future lies in its utility in a commercial environment. The route that YSL Beauté has taken seems savvier than most, and actually pretty helpful for make-up dopes like me. And just in time for party season.
Google Glass launches on December 8 in Selfridges, London, and consultations can be booked by telephone. Until then, check out this YSL Beauté feature from Dazed autumn/winter 2014.
