Peter Philips: Beautiful Dreamer

As Chanel’s Global Creative Director of Makeup, Peter Philips’s instinct for trend forecasting is unmatched. Since his appointment in 2008, the Belgian beauty guru has rolled out one hit after another—from his limited-edition nail varnish Jade, which sold for a breathless $100 a bottle on eBay at its peak, to his “temporary tattoos,” a project with Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel’s spring 2010 show, which had a waiting list of 3,589 names before the designs went on sale. For today’s film, directors Jauretsi and Crystal Moselle visited the onetime makeup artist at his Manhattan home to discuss his early memories of his mother, Irving Penn’s light-sculpting ability, and the inspiration behind Philips’s robot-themed animation for Chanel.