Encompassing the skincare lineup and cosmetic collection for spring-summer 2018, the Japanese-born beauty brand redefines radiance with an Academy-Award nominated actress.
by SunHee Grinnell
On a perfect weather day in Beverly Hills, Felicity Jones is dressed in effortless lady-like style, sporting shades of pale pink and cream like an English rose as she greets me with a radiant smile. Appropriately enough, we meet in the garden suite of a coveted classic Hollywood hotel. “One of the most phenomenal concealers ever to be created is by Clé de Peau Beauté!” Jones shares her insight with excitement. Clé de Peau Beauté is a beauty brand she came to know thanks to various makeup artists she has worked with over the years, who carried the products in their bags of makeup tricks.
And now, at the age of 34, Jones is making her very first foray into beauty representation with Clé de Peau Beauté, and it couldn’t be a better union. “We have very similar ideology, it’s a very careful brand, their attention to detail and there’s real passion for what they do, which I can truly appreciate,” Jones says. When I asked Yukari Suzuki, Clé de Peau Beauté’s Chief Brand Officer, about choosing Jones as “the one,” she shared similar sentiments. “The DNA of our brand is that she is intelligent, uncompromising and exquisite. An ideal beauty for us is a person who possesses substance and where beauty radiates from within.” After having gone through a rigorous process of finding the perfect representative who would embody such aura, Jones was it for them, “because there’s real conviction towards her work and she exhibits that,” states Suzuki.
The new Clé de Peau Beauté campaign starring Jones launches Wednesday. The Spring/Summer 2018 Radiant Day campaign was shot in London with both videos and print shot by David Sims, while The "Essence of Radiance" video was directed by Alisha Goldstein in Croatia. “We were given incredible freedom, free rein to create and find something natural, therefore, I approached it more like a dance than a character role-play per se, because I saw it as a dance . . . the whole thing is really about the bases of movement,” says Jones. She continued, “When you’re acting, you have to make it your own . . . so it must be an open process with dialogue and understanding.” With this campaign, Jones hopes to be more than just a pretty face for the brand, but also help to identify that this engagement represents women as they really are. “I hope they can see the freshness in this—I want them to feel safe to incorporate it into their lives because women are really busy these days and if you’re going to rely on a skincare brand, it needs to deliver excellence and I feel like Clé de Peau Beauté does that—it really represents excellence.”
“Essence of Radiance” video shoot directed by Alisha Goldstein. Photo courtesy of Clé de Peau Beauté.
Excellence incorporated indeed. The new Firming Serum Supreme has been 10 years in the making— its patent-pending formula is a more potent version of the current serum in the line but is now available for skin that needs stronger assistance in elasticity. According to director of Clé de Peau Beauté’s Laboratories, Takayuki Ishimatsu, “This formulation works like laser that penetrates deep within to re-boot its energy without damaging the outer layer of the dermis. The key ingredient activates the cells in laser-like delivery where you will see difference in only short 2 weeks and within 4-6 weeks, 86% to 95% improvement of the skin.” Using their proprietary ingredients, such as Illuminating Complex EX, that possess Platinum Golden Silk Essence and Japanese Pearl protein, as well as Glow Fortifier Rx which is composed of Hydroxyproline along with botanical extracts cultivated from Mishima Island located on the most southern tip of Japan, it promises to deliver 4-D boosting technology. Meaning, 3-D lifting effect from deep within to 1-D tightening effect of the skin’s surface.
“I have quite sensitive skin and I have zero problem with it, in fact, I now have become a Clé de Peau Beauté junkie for all their skin care including the Crème and their foundation really suits my skin,” Jones said. And the makeup? “I always loved makeup. Scouring over magazines religiously, I always loved the application of makeup—the act of applying—because I found it to be a moment in a day that I can look and focus on myself that is…makeup gives me comfort, a protection of sort, it’s a bit of an armor, isn’t it?” A beautiful armor indeed, with a new relaunch of the crowd-pleasing, seamlessly formulated concealers with more added shades to three new sculpted Rouge à Lèvres in tints of various rosy hues of lipsticks and Radiant Lip Glosses, Jones certainly radiates in the campaign.
Left: Felicity Jones on set in Croatia. Photo by David Sims. Right: Clé de Peau Beauté Firming Serum. Photo courtesy of Clé de Peau Beauté.
Before I departed, I asked her how much she related to her role as Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the film On Basis of Sex, an upcoming release due out later this year. “When I read the script, it was no brainer as she was the architect of gender rights, and I play her from her early years of 20s to her late 30s, where no law firm would hire her because she was a woman. I have such huge respect for her—her tenacity, her humanity, her sense of humor—she had incredible care for people and it’s a true love story between her and her husband (played by Armie Hammer), they had a true connection,” shared Jones, then added, “The calm and the expertise Mimi Leder (who directed the biopic) brought onto the set was phenomenal."
And I asked her to finished this sentence for me: As a woman of the 21st century, I am . . . ”excited about the landscape we’re in now, in this changing world—I think for women, it’s a fantastic moment to be in.” Observing this English beauty up close and personal, Felicity Jones is definitely having a beauty moment from inside out.