Beauty

When Fashion and Beauty Collide on Runways 

Hot lips took on a new meaning — and strategy — at the recent Balmain spring 2025 fashion catwalk display.

The show opened with a minidress spangled with images of a ruby-red mouth and fingernails. Variations on that theme dominated the runway, with dense, glittering embroideries on evening columns, sculptural cocktail dresses, jumpsuits and cropped jackets, all teasing color cosmetics, a category that the brand has yet to introduce. Some models carried purses shaped like the eight fragrances from Les Éternels de Balmain, the line that launched in late August as the house's reentry into the fragrance category.

Rousteing wasn't alone in tapping the catwalk as a way to build awareness for cosmetics. Other houses such as Nina Ricci and Victoria Beckham also used the Paris runways to help launch new fragrances.

In today's WWD, European Beauty Editor Jennifer Weil and Paris Bureau Chief Joelle Diderich explore how the two-for-one approach makes sense at a time when luxury brands are tightening their belts in response to a sharp slowdown in demand. Not only does a combined fashion show and fragrance launch save on marketing expenses, but it also highlights a brand’s most accessible products.

Elsewhere, beauty transactions decline in both the U.S. and the U.K., according to new data and see the top 10 beauty brands on TikTok in October. — Kathryn Hopkins, Senior Beauty Editor, WWD and Beauty Inc