Prada inks deal with L'Oréal to launch beauty products

Luxury brand Prada has inked a license agreement with L'Oréal to create, develop and distribute luxury beauty products for the Prada brand. This agreement will see both companies combine their expertise in each of their own sectors. Patrizio Bertelli, CEO of Prada said, “L’Oréal is the leading global beauty company. Its position and experience makes it the ideal partner for Prada to develop its full potential across a variety of new projects, leverage Prada’s well-established fragrance identity and reach even more audiences around the world.”

Cyril Chapuy, president of L'Oréal Luxe added that “We are very pleased to have signed this license agreement with Prada. Prada is one of the most respected players in the global luxury industry. A symbol of excellence and avant-garde, the Prada brand's unique and unconventional philosophy appeals to consumers around the world. This license will give L'Oréal Luxe the ideal complement to its portfolio of iconic brands.”

L’Oreal houses high-end beauty brands such as Lancôme, Giorgio Armani, Yves Saint Laurent Beauté, Shu Uemura and Urban Decay among others. The company has recently been doubling down on sustainable beauty. L’Oreal joined as a pioneering member of the Paper Bottle Company (PaBoCo) to accelerate its paper-based packaging innovations. The PaBoCo project focuses on developing paper bottles, and according to L’Oreal, it is the first player in the cosmetics industry to have integrated PaBoCo alongside Carlsberg, Absolut and Coca-Cola.

The French beauty company has also been bolstering its efforts to revolutionise the retail and beauty scene. In June this year, L’Oreal’s AI and AR company, ModiFace, tied up with Amazon to enable consumers to use the front-facing camera on their mobile phones to digitally try on different shades of lipstick in a live video of themselves or on a selfie. With this partnership, retailers can incorporate virtual try-on experiences for an unlimited amount of products.

The AR simulation of each shade is done automatically, based on AI-powered analysis of information provided by makeup brands, but also images and descriptions of the product available on social media. The technology will be able to analyse textual and visual information related to a particular makeup shade and to realistically reproduce it via AR.