In September 2002, during Fashion Week in New York City, I interviewed Miami-bred Colombian designer Esteban Cortazar, then 18, for a feature in Urban Latino magazine. Back then, a few visionaries had recognized his innate talent — among them Todd Oldham, Cortazar's mentor. At that time, Cortazar had just secured funding for his eponymous couture line and was winning over New York's socialite set (Ivanka Trump, Paris Hilton and Patricia Field all attended his Spring/Summer 2003 runway show). Some even compared him to fashion prodigy Zac Posen, who was only a few years older than Cortazar and had already been embraced as a fashion darling (the two had very different aesthetics, so these comparisons were mostly based on the designers' ages). Within the next few years, Cortazar's subsequent collections were covered in glossies like Vogue, W, People, Essence, and Latina. In December 2007, he was appointed the Head Designer at Ungaro, a position he held until July of this year (the relationship was dissolved after Cortazar bumped heads with the label's CEO, allegedly after Cortazar resisted managements' efforts to shoot ad campaigns starring Lindsay Lohan). Why am I going into all this detail about Cortazar? Well, because one of Cortazar's strengths as a designer is his ability to understand and manipulate colors in a way that's fresh and exciting. It's one of the ways in which he breathed new life into Ungaro.
And while he may no longer be at the Parisian label, his influence is evident when you first look at Ungaro's new collection of color cosmetics for Avon, U by Ungaro — or so it seems. The limited-edition collection includes two Face Shimmer Powder shades (Champagne and Runway Pink), three lipstick hues (Champagne, Glam, and Ungaro Pink), and three eyeshadow shades (Champagne, Runway Pink, and Glam, a turquoise color that brings me right back to 2002, since it was one of the most prominent hues in Cortazar's Spring/Summer collection). All of the pieces in the collection are packaged in sleek, metallic pink cases with silver details, all bearing the U by Ungaro logo.
But is the color collection haute fab or hot mess? Well, frankly, it's a mixed bag. The Face Shimmer Powder really didn't do very much for me. The Runway Pink powder, a peachy tan hue embossed with a bright pink "U," just left me confused. The colors are a bit tacky and wouldn't work as a blush or a luminizer or even to give the face a shimmer. I just couldn't imagine anyone labeling this a must-have. The Single Eyeshadows, in turn, were an even bigger disappointment. I actually had high hopes for these, so I was a bit crushed when I started swatching the hues and realized how odd they looked on skin (check the photo below). The Champagne color looks like a pearly, taupe-ish gold hue in its compact but, on the skin, it's barely detectable (all you'll see are a few speckles of glitter rather than a complex, textured hue), and the Runway Pink is just hideous — it's the type of pink you find in pieces of chalk (and not even the good sidewalk chalk, but rather, the boring chalk teachers use at school) or Pepto-Bismol tablets. Yuck. And that's not the only problem — the shadows are incredibly hard to manipulate, stubbornly staying in certain areas and refusing to glide across the eye in an even fashion.
The ONE saving grace in the collection is the lipstick. After the powder and eyes hadow debacles, I breathed a sigh of relief when I tested the Glam and the Ungaro Pink lipstick shades (see the swatches below). Both delivered high-impact color, felt creamy and soft, and they went on the lips evenly, without any feathering (and without drying out your pout). The Glam shade has a magenta-ish tint to it, reminiscent of the color you'll find in many an Yves Piaget rose. The Ungaro Pink, meanwhile, is a bright flamingo-meets-Barbie's-Dreamhouse pink shade that's incredibly fun (but does take some style and edge to pull off).
All in all, I'd say the lipsticks are the all-stars here. Everything else, in my opinion, is more of a fashion "don't."
Check out the swatches below!
Lipstick Swatches (Glam at top and Ungaro Pink at bottom):
Wearing The Glam Lipstick:
Eye Shadows (Champagne at Top and Runway Pink at Bottom) :
U by Ungaro Face Shimmer Powder, $20; U by Ungaro Lipstick, $10; and U by Ungaro Eyeshadow Singles, $13 each. Visit Shop.Avon.com
