At Chanel’s Cruise 2025/26 show on the mist-veiled terraces of Villa d’Este, the beauty direction unfolded like a whispered reverie—an ethereal extension of the collection’s soft-spoken elegance.

Rather than competing with the cinematic backdrop of Lake Como, the makeup leaned into its serenity, enhancing the models’ natural features with a whisper-light touch that felt more like a memory than a statement.

Photo Credits: Acielle/StyLE Du Monde

The lips, like delicate afterthoughts to a whispered conversation, bore only the faintest suggestion of color—tones of petal pink and muted beige chosen not to announce, but to evoke. This was beauty conceived not as adornment, but as atmosphere. It moved with the grace of silk in still air—subtle, intentional, ineffably composed.

There was no urgency in the application, no attempt to sculpt or dramatize. Instead, the face was treated as a canvas of quiet light, curated with restraint and reverence. Every element—from the ephemeral shimmer on the eyelids to the almost imperceptible flush at the temples—spoke of a new kind of elegance: one that resides in the in-between, in nuance, in breath.

Photo Credits: Acielle Style Du Monde

Hair followed suit with a language of its own. Loosely woven braids, gently undone chignons, and waves softened by time created silhouettes that felt lived-in yet impossibly refined. They did not strive for perfection—they embodied it in its most ephemeral form.

This was beauty at its most rarefied: not constructed, but conjured. Not styled, but sensed. It captured the spirit of a maison in transition, holding fast to its codes of timeless allure while daring to suggest that the future of femininity might be found not in excess, but in essence.