It’s an overcast day in New York, but the weather around Violette Serrat feels different. The French make-up artist is sitting on an ottoman at Amelie du Chalard, her friend’s gallery, the light bouncing off her sequinned Erdem pencil skirt and perfectly tousled shag. There’s a luminous sweep of apricot blush across her cheeks, while her eyes are smudged with flecks of silver and purple. “Colours make me happy,” she says. “We are like birds – attracted to nectar.”
Serrat launched her own cosmetics brand, Violette_FR, in 2021, and it’s now seeing 30 per cent year-on-year growth. The line is sold in 868 shops across North America and Europe – more than double the number it had at the start of the year. Stockists include Sephora, Oh My Cream! and Liberty London, where the brand has a counter on a prime corner of Carnaby Street.
Violette_FR Plume eyeshadows in (from top) Charbon Fumé and Poussière de Lune, £33 each
Among the bestselling products are the spray-on Boum-Boum Milk – a moisturising serum that Serrat says is “so expensive to make” that the profit margins are eyelash-thin – and the sheer matte lipstick Bisou Balm, one of which sells every two and a half minutes. The products are cult, but the pace is hyper-careful. “Everything takes me three years from start to finish.”
