L’Oréal marked a new partnership with the Louvre at an event in Paris last night, held beneath the museum’s famous glass pyramid.
The result of the partnership is a guided visit, supported by L’Oréal Group, through the Louvre Museum’s galleries focused on a signposted selection of 108 works that highlight the concept of beauty over the past 10,000 years.
The program called De Toutes Beautés (Of All Beauties) will be open to the public from November 13.
The guided visit is based on three key themes: Beauty gestures, rituals and practices; the canons or idealized visions of beauty; and what beauty reveals about society.
The themes and visit were created by the Louvre in conjunction with L’Oréal’s Art, Culture & Heritage Department with the aim of sharing the story of beauty throughout history with the widest possible audience.
There is also an app accessible via a QR code. Through the app, which contains written and audio materials to complement the museum’s existing signage, the artworks and objects will tell their own stories in the first person. For example, visitors will be able hear from Nefatiabet, whose beauty products accompanied her to the afterlife.
The program has been designed to reach a new and younger generation. In addition to the museum experience, a web series co-produced by the Louvre and L’Oréal, will be broadcast at the beginning of 2025 focused on some of the iconic works from the curated collection through the eyes of a group of young visitors.
“This meeting is an incredible event – this journey between two great French houses representing French heritage abroad, which share the conviction that beauty is something that deserves to be told.” L’Oréal CEO Nicolas Hieronimus told guests at the event last night. “[…] There is this real desire to democratize beauty, to make it known to all generations, perhaps generations who have never entered the Louvre. Beauty is the number one conversation on social media, and [so through this program we] tell [young people] that beauty is more than 10,000 years old, more than 100,000 years old, so come and discover it at the Louvre. We chose this year for the partnership because it is L’Oréal’s 115th anniversary and so I find it a very nice way to celebrate.”
Talking further about the partnership, he added: “Three words come to mind: Honor – it is an honor to be here and to be associated with the Louvre; pride – pride that together we carry high the colors of France’s beauty heritage; and recognition – recognition for all the teams, obviously, those from the Louvre and those from L’Oréal.”
