Kitty kitty bang bang

This holiday season, makeup is all about cats: Choupette Lagerfeld and a fresh take on the classic cat-eye.

Dogs have owners, cats have staff,” proclaims a post on Choupette Lagerfeld’s Instagram account. Well, this Christmas, cats have holiday collection collaborations with Shu Uemura, too. Or at least this cat does.

Choupette Lagerfeld, Karl Lagerfeld’s beloved Burmese kitty, is the furry face of the beauty brand’s latest celebrity collaboration. “Shupette by Karl Lagerfeld for Shu Uemura” hit the Shu shelves (and my makeup kit) yesterday, and it’s definitely the must-have beauty booty any cosmetic-crazy girl should want to see in her Christmas stocking. YStyle sat down with Shu Uemura’s international artistic director (and his protégé), Kakuyasu Uchiide, to have a quick chat about the collection — and the cat.

YSTYLE: What do you think is the biggest makeup trend this season?

KAKUYASU UCHIIDE: The area around the eyes must be the focal point of this season’s trend makeup. The cat eye, and eyebrows. The eyebrows of the model for the Shupette collection have a beautiful shape, and you’ll notice that they are not too bold — bold, but softly blended. Brows and a cat eye are the perfect combination to express the season’s beauty trend.

Tell us about the Shupette collection; how did it come together?

Actually, it takes two years before launching to develop a collection. That’s why it’s not easy to foresee what’s going to happen in the beauty trends, but this time, it’s really perfect timing because everyone feels that eyeliner is really hot this season.

With Karl — and this is our second artist collaboration with him, and our first with Choupette — this idea came up just after our first collaboration in 2012, Mon Shu Girl. Karl Lagerfeld, he loved doing the collaboration with us, and just after that first collaboration, we started planning the second. With Karl, it’s always going to be fantastic, but we wanted to do something new, something unique. At that time, one topic came up around him: Choupette. He got this beautiful cat from a model, Baptiste Giabiconi, one of his favorites, and he fell in love with her at first sight. She’s a really beautiful cat, a Burmese. She looked very elegant in front of the camera, but of course, off the camera, she’s just a cat.

Apart from appearing on the packaging and in the campaign photos, how did Choupette inspire the collection?

I was really impressed by her eyes, beautiful blue eyes, that’s why I wanted to pick up that beautiful blue and put it in in the palette. So you see, there’s one big palette and one trio palette that include the blue shadow. It took time to develop this shade of blue. It’s very sensitive — it’s not easy to express the blue of Choupette’s eyes with one shade, so I offer a mix that you can combine to create that shade of blue. Filipinos have a beautiful skintone, so this grayish blue with the pearl texture is going to work very well on your eyelid. The palette is really useful, and it’s really good for a holiday gift.

The fashion lashes also create a cat eye shape. It’s a holiday collection, so I want to express a festive feeling, that’s why the eyelashes are so gorgeous, with white-pink feathers. It’s really perfect timing to offer cat eye makeup.

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The Shupette by Karl Lagerfeld for Shu Uemura Holiday 2014 Collection is already on shelves at a Shu Uemura boutique near you.