Hermès Beauty’s creative director Gregoris Pyrpylis talks us through his creative process ahead of the launch of a bold new foundation
Gregoris Pyrpylis’ own version of the shared teenage pre-night-out ritual happily led him astray – away from his trajectory to study English and become a teacher and into the arms of make-up artistry, where he’s 20 years deep. “I never said I wanted to become a professional make-up artist,” Pyrpylis tells AnOther. “Everything started at the University of Athens, when I did my best friend’s make-up.” For the creative director of Hermès Beauty, make-up application was always just a hobby. “Even today, after all this time, it doesn’t feel like work.”
His parents were pharmacists in the Greek countryside, and Pyrpylis grew up between the pharmacy’s shelves, watching his mother work the skincare counter day after day. It was here that he learnt about skin and what people actually want to wear. “People want to feel like they’re themselves – not like they’re wearing a mask.”
As soon as Hermès tapped him, Pyrpylis knew he wanted to make a foundation. “I was so under the charm of the Plein Air collection,“ he explains, which he launched with the Complexion Balm in 2022. “Plein Air means outdoors – it’s about feeling the elements around you. Like your skin is being caressed by the sun and fresh air. It’s something that really speaks to me." He believes that make-up should feel like skin – so much so that you might forget you’re wearing it – and it should elevate, not erase.
But there’s only so far you can take a complexion balm. By nature, a balm is limited. “I immediately knew I wanted to dig deeper in terms of texture, shades and coverage. With a foundation, shades are more deliberate.” Pyrpylis also prides himself in being “connected to reality" and consumers. Right after launching the Complexion Balm, he saw an appetite for something with more coverage: “It’s nice to have a tinted cream, but there’s a place for something more. Immediately [after launching the balm], after two or three months, we started working on the foundation – it took us almost four years to develop.”
He began with an end goal, envisioning the perfect Hermès foundation through moodboards. “Putting it together visually is one of the best moments," he muses. “I dug into the archives and learnt so much. I visited the Emile Hermès Museum. I visited the leather métier.”
Hermès began in 1837, when Thierry Hermès designed beautiful and practical harnesses and saddles. As such, quality leather is at the very heart of the house: “I was very inspired by our Box Leather – the way that it captures the light but isn’t glossy is what inspired the luminous-matte finish.” Just as the saddles favoured both beauty and comfort, Pyrpylis did not want to compromise on either. “I’m not usually a big fan of high-coverage products because the pigment has a tendency to accumulate,” he explains. Hermès Plein Air Luminous Matte promises to be different: it offers medium-buildable coverage with a natural-looking finish that lasts for 16 hours and doesn’t crease. The comforting liquid simply melts into skin. The secret lies in its high skincare content – unsurprising, considering the house’s confirmed plans to launch a skincare line. “82 per cent of the foundation’s formula is skincare,” says Pyrpylis. “The skincare is not just a technical claim. It’s the essence of this creation.” Inside the formula, you’ll find niacinamide, hyaluronic acid and white mulberry tree extract to soothe, hydrate and protect against oxidative stress.
“People around my age have this perception that foundations are heavy – that’s why we chose these ingredients. The foundation evens out skin without being visible. And at the same time, it really takes care of your skin – not just when you wear it, but after you remove it. Your skin feels more plump and nourished.”
Creating Pyrpylis’ dream foundation was by no means easy. “It was tough and challenging and difficult to develop,” he admits. Despite not wanting to compromise, he recalls being “humbled” and having to “adapt to reality”. Initially, he wanted to include sun protection within the formula. “It just didn’t work. The sun protection filters shifted the shades and it was impossible to correct them,” he tells us. “We decided not to compromise. It’s a make-up product first. I needed the shades to be very precise.”
You should never rely on sun protection purely from a make-up product like foundation anyway. For full protection, you’d need to use much more product than you think — way too much for a casual make-up look. Instead, Pyrpylis recommends moisturising, applying SPF and then moving on to foundation.
Compromising on an SPF claim meant Pyrpylis’ shade range could be everything he’d envisioned: “We have light, light medium, medium deep and deep shades. Within each, we have three different undertones: neutral, warm and cool.” This might sound like a standard approach, but extensive shade ranges still aren’t easy to come by. In recent years, especially among deeper shades, colours have skewed too yellow. This is something that Pyrpylis actively worked to avoid: “Yellow-based foundations give a mask effect. It doesn’t respect the individual’s undertone,” he says.
With the basics down pat, Pyrpylis wanted to make more than just a foundation; he wanted to create a ritual. “There’s this perception that Hermès is a very classic kind of house, but there’s a lot of playfulness and curiosity behind every launch. So Hermès Beauty is very bold and audacious.”
With the help of Pierre Hardy, Hermès Beauty’s “creator of objects”, the foundation palette, brush and silicone spatula were born. “You can use the palette to mix your foundation with a moisturiser, or to mix shades – you can do whatever you want,” says Pyrpylis. The palette is a work of art: wafer-thin and gold, with a raised edge for easy grabbing and an Hermès ex libris stamped on top for grip. The brush is subtly shaped like a hoof (“a small ode to our equestrian roots”), and even the tiny spatula comes dressed in a sharp, black and white Hermès uniform. Every detail is etched with your beauty ritual in mind, “elevating the moment of application and turning it into self-care,” according to Pyrpylis.
The combination of perfect circles and sharp squares has become somewhat of a Pierre Hardy design signature, which you can clearly see here. The rectangular, partly frosted bottle is topped with a rounded black and white-striped lid, and an ex libris sits at the helm like a pressed penny. The outside box is just as delightful, in the iconic Hermès orange and delicately textured – dappled, like leather.
“It’s about the moment,” gushes Pyrpylis. “When you try it, you’ll see: the sensation, feeling like you have nothing on, feeling like your skin is respected and being taken care of, knowing it will not make you look like someone else. It’s celebrating you – what makes you unique.”
Pyrpylis’ dream is for this feeling to reach all ages: “From when you’re 18 and earlier and just starting to use make-up, to more mature complexions. This is for women and men who feel like they can never find something that works.” Hermès Plein Air Luminous Matte Skincare Foundation is for anyone who covets beautiful, healthy skin.
Hermès Plein Air Luminous Matte Skincare Foundation is available from January 23.
