Exhibition Will Restore Luxury to Paris

“In the middle of recession, Estée Lauder said that the last luxury for women is lipstick,” said Edwin Sberro, co-founder of “Exhibition,” an annual publication that launches its inaugural issue at Colette during Paris Couture Week. He also works as a consultant for luxury brands, and says, “Today, women tend to carry three or four tubes around. Both today and historically, there is something very decadent and luxurious about wearing lipstick.”

Naturally, then, as luxury and print media become increasingly rarefied concepts, the concept for the first is lipstick. The love child of four Parisian lads—Edwin Sberro, Gael Hugo, Jean-Christophe Husson and Boris Ovini—was conceived after a visit to the Givenchy makeup factories, where the team followed the entire process. The theme was then deployed through photographic features of carnivorous mouths, elegant cakes, and dexterous tongues, by contributors ranging from eerie-chic Richard Burbridge to photographers Mark Segal and Solve Sundsbo and pâtisserie maestro Pierre Hermé.

Is launching yet another magazine in the realm of fantasy, or does it have a chance of survival? “This is altogether a different kind of product, mid-way between a magazine and a beautiful object to be kept,” said Sberro, explaining,  “There is a different level of freedom for editors and photographers when creating an annual publication. There are more creative options, and a real possibility to distance oneself from news coverage.”