Nicole Kidman has a brand new gig.
The Academy Award-winning actress whose oeuvre spans from “The Hours” to “Moulin Rouge” and TV exhibits like “Huge Little Lies” and “9 Excellent Strangers,” is Clé de Peau Beauté’s latest international model ambassador.
Kidman has had rather a lot on her plate. Along with that includes in a marketing campaign for the model, she’s within the throes of filming the sequel to cult-favorite “Sensible Magic” alongside Sandra Bullock. She additionally made the rounds to Balenciaga’s fall 2025 couture present in Paris in July, and took house the 2025 Kering Girls in Movement award on the Cannes Movie Pageant earlier within the 12 months. All of that mentioned, Kidman informed WWD in a wide-ranging interview that her relationship with magnificence has at all times been important to her.
“As a result of I grew up with a mom that was at all times adamant about caring for pores and skin, she would slather me in sunscreen once I was little,” mentioned Kidman. “After I began experimenting with make-up and skincare myself, I went by so many alternative phases: a lot of masks, this and that. I realized I can change features of my face, increase issues, and it turned rather more artistic and thrilling.”
Her profession has additionally performed a job together with her understanding of magnificence, as have previous collaborators. “If you’re working with somebody like Baz Luhrmann and [costume designer] Catherine Martin, there’s a really particular look they need for the character,” she mentioned. “I began to comprehend, as I used to be being created by others and experimenting, they had been instructing me the right way to use make-up specifically methods and create characters. I might then go and use that in actual life.”
She’s been a model devotee since lengthy earlier than her ambassadorship, calling out the attention make-up remover, the serum, physique cream, totally different foundations and a masks as her favorites. The lipsticks, too, are a favourite with shade 26 being her most well-liked. “I’d already been utilizing so lots of their merchandise. It wasn’t like I used to be going to have to find them, and I used to be in.”
Mizuki Hashimoto, Clé de Peau’s chief model officer, described Kidman as “somebody who really embodies objective, artistry and energy in a approach that feels each genuine and aspirational, and she or he brings contemporary perspective to her story and a strong connection to the ladies that we serve across the globe.”
These customers nonetheless have a excessive urge for food for Clé de Peau, and the model is a vivid spot for father or mother firm Shiseido amidst broader challenges. “We’ve got been in a position to safe development final 12 months, and the primary quarter of 2025 as nicely,” Hashimoto mentioned. “Within the final two years, the cosmetics business goes by a form of a reset that’s primarily pushed by developments in China particularly.”
Globally, nonetheless, “the model is protecting a really excessive development momentum all through Asia, with Japan being the core marketplace for us. In North America and EMEA, we’re dedicated to development of those two markets in coming years to determine our place as a world luxurious model,” mentioned Hashimoto.
Extra regionally to North America, the model is outpacing the posh skincare market, which has seen a deceleration within the U.S. extra broadly. “The important thing to our success is the buyer searching for science-backed skincare, they need to perceive what the product goes to ship for them,” mentioned Virginie Bourliere, senior vice chairman of U.S. advertising and marketing for Shiseido and Clé de Peau Beauté. “We’re fueled by over 40 years of pores and skin cell analysis. We proceed to gasoline it by our analysis, and the opposite factor that’s fueling our development are hero merchandise.”
The model’s cult-favorite eye cream remains to be its prime vendor, Bourliere mentioned, and it’s rising double digits. Make-up, although, boasts probably the most client loyalty throughout the vary, which she credit to the skincare advantages infused within the formulation.
She posited that the U.S. is simply changing into a extra vital marketplace for the model. “The U.S. is poised to turn out to be the primary driver of development,” she mentioned. “Most individuals within the U.S. don’t know that Clé de Peau is the highest skincare model in Japan, it has enormous consciousness and it’s by far the favourite. The most important alternative we see is to construct this consciousness right here within the U.S.”
As that pertains to Kidman, she has “a really broad attain and engaged viewers within the U.S.,” Bourliere mentioned, noting the push shall be paramount to elevating consciousness. “However after we increase consciousness, we need to construct it round our merchandise and likewise about our values. What appealed to us is that we do share frequent values together with her. She’s an advocate for ladies, she’s a U.N. Girls Goodwill Ambassador. And we’ve been partnering with UNICEF for six years now and have donated $11.6 million to assist the training and empowerment of ladies. It truly is the right alignment of values.”
Hashimoto agreed, including that she evaluated the chance with Kidman each qualitatively and quantitatively. “It’s past gross sales. Her ambassadorship is a broader advertising and marketing technique. She’s very dedicated as a person to social causes, being a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador, and that resonates with our model’s values.”
Kidman shared the same rationale for taking over the partnership, as nicely. “What’s the firm generally, what do they consider in, what are their values? Are they good? Are they contributors to the world? I met them, and we talked about what we needed to do with the model,” she mentioned. “That is really only a partnership that’s primarily based in perception, good will and care.”
