MECCA Artistry Treatment

Director’s statement

Cool, fast and tactile

Four women, two worlds, one dance floor.

This campaign is cool, fast and tactile. Multitextural: film, scan, paper, glitter, skin. The edit moves quickly but never predictably. It holds a breath where you expect a cut and cuts where you expect it to hold.

I see two ends of the spectrum of expressive women. The Renaissance women love decadence, but they’re in conflict with a private urge to let go, to party and dance. The club women are all about seeming cool, unaware of how they look on the dance floor. But in the bathroom mirror the truth comes out. She takes pride in how she looks.

Everyone in this film loves to dance and loves to express herself. The makeup is how each of them gets ready for it.

World one

Versailles

Decadence held in check. A floral wall, a vanity spread like a Sofia Coppola still life, porcelain skin and blush applied one more time than she needs. She wants to dance. She hasn’t yet.

World two

The club bathroom

Cool on the outside. Steel stalls, tiles, fluoro, a smudged mirror, the bass coming through the wall. On the floor she pretends not to care. In here, between songs, she takes her time.

The cast

Four women, four looks

Each character carries one of the four trade looks. Names are suggestions, with an alternate under each. Images are makeup references.

Makeup reference: heavy pink blush across porcelain skin

VersaillesRenaissance

Marguerite

or Fifi

Marie Antoinette inspired. Porcelain skin, sat at a vanity spread with cakes, ribbon and product. She adds more blush than anyone would, then a little more.

Look: blush

Makeup reference: deep berry lip, bare skin

VersaillesLip

Cornelia

or Delphine

Inspired by Girl with a Pearl Earring. Still, luminous, looking back over her shoulder. The one colour on her is the lip.

Look: lip

ClubBlonzey

Dakota

or Bambi

Club glam. Bronze, glow, gloss. She does her face in the club bathroom like she’s done it a hundred times, because she has.

Look: Blonzey

Makeup reference: smudged bronze smokey lid

ClubSmokey eye

Jinx

or Nico

The harder one. Smokey eye, smudged with a fingertip at the bathroom mirror. Doesn’t smile. Dances the hardest.

Look: smokey eye

Look & feel

90s beauty editorial meets the music video

The stills sensibility of a 90s beauty editorial with the movement and nerve of a Mitch Ryan or Aidan Zamiri music video. Close, tactile beauty moments cut against bodies in motion, in rooms that feel slightly too pink.

Two figures in white and lavender tights in front of pink curtains — Pink, staged, a little strange

Two women in satin slips in a steel lift — Satin against steel

Woman lying on the floor of a pale blue room — Caught between moves

Performer with arms raised in a room of mirrors and red tights — Mirrors and multiples

Lighting & grade

High contrast front lighting on set. In the grade we pull the contrast back to create a 90s scan look: lifted blacks, soft highlights, a little paper in the skin. This is the approach I took on my Persona × MECCA films.

My work: Persona × MECCA, film one

My work: Persona × MECCA, film two

The feeling

Caught mid-dance

Everything shot with a mood: the energy of a moment caught in dance, in the spirit of Aidan Zamiri. Paired with cultural zeitgeist quotes that inform the beauty look, the feeling and the moment.

Reference

Addison Rae, High Fashion (2025)

Charli XCX, SS26 (2026)

“Embrace messy girl makeup” I heard Vivaldi in a church and thought about it all night Blush first, questions later

Quote cards in the campaign voice. Final lines to be written with MECCA.

Execution

Two sets, one palette

Two sets. A Versailles-inspired floral wall with a vanity, and a club bathroom. The key is consistency between the worlds, and the palette does that work: baby blue, baby pink and silver run through both, in wardrobe, product, props and set dressing.

Baby blue

Bathroom tiles, eye looks, the Versailles sky

Baby pink

Blush, florals, the vanity, club light

Silver

Steel stalls, mirrors, compacts, glitter

Set one: Versailles

A floral wall in faded pinks and blues. The vanity is laid out like Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette: cakes, a fan, jewels, a perfume bottle, ribbon, with MECCA product placed among it all as if it belongs there.

Marie Antoinette (2006)

The fan and the jewels

Set design idea: three figures on a pink floor with props — Set design idea

Decadence, laid out

At the vanity

Set two: the club bathroom

Steel stalls, dark tiles, a wet floor, a mirror that has seen things. Harsh overhead light on set, softened in the grade. The bass comes through the wall the whole time.

Marc Jacobs

Legs in silver heels under a steel stall door — Under the stall door

Woman posed inside a tiled bathroom stall — Alexander Wang

Glitter clutch and heels on a steel bathroom floor — Silver and glitter

Deliverables

One shoot, every edit

Everything is shot across the two sets and cut into the full suite. The hero covers the four trade looks only.

Trade edits

One per look. Clear, step-led application for MECCA’s artists and stores.

RenaissanceBlonzeySmokey eyeLip

Extra edits

Off the hero brief, from footage we already have.

Ugly / prettyClub edit

Hero

The story film. All four characters, both worlds, ending on the dance floor. Covers the trade looks only.

Awareness

One per character. Feeling first: a title super, a dance moment, a beauty moment, shop the look.

BlonzeyRenaissanceLipSmokey eye

Performance

One per look. Product first: the spread, the application, the end frame.

BlonzeyRenaissanceLipSmokey eye

Hero film

The story

The two worlds are cut together on the beat. A gesture starts in one world and finishes in the other: a blush brush sweeps at Versailles and lands as bronzer in the bathroom mirror. By the end there’s only one room left, and everyone’s dancing in it.

My work · SIDE-NOTE × Pandora

Open on the pan

We establish all four women in one slow pan, the way I did here. Ours is full body: the line-up runs from the floral wall to the bathroom tiles, so the two worlds sit side by side from the first frame.

IntroPan through the line-up. Each holds her pose, nobody looks at the others.
BeautyCrash zoom into application, cut on the beat. Lip, blush, bronze, smudge.
Crossing overMatch cuts between worlds. A brush stroke at Versailles lands in the bathroom mirror.
DanceMarguerite finally lets go. Jinx dances hardest of all.
RevealPull out. Four finished faces, one dance floor.

Hero storyboardFrom MECCA’s creative

Intro

The line-up settles.

Super: MECCA sets the beat

Intro

Cornelia, still against the wall.

Intro

Dakota walks into frame.

Beauty

Crash zoom: lip.

Super: Swipe it. Sweep it.

Beauty

Texture, close.

Crossing over

Musical supers flick up.

Dance

Marguerite lets go.

Reveal

The worlds collide.

Reveal

Release.

End

Hold.

MECCA · Smudge it. Stack it.

Awareness

Feeling first

One per character. Each opens on a title super in her world, then a dance moment, a single line of type, and closes on MECCA, shop the look.

Title supers

Marguerite: Born to Baroque. Cornelia: Still Life. Dakota: Mirrorball Muse. Jinx: After Hours. Suggested

Renaissance editMarguerite · from MECCA’s creative

Title

Her world.

Born to Baroque

Dance

Caught mid-turn.

Type

One line.

Club editDakota · from MECCA’s creative

Title

Club light.

Mirrorball Muse

Detail

Between songs.

Type

One word.

End

Colour fills frame.

Shop the look

Same structure for Cornelia and Jinx.

Performance

Product first

One per look, same three beats in both worlds. The camera pans across the vanity, or the sink ledge in the club. Cut to her in the mirror, applying even more. She puts the product down and the end frame finishes in stop motion, props and product moving on their own.

Performance editMarguerite · from MECCA’s creative