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“I’m just doing an unboxing,” MAC’s global creative director Drew Elliott tells Luar founder Raul Lopez. It’s not long before the designer’s fall ’25 collection walks the runway, and he’s on a Zoom call from home in Brooklyn. Elliott, who is at the cosmetics brand’s studio in Soho, holds up a dustbag with Luar x MAC scrawled on black fabric. What’s inside feels like it has been about 20 years in the making.
“I started as a cashier,” Lopez remembers of the moment his MAC relationship began at the Herald Square Macy’s counter. “It was probably one of the best experiences of my life; it was actually so fun.” He was soon an artist for the brand and remembers wearing his makeup belt to the club after gigs. Now, he’s still wearing his own belt every day (“I don t even go to the bodega without concealer.”) and stopping by the same counter on his daily commute. “A lot of my friends still work for the company, so we still kiki,” he says, though he’s been keeping a big secret from everybody. “I’ve been wanting to tell ’em that I’m doing a collab so bad and I can’t,” Lopez admits. Conversations began in 2023, and a limited-edition MAC x Luar Ana Artistry Bag is finally in his hands.
Lopez holds the prototype, its exterior a black faux crocodile, its interior designed to protect artists’ brushes (and so much more). “I can put all my shit in here,” he says, naming extra socks and headphones as typical carry-ons. “I know so many makeup girlies that are really going to live for this.” It’s a true hybrid piece featuring “the same lining inside that MAC uses for their brush belts, and then we use our factories,” Lopez explains of creating the concept alongside the makeup house’s cosmetics designers. “They’re so fab, you have to meet them. Iconic.” Elliott, who came to MAC from Paper Magazine, agrees. “I always say MAC is the most fashionable makeup brand.” Since the ’90s it has worked with “over 300 different designers, not shows, designers around the world,” he says. “Strobe Cream came out of a show that they did with Alexander McQueen,” Elliott notes of developing the holy grail product based on a beauty look that walked the runway.
At 8 p.m. tonight, their new Ana bag will walk Luar’s runway. “There’ll be a couple of models with them, it’s going to be a moment, it’s going to be really cute,” Lopez promises. “I like to show at that hour because I’m very Dominican and a family reunion is always from 8 p.m. and on, and my shows are a family reunion. I like to get everyone to come in and just kind of hang out,” Lopez says. It’s a last-party-of-the-night kind of feeling that means Beyoncé might turn up front row one season, Madonna the next. I ask what he’s doing to keep himself feeling well ahead of the moment. “Do you want me to be realistic?” Lopez asks. Yes. “I watch Housewives.” He’s also been stopping by the spa for hot soaks, cold plunges, and sauna time while learning to disconnect from “the mayhem in my head,” remember that “it always gets finished” and “nobody really knows what’s going on in the runway except you.”
Lopez has a team behind him now, and a lot to look forward to with this partnership. “I’ve known Raul since I came to New York, and watching his trajectory is so exciting, and being able to be a part of it at MAC I think is really special,” says Elliott, who’s looking forward to “number one, seeing what he makes and who’s wearing the clothes, who’s in the front row, and seeing his tremendous success—it’s fun to help support and keep fueling.” Lopez’s theme for the season is deeply personal. “It has to do a lot with my upbringing and things that I’ve gone through and kind of reclaiming and showing the world things that I’ve been laughed at for are now the things saving me,” he says. “But also I come from ballroom, so they always taught me you got to step your good foot forward and then let the girls have it.”
The MAC x Luar Ana Artistry Bag will be available on February 11 on maccosmetics.com for $295.
