Philip Treacy has made his name, and secured an OBE, by crafting headpieces for the rich, royal and famous. For 2015 he is adding make-up mogul to his CV with a 12-piece collection for Mac Cosmetics.

‘My currency is beauty and elegance; you can attach that to anything. All I had to go on was my point of view, which is what design is about,’ Treacy said of creating for Mac. ‘It’s what Phillip Treacy make-up could look like - it’s about colour, exuberance and beauty.’

The starting point for the collaboration was, of course, his designs. ‘We went to our archives with the Mac team and I selected pieces that did something for me.’

The collection is broken into three themes: ‘A kind of futuristic Hollywood, one is all about colour and the other is a kind of Gothic, modern future’.

While Treacy doesn’t have a favourite theme, he is enamored with old-school Hollywood. ‘It’s a time that invented contemporary glamour, completely. For designers, early Hollywood is a field day of inspiration.’

The designer took ideas from the era, but counters, ‘I like originality; we didn’t want to do something that has been seen before.

‘What is interesting about make-up today is that it doesn’t look old – it looks new.’

And Mac, for Treacy, was an obvious partner. ‘I worked with Mac for about 20 years and they’ve always sponsored my catwalk shows. Then they asked me if I’d be interested in this project and I was; I am.’

‘[The process] is different [to millinery]. It’s about colour, but it’s also about finding that perfect aspect to it, because colour reacts differently on different skin.’

Treacy gets it. He understands that make-up is important. ‘You can transform yourself with beautiful make-up. It is an enhancer; people buy a lipstick to cheer themselves up. It’s about having fun with what you’ve got’.

We’ll have to wait until 16 April, when we’ll be able to have fun with the Philip Treacy x Mac Cosmetics collection. In the meantime, buy the March issue of ELLE (out 29 January) for an exclusive sneak peek at the products.