4 min readMidway through my Zoom call with M.A.C’s Creative Director Nicola Formichetti and London-based designer Conner Ives, the three of us started Googling. We were trying to remember the year that M.A.C released its first Viva Glam lipstick—one of the most impactful beauty launches of the last four decades—on the occasion of its newest iteration.
“1994!” Ives says upon finding the answer to our group query. The campaign for the red shade, photographed by Albert Sanchez and starring RuPaul, was groundbreaking, with 100% of profits donated to LGBTQ+ communities and HIV/AIDS-focused initiatives. In the years that followed, the project raised over $540 million globally, and Rihanna, K.D. Lang, Mary J. Blige, and Lady Gaga all took a turn as the face of Viva Glam.
Now, Formichetti and Ives have teamed up on a new, limited-edition version in “Viva Planet,” a pink-beige color made to complement a wide range of skin tones. It will be available to buy on Monday, along with a new white-on-black version of Ives’s viral “Protect the Dolls” t-shirt. 100% of the proceeds will be donated to organizations that support the trans community, including The Trevor Project in the U.S. and Mermaids in the U.K. The new campaign, photographed by Nick Knight, features models and ballroom legends Dominique Jackson, Ivy Stewart, Josephine DuPont, and Green Kim.
“When I heard Nicola wanted to have a call, I was gagged,” Ives said. “He shaped my image of pop music. I was a 12-year-old gay kid growing up in upstate New York, and my one solace was being a little monster.” Formichetti has worked closely with Lady Gaga as a designer and stylist, and of course, “little monster” is a term used to describe her biggest fans. It’s a term of endearment, as is the term “dolls” in the trans community. When Ives walked out to take a bow at his Fall 2025 show wearing a shirt he’d made the night before that said “Protect the Dolls,” it sparked a global conversation around trans rights. Ives produced the t-shirt, which sold out almost instantly, with 100% of the proceeds going to TransLifeline. Celebrities like Troye Sivan and Pedro Pascal wore the tee to further push the message. But while Ives has been approached to create more tees and collaborate on special projects, he was always hesitant—until now.
“I was really focused on not diluting the message or the product,” he said. “I had a lot of people wanting to jump on the bandwagon. I had people saying, ‘You should do this in different colors; you should do this on hats and bags and sweatshirts and stuff. But to everyone’s protest, I was really like, ‘No, it’s a white t-shirt with black text on it.” Ives added, “Until Nicola came along and convinced me to do a black t-shirt with white writing.”
Though Ives was, in his words, “protective of the idea of the core pillars of this,” he was eager to work on the project with MAC, explaining, “It’s about doing real good and not just benefitting from the visibility of looking like you’re doing good.”
Formimchetti was equally thrilled to find a partner in Ives, a designer whom he has always admired not only because of what he makes but what he stands for. “I think magic happens when everyone is doing it [a charitable project] genuinely. Conner is very specific in how he creates his own world,” Formichetti said. “I think we need more designers like him today, designers who don’t budge. That’s how designers should be. There will always be people asking for you to do other stuff, and as much as possible, you should say no and really do what you feel and believe.”
Beyond the imagery and the product, Formichetti and Ives hope that this new collaboration helps to educate the masses. Ives pointed out that, while he and his team received plenty of messages about the shirts themselves (when they’d ship, when they’d restock, what size is best, etc.), there were also a lot of people who admitted to knowing nothing about what it actually means to be a doll or why they were in need of protection.
“People were saying, ‘I didn’t really understand the message, so I looked it up. I read an article. I’m grateful for having this education,’” Ives remembers. “In the communities that Nicola and I are from, the message is easy to follow, but you realize there’s a whole swath of America and the world that understands nothing about ballroom culture and understands nothing about why trans people are called dolls and that it’s a term of endearment.” He added, “That was the most beautiful part of this whole thing.”
“That’s what people should do,” Formichetti added. “People should Google ‘the dolls,’ you should research The Trevor Project, Mermaids in the UK, all of these things. Then it will really change things. It will change you.” And if you can swipe on the perfect lip shape while you’re Googling, that’s even more fabulous.