Dark and edgy London fashion designer Gareth Pugh has collaborated with MAC for its latest makeup collection.

Pugh is known for his hard edged, avant-garde and conceptual designs. Like Pugh's fashion, the MAC makeup collection, which was two years in the making, challenges the conventions of fashion and beauty, and blurs the gender divide.

The collection is futuristic yet primal, with inspiration drawn from everything from butterflies to hematite rocks.

While a lot of the products are pretty full-on - violet eye shadows, metallic nail polishes with bug-like iridescent sheens, and dark lipsticks - there is also a wearable aspect of lightness to the range.

Matte beauty powders, smooth and smoky eye shadows and soft nude lipsticks also pepper the collection.

"With a collection that goes from strong, deep and mysterious to light, fragile, and ethereal, I think we've created a truly versatile collection that hopefully you'll be inspired by and want to wear," Pugh said in a release.

A stand-out of the collection - and only for the brave - are the fin-shaped Flight Lashes (very un-lashlike in shape), the result of Pugh snipping away at a heap of fake lashes sent to him by MAC.

And the packaging? Famous for their exciting limited-edition packaging, MAC have not disappointed.

It features heavyweight magnetic bricks in black with geometric Xs in the centre of each box to match Pugh's signature androgynous, monochrome mood.

Available from Friday December 16 at MAC Britomart or from 0800 MACSHOP.

- © Fairfax NZ News