NARS — House of Climax
A beauty launch staged as a peepshow world of desire, mystery, and provocation.
The Context
For the launch of Climax Mascara, NARS created House of Climax: a three-night experiential pop-up in New York built around pleasure, intensity, and provocation.
The challenge was to move beyond product trial and create a world guests could enter, photograph, and feel — a sequence of sensorial encounters shaped by red light, mirrored rooms, suggestive liaisons, and the anticipation of what waited behind the next door.
The Approach
Brought in by Set Creative, Astarte Creative developed the live performance layer of the experience, overseeing talent auditions, casting, character direction, and choreography.
Drawing from cinematic and neo-noir references, we shaped singers, acrobats, and dancers as part of the environment. Movement, gesture, styling, and interaction were calibrated to guide guests through the world of the peepshow, heightening the erotic tension of the space while keeping the brand’s campaign language physical, not literal.
Rather than performing spectacle for its own sake, the cast became atmosphere, pressure, and signal: a human current running through the rooms, turning product discovery into an intimate act of illicit curiosity.
The Outcome
House of Climax transformed a mascara launch into a live cinematic encounter.
Astarte’s role was to give the environment its pulse — the bodies, glances, choreography, and character work that made the experience feel inhabited rather than installed.
The result was a brand world where performance became the mechanism of seduction, moving guests through intrigue, participation, and product discovery.
Services
Talent Auditions
Casting
Character Design
Choreography
Immersive Performance Direction
Roving Performance
Interactive Theater
Brand Activation Entertainment
Experiential Beauty Launch
