M·A·C VIVA GLAM x Conner Ives — limited‑edition ‘Protect the Dolls’ lipstick and T‑shirt

The night before Conner Ives showed his Fall 2025 collection at London Fashion Week, he made a T-shirt. The decision was last-minute, but the impact was not: the "Protect the Dolls" tee, worn by the designer for his own finale bow, went on to sell more than 17,000 units and raise over $600,000 for Trans Lifeline and Not A Phase, while being spotted on Pedro Pascal, Addison Rae, Troye Sivan, and Madonna. M·A·C VIVA GLAM took that cultural momentum and turned it into a two-piece limited-edition drop that went live on March 29 at 11 a.m. GMT, timed to Trans Day of Visibility on March 31.

The collaboration produced two products: a redesigned black "Protect the Dolls" T-shirt at $100 and an M·A·Cximal Silky Matte VIVA GLAM Lipstick in the shade Viva Planet at $25. The shirt is cut in a classic unisex fit from 100% organic cotton, with bold white graphic text on the front and "M·A·C VIVA GLAM" printed across the back. The lipstick, a versatile pink-beige engineered to complement a wide range of skin tones, carries the Protect the Dolls motif on both bullet and packaging. One hundred percent of the selling price from both items goes to organizations advancing trans equality, including Mermaids in the UK, which provides helplines and family support services, alongside Trans Lifeline and Not A Phase. Both products are available at maccosmetics.com in the US and maccosmetics.co.uk in the UK, with the shirt also stocked at select M·A·C locations across the UK.

The Viva Planet shade was not a random pick. Ives drew direct inspiration from the 2011 VIVA GLAM campaign featuring Lady Gaga, shot by Nick Knight, noting that the dusty pink-nude from that release informed the color chosen for this one. He has described that 2011 campaign as a formative creative reference, and the callback gives this drop a lineage within VIVA GLAM's 30-plus-year history of activist beauty, a program that has previously enlisted RuPaul, Miley Cyrus, and Kim Petras.

For the campaign, M·A·C and Ives tapped four trans and gender-nonconforming figures: Dominique Jackson, Josephine DuPont, Ivy Stewart, and Green Kim, all photographed by Alex Arauz. MAC's global creative director Nicola Formichetti championed the 100% proceeds model, consistent with the VIVA GLAM program's founding structure since 1994.

As a gift, the math is straightforward. The lipstick at $25 lands in the sweet spot for a meaningful beauty gift without requiring much justification, and the pink-beige formula was specifically designed to read well across skin tones. The T-shirt at $100 is priced in line with other designer-charitable collaborations at a similar cultural moment; the organic cotton construction and the Ives name give it staying power beyond the occasion. "This collaboration with MAC and Viva Glam is deeply personal to me," Ives said. "What started as a simple T-shirt has become a global movement."

VIVA GLAM drops with this kind of built-in scarcity and name recognition rarely last long. The original "Protect the Dolls" run moved 17,000 shirts before this collab even launched. The M·A·C version, billed as "extremely limited-edition," carries the same demand signals with a lower entry price attached.