There’s More to Building a Beauty Brand Than Selling Lipstick

“Moist clay coming via!”

The style group winced each time I uttered these phrases and took an off-balance step. Again then, a slimy bucket splashing a £4,000 Alexander McQueen bodice that was being fastidiously pinned to the torso of Alek Wek wasn’t a lot of a priority to me. It was 2012 and I’d discovered myself in soggy overalls portray a gaggle of fashions for i-D journal as a favour for a pal. My equipment in these days consisted principally of huge paint brushes and paint strippers, however once I noticed the make-up artist delicately making use of a positive powder to Alek’s completely illuminated cheekbone, I believed, “I may do this”.

Quick ahead ten years and rather a lot has modified. I’m not carrying soggy overalls — to work not less than — and I’ve an assistant to hold the buckets. I nonetheless get down and soiled with clay, silicone and latex typically, however extra usually, I’m the one delicately washing a mannequin’s face in heat blush.

A number of the most fun tasks of my profession have been deconstructing faces on the catwalk for the likes of Junya Watanabe, Thom Browne and Vivienne Westwood, or making use of melted plastic luggage to create reptilian-like pores and skin. I like eradicating facial options like eyebrows with particular results glue to offer a mannequin a extra otherworldly look and curing UV acrylic gel to create pretend tears. (You noticed it on the 2023 cowl of BoF 500 first!) However as somebody who likes to method magnificence in an out-there means — the outsider has all the time been in for me— I usually get requested, “How does that, then, translate into gross sales?”

I usually take a look at style manufacturers and ask myself the identical questions. “How have they managed to accommodate avant garde creativity and make it work in an accessible and industrial means?” Take Comme des Garçons for instance: sheer mad brilliance. However you wouldn’t wish to put on that plastic-wrapped balloon gown to a pub quiz evening, would you? Or Balenciaga, with shoulder pads so giant, I wouldn’t even have the ability to get into an Uber, not to mention my entrance door. As two of essentially the most profitable style manufacturers on the planet, how do they preserve us coming again … and shopping for? Effectively, for each balloon gown, there are ten thousand Comme trainers offered in each main division retailer all over the world and within the case of Balenciaga, nobody rocks a 4 foot shoulder pad higher than Kim Kardashian on Instagram.

In the end, style and wonder need to be each fascinating and relatable.

In cosmetics, we’re all principally promoting what sells greatest: foundations and crimson lipsticks. Ask Lisa Eldridge and she’s going to let you know that crimson lipstick was first worn in Mesopotamia over 5,000 years in the past and we’re, after all, all acquainted with Cleopatra’s iconic black kohl eyeliner. Not rather a lot has modified since. Sure, expertise has superior formulation (hopefully nobody continues to be poisoning themselves with lead-based foundations and radium lotions) and color tendencies would possibly change seasonally however most individuals nonetheless return to the necessities of easy make-up.

There’s solely a lot you are able to do with a face. And men and women each need make-up for use to raise their very own options, reasonably than obscure them. All of us wish to look our greatest.

Dwelling in a cosmopolitan metropolis is such a privilege. Being surrounded by folks which are snug pushing boundaries signifies that capturing and referring to this sort of viewers feels just like the norm. It helps that I’m speaking to prospects instantly with my model, Isamaya, via varied social media platforms with the arrogance and initiative to embrace what I stand for: empowerment, self expression, creativity. However what about everybody else who might need this want to self-express, too?

Launching a penis-shaped lipstick final yr offered the start of a solution. The marketing campaign was loud and upfront — it needed to be — and the product itself precipitated a variety of speaking past the style sphere. Nothing is as attention-grabbing as a 300 gram chrome penis in your pocket or, within the case of our marketing campaign, a 20-foot chrome penis that was erected in Paris throughout the Fall 2023 style week. Excuse the pun.

For me, this was the reply to reinventing and promoting nice make-up fundamentals. Telling an thrilling story with a give attention to progressive packaging and marketing campaign visuals that make noise and aren’t the clinically lit magnificence photographs we’ve been fed for the previous couple of many years. However, I gave my buyer — and even, a girl of historic Mesopotamia — what they wished, particularly, a basic crimson lipstick.