by Address of the Year
Prestige: Game Prada beauty
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Miuccia Prada is one of the most innovative thinkers in fashion, so it’s no surprise that when it came time to launch a beauty line with licensee L’Oréal, her goal was to change things. “What does beauty mean today?” It was Prada’s starting point, the designer said at the launch with the brand’s co-creative director Raf Simons, noting that the duo believes beauty is “an expression of personality, freedom and self-expression,” and that the idea of care was also key. Licensee L’Oréal has translated that ethos into its collection of skin care and color cosmetics, tapping Lynsey Alexander as global creative make-up artist and Inès Alpha as make-up artist. They tap into Prada’s extensive archive, translating textures, prints and colors into striking products. Similarly, skin care is not about correcting flaws, but helping the skin to adapt to its environment in real time. Coming on the heels of the highly successful introduction of women’s fragrance Prada Paradoxe in 2022, L’Oréal’s ambitions for the line were equally bold. Cyril Chapuy, president of L’Oréal Luxe, said, “This launch will open a new chapter that will propel the brand to new heights.”
Mass: Fine’ry
In a great year for fragrances, Maesa took a different approach to the category – and won big. Fine’ry, which includes nine body sprays and eaux de parfum, launched at Target in February with the goal of democratizing smell. “We saw this huge desire and desire for people to have access to the real, unattainable kind of niche, prestige, premium fragrance, and when we looked at the offerings for the mass consumer, there wasn’t nothing really,” said Dana Steinfeld, senior vice president of Maesa’s innovation arm, at the launch. The strategy worked. Circana reported that the mass market fragrance business grew at nearly the same rate as the prestige market, as consumers found value in lower-priced products amid a slowdown in demand for premium luxury fragrances. For Fine’ry – mission accomplished.
Transformative Market of the Year: Estée Lauder acquired Tom Ford Cos
Since the launch of Tom Ford Beauty in 2006, the brand has been a great star for the Estée Lauder Cos. The fragrance department is going from strength to strength, churning out global hits and inspiring mass-active trends; makeup, too, although hit harder during the pandemic, there was direction, and together, Tom Ford Beauty is on the verge of billion-dollar brand status. It’s no surprise, then, that when the designer put his namesake brand up for sale, the Kering giant, the Estée Lauder Cos., offered it for a $2.3 billion deal that was Lauder’s biggest ever and marked on the raid of the beauty giant in fashion. “As an owned brand, this strategic acquisition will unlock new opportunities and strengthen our growth plans for Tom Ford Beauty,” Lauder chief executive Fabrizio Freda said at the time of the deal. It was also a sign of progress during a difficult year for the company, which was hit hard by the downturn in China. “This move will further help drive our momentum in the luxury beauty category for the long term,” said Freda, “while reaffirming our commitment to being the leading pure player in prestige beauty.”
Leading brand
Brand of the Year: RMS beauty
Long before “clean” was a beauty buzzword, makeup artist Rose-Marie Swift was calling for cosmetics to be made with better, safer ingredients. In 2009, when she launched her brand, RMS Beauty, her closest competitors were in natural food stores – rather than specialty beauty channels. Fast forward more than a decade, and Swift’s message is more relevant than ever, and, under chief executive officer David Olsen, it’s also incredibly important. On social media, RMS Beauty has refined its platform strategy, effectively using Swift (one recent video hit a million views in less than a day) and a cadre of diverse content creators to create cross-generational viral moments to create on TikTok, while at the same time pushing in more. polished content and judicious use of short videos to drive engagement on Instagram. The strategy is working: RMS Beauty is cleaning up, with the brand’s website posting exponential sales increases – blush and foundation brushes up 3,473 percent, SuperNatural Serum up 573 percent, Eyelights Cream Shadows up 1,150 percent.
Newcomer of the Year: Political Association
When Jerrod Blandino and Jeremy Johnson spun off Too Faced, the brand they founded in 1998 and sold to the Estée Lauder Cos. for $1.45 billion in 2016, it was only a matter of time before they were back in the beauty game. The boys (as the duo, who are partners in business and life) are having too much fun to sit on the sidelines. Not surprisingly, their new venture is named Toy Box Brands, a cross-category incubator launched by Polite Society in August. The clean, exclusive makeup brand Ulta Beauty is all about the duo’s trademark cheeky ethos and their prowess in product development, with products including lip plumper, mascara and foundation, where Blandino and Johnson know how to make lasting mega-hits to create. But Polite Society is an evolution of the past, rather than a reincarnation of it. The line meets Ulta’s Conscious Beauty criteria, but its ethos is very different from most of its brands. “I never saw myself in any of those brands,” Blandino said. “Where’s the glitz? Where are the activists? There is room for a great clean line kick.”
Buzzy collab: Lancôme x Louvre
One French icon deserves another, and when it comes to partnerships, Lancôme doesn’t think small. This year, the L’Oréal-owned brand teamed up with the famous Louvre museum in Paris for a limited-edition collection celebrating self-confidence and beauty called, “Beauty Is a Living Art”. Among the stands were refillable lipsticks embossed with architectural details from the museum and the Richelieu Face Palette and Eyeshadow stamped with the likeness of the Venus de Milo. The gala was an equally big celebration of the collection, and Lancôme ambassadors Isabella Rossellini, Penelope Cruz, He Cong and Emma Chamberlain were among the guests who were lucky enough to leave the museum during holiday hours. “The Venus de Milo is the ultimate beauty, the symbol of perfection,” he told Conga, “and when you face her, you feel her magnetism, her confidence that is nothing but radical.” Rossellini added, “The Greek aesthetic, the search for beauty – it relates very well to the history of Lancôme.”
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