Fashion meets beauty — again.
As concerns over the state of the global economy continue to rise and companies see profits squeezed, in part because of tariffs, fashion and traditional apparel brands are once again leaning into the trusty beauty sector, even as that, too, is starting to show cracks.
For the brands in question, margins in beauty are much more attractive and for the consumer, it enables them to have a piece of the brand at a much more affordable price: That Hermès Birkin may be way out of reach, but the $85 Rouge Hermès lipstick is not.
No wonder a spate of fashion brands are readying launches. With its fragrance collection rumored to be close to a $1 billion business, Louis Vuitton will introduce La Beauté Louis Vuitton this fall, with Pat McGrath as its new cosmetics creative director and an initial product volley — 55 lipsticks, 10 lip balms and eight eye palettes, while earlier this year L’Oréal inked a long-term license with Jacquemus.
This follows the likes of Balmain, Prada, Miu Miu and Max Mara, who have all made beauty moves over the past couple of years.
They join apparel retailers in the mid- and lower-tier ranges, who have been diving into beauty at a pace not seen before such as H&M, Primark and Zara. Even direct-to-consumer lifestyle brand Quince, which aims to disrupt traditional supply chain models to deliver customers high-quality products at a lower price, has also quietly added a number of prestige beauty brands to its site such as Augustinus Bader and 111 Skin.
“It’s so funny how it ebbs and flows. It’s not new,” said Cassie Cowman, a cofounder of View From 32, a beauty consultancy. “There’s some interesting things that are happening that are influencing that. More than ever, brands are merging categories, doing cross-category launches, even getting into fragrance, and what does that look like and obviously, from an acquisition standpoint, you’re very attractive if you can prove you’re successful across multiple categories. And what hasn’t changed from a fashion POV, obviously, is just those beauty margins are so much more attractive.”
Take Loveshack Fancy, for example. After its collaboration with Gap, the ultrafeminine brand founded by Rebecca Hessel Cohen in 2013, launched beauty in 2023 with fragrance. This year, it introduced its fifth eau de parfum, a solar scent nosed by Gabriela Chelariu of Dsm-Firmenich. It also entered hair with a collaboration with Wet Brush and Goody, which included brushes, headbands, clips, bows and heatless curlers available in four of LoveShackFancy’s signature prints.
“These are brands that have such a cult following that they could arguably sell any category to their core consumer group,” said Cowman, although she cautioned that it needs to be done in a way where they don’t lose credibility.
“It’s not a given,” she said. “You still have to do something unique and special, and not just slap your name on some beauty products. To have a successful beauty business, you need to drive your core hero products and build them over time, and you have to make it relevant, both to the existing user and the new.”
In terms of players like Zara, sources noted that they have been leveling up their beauty offering, especially when it comes to fragrance, a booming category, and it is paying off.
“Zara used to be a lower-priced fashion dupe brand that over the past three to four years has been elevating its communication and its design teams so that they use the same models, the same photographers, the same visual merchandising elements that Chanel would use or Prada would use,” said one industry source. “They’ve managed to take a very successful copycat business and to become a brand that’s a value proposition with style and aspiration and their fragrance is working very well.”
Oliver Chen, an analyst at TD Cowen, added: “We’ve certainly had the renaissance in fragrance across all demographics. Fragrance has had a really attractive reboot since the pandemic. Social media has been extremely important with fragrancetok. And once you start appreciating fragrances, you usually don’t stop, and people have been premiumizing and learning more.”
This doesn’t always mean entering the category will be an instant win, though. Balmain, under license to the Estée Lauder Cos., for example, has reduced the price of some of its fragrances from $300 to $190.
With fragrance and makeup on the rise again among designers and apparel retailers, it seems like skin care has taken a backseat.
Lucie Greene, founder and chief executive officer of consultancy Light Years, said: “The customer is so sophisticated and so cynical. We’re post that idea of influencer-churned moisturizer serum. It has to actually be credible, and so you have to invest quite a lot, whereas other categories are easier to enter.”
#Fashion #Tapping #Beauty #Boom
