In September 2014, a half-face Instagram selfie of Karlie Kloss stood tall among a sea of others flooding the internet at the time.
Partly, certainly, because it was Kloss – the rise of the model-entrepreneur in fashion and soon technology was in full swing – but the photo also served mainly as a showcase for the gray round neck, with the embossed ‘Glossier’ on the front in bold, black letters.
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“We made the sweatshirt for internal use [use] and friends of the brand, but when people like Karlie started taking selfies with it, demand poured in,” said Marie Suter, Glossier’s Chief Creative Officer.
After just a few months prior to posting said selfie, Glossier debuted early on promising the phenomenon it would eventually become. In 2019, the brand unveiled its ‘GlossiWear’ collection, home to permanent offerings like the signature pink Glossier hoodie and beauty bag, as well as a steady cadence of limited-edition socks, tote bags, keychains, a recent pepper mill (because You Eau de Parfum contains gingerbread nuts (of course) and other brand-building launches.
“Merch is no longer the ultimate marketing tool for us; it has become an important part of our business. People expect it from us,” said Suter, adding that a young arm of the brand’s design team is solely dedicated to coming up with new ideas within the category.
With Glossier now sporadically reopening its merchandise archives for public access — which it recently did last week — even earlier, limited launches like the G Cookie Cutter and the GPal hair scarf still serve as effective hype-builders years after their initial debut. “For us, it’s not just about putting a logo on something anymore – that’s the old way of thinking about merchandise,” Suter said.
Merchandise takes on new meaning for brands looking to bridge the gap between beauty and lifestyle. Just last month, Hailey Bieber’s Rhode became the latest to venture into the space, releasing its $35 lip treatment phone case on February 27, which reportedly sold out in 25 minutes.
Trendalytics data shows that during the week Rhode first teased the phone case, engagement across the brand’s owned-and-operated social media channels grew 1,068 percent versus the brand’s six-month average, and also well ahead average engagement increase of 150 to 250 percent from Rhode’s other launch campaigns. Peak data also shows that the brand’s TikTok views grew 112.2 percent month-on-month, thanks to the rollout.
“There is a utility to the housing, there is a unique design; it allows you to show off products – and Rhode makes beautiful products – and it also fits perfectly with selfie culture as a whole,” says Lauren Bitar, head of innovation and strategy at Trendalytics.
That last example: The first thing beauty maker Kensington Tillo did when he got the case was film a “Get Ready With Me” for “literally no other reason than… I want to take a mirror selfie,” she half-joked to her 1.6 million followers in a TikTok video.
The lip case was designed by Sam Sonntag, previously Glossier’s senior design lead and the creative force behind a number of recent creative efforts in beauty and personal care, including Tower 28’s latest LipSoftie Balm campaign.
“It’s literally a billboard for the lip treatment that everyone is carrying,” says Michael Appler, chief operating officer and creative director at Cancel Communications, the company that represents Trendalytics.
Because beauty is such a saturated space, Bitar adds, merchandise can serve as a way for brands to “expand their slice of the pie and reach an entirely different group of consumers.”
In the case of Merit Beauty, which offers the Signature Bag free with every first purchase, merchandise has been a key differentiator since day one.
“The [Signature Bag] was about creating something that you could use for makeup products, yes, but it’s also a clutch – something that the brand expanded from beauty to fashion, and was designed with the lens of long-term wearability,” says Aila Morin, Chief Marketing Officer at Merit, adding that more than 500,000 of the bags have been distributed since the brand launched in 2021.
Merit has since released several limited edition merchandise items, including a gold mirror compact; a lighter suitcase in honor of the brand’s third anniversary, and a Merit x Proenza Schouler version of the Signature Bag last fall, which has appeared on resale platforms like Poshmark and in some cases sells for more than $175 — rare air for a free gift with purchase.
“They create an incredible volume of sales,” Morin says of the gifts. Although the brand planned approximately two months’ supply of the Proenza collaboration, the bag sold out within weeks; ditto the lighter case of January.
Contrary to the ever-prevalent pursuit of ‘cult product’ status in the beauty space, Morin reports that no single product within Merit’s range accounts for more than 20 percent of total sales – and that’s how the brand likes it.
“We never created a brand that was about heroes, we created a brand that was about lifestyle and I think that’s why merchandise feels so natural to us; it’s not an add-on, it’s been the plan from the beginning,” she said.
Likewise, a pre-established brand “vibe” set the tone for Ami Colé’s recent first merchandise foray, a maroon leather bucket hat that read “melanin-rich.”
“In Harlem in the ’90s, the bucket hat was a real cool-girl staple,” says founder and CEO Diarrha N’Diaye-Mbaye, pointing to Missy Elliot’s iconic fluffy Kangol and Aaliyah’s signature look.
N’Diaye-Mbaye labels the hat as “merch for people who hate merchandise,” saying the goal was to create a product that “stands on its own” and also has a function, thanks to a satin-lined interior that is intended to maintain the hairstyle. and prevent breakage.
Meanwhile, Milk Makeup recently launched its second limited-edition sneaker and apparel collaboration with Reebok, a company with which Milk actually has history.
“We have been working with Reebok on shooting campaigns for years and have been part of the creative process through Milk Studios for years,” said Milk co-founder Mazdack Rassi, who first introduced Milk Studios in 1996 and has since expanded its ecosystem to seven divisions. adding milk makeup in 2016.
“I think of Milk as kind of a creative watering hole,” says Rassi, for whom the through line that unites Milk Makeup’s Reebok partnerships, the Awake NY body-care collection, and the Wu Tang Clan lip color collaboration isn’t necessarily the product itself, but rather, a spirit of collaboration “that keeps you relevant; it keeps you part of the culture.”
The positive reception to Milk’s first Reebok collaboration last year inspired the brands to go bigger this time, offering a bomber jacket, crop top and sneakers in four of Reebok’s classic styles. What’s important, however, is that the branding is in the details, and not necessarily in overt logos.
“When we were making the shoes, I was adamant among the design teams – both on our side and on Reebok’s side – that no one should put logos on the shoe until the end,” says Rassi, adding that the approach helped supporting the utilitarian, multi-faceted feel of the collection as a calling card, rather than having one of the brand’s logos fill that role.
Guided by a similar ethos, Merit’s Signature Bag forgoes any external branding. Ami Colé’s bucket hat reads “rich in melanin” versus the brand’s own name, because black and brown communities are the ones N’Diaye-Mbaye has made it her mission to address the needs of other make upbrands – and while the Rhode lip case does indeed say Rhode, the color and structural design are more likely to give away the brand than the logo.
Simply put, the next generation of beauty merchandise has arrived, expanding long-standing parameters that define what merchandise is and can be. As Suter put it, “It’s not just the Glossier superfans who buy our merchandise — it goes beyond that, and that’s what makes it so exciting.”
N’Diaye-Mbaye added: “It’s less about the product, and more about the person wearing it.”
Here’s the latest in beauty merchandise.
Ami Colé The bucket hat
$40 at amicole.com
Merit lighter, limited edition housing
Temporarily free with every order of €75
Milk Makeup x Reebok Milk Club C 85 vegan shoes
$110 at reebok.com
Rhode Lip Cover
$35 at rhodeskin.com
Shiny G cookie cutter
$48 at glossier.com
Launch Gallery: Every beauty launch, from Glossier’s phone keychain to Rhode’s phone case
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