How Beauty Brands Built The Runway Into Their Business Model
Balmain's SS25 show saw models holding brand-new perfume bottles and intricate make-up palettes in place of accessories; Patrick Ta took the moment to introduce its first-ever liquid foundation at the Monse show; Victoria Beckham created champagne cocktails scented like the new VBB fragrance for the brand's afterparty. Indeed if the latest fashion month was anything to go by, beauty is becoming big business on the runway.
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Two years ago, at the autumn/ winter 22 collections, beauty generated $42.6M (£32M) in media impact value across the four major fashion weeks, according to brand performance tool LaunchMetrics. Today, this is thought to be even higher with fashion week becoming more than just a chance for beauty brands to showcase their creative artistry, but a veritable marketing strategy if executed in the right way.
Who can forget Pat McGrath's viral porcelain doll make-up at Maison Margiela last season? The show created a social media frenzy with beauty fans attempting to recreate the look, the brand’s Divine Skin: Rose 001 The Essence, Sublime Perfection Foundation and the Divine Blush: Legendary Glow Colour Balm gaining huge momentum, and talk of a new glass skin glaze going viral.
'A beauty launch backstage going viral can shift the social conversation away from the clothes on the runway and onto the beauty look or a new product drop. Get it right, and it becomes more than a beauty look, it becomes a cultural moment,' says George Driver, ex-Elle beauty editor turned director of beauty communications at PR agency Karla Otto.
It's the reason why plenty of beauty brands are now making fashion week their moment to market newness. This spring/summer 25 season, Mac unveiled a new clear lip MACximal Sleek Satin Lipstick at Richard Quinn’s London Fashion Week show, K-beauty brand Kaja Beauty showcased a number of exciting innovations (the Beauty Bento Eyeshadow Palette in Taro Bubble Tea and the Dewy Bar in shade Berry Sparkler) at the LoveShackFancy presentation, while Patrick Ta debuted its first-ever liquid foundation at the Monse show. Plus, Dyson’s professional-only Supersonic r, which debuted during Harris Reed’s London Fashion Week show last season, was also spotted backstage.
'Participating in NYFW has been a long-time goal of ours as a brand,' says Jacqueline Barrett, SVP of marketing at Patrick Ta Beauty, noting, 'it also proved a unique opportunity to demonstrate the versatility and performance of our products in a high-fashion setting.'
'While colour cosmetics benefit more greatly from buzz around catwalk beauty, skincare brands have also become key players, sponsoring backstage facials and skin prep sessions,' says Lisa Payne, head of beauty at trend forecaster Stylus. Case in point: Merit made the new Great Skin Priming Moisturizer the focus of its Brandon Maxwell looks.
Although simply showing up backstage with a new beauty product isn’t enough to see success, as Driver emphasises, 'the formula for getting it right has changed dramatically in recent years'.
Despite seeing great results from using Fashion Week as a launch stage, particularly the Signature Lip satin lipsticks on the Proenza Schouler runway in 2022, Aila Morin, chief marketing officer for Merit, stresses, 'this doesn’t mean that Fashion Week makes sense for most brands. We know our customer is very tuned into fashion and follows fashion week closely – depending on a brand’s demographic, priorities, and positioning, it may not be the right fit for others'.
Owing to this uncertainty of success and the often high expense of the commitment, Payne adds, 'there is so much creativity and inspiration online now that backstage beauty has taken a bit of a backseat. So you’re now more likely to see Maybelline launch a new lip gloss on TikTok than you are during NYFW'. However, once a beauty brand aligns with the right fashion label, the runway launch and social media strategy can live in unison. As Bishop explains, the key is in remembering 'you are introducing products not only to highly sought after hairstylists and make-up artists but generating stand out social content that can be used to align a brand to a unique and creative fashion moment'.
'Icon make-up artist Pat McGrath is a really good example of an entrepreneur that has used fashion week to test, tease and then launch products under her eponymous range,' says Payne, referring back to the now-famous Margiela show. 'The Divine Skin Priming Liquid was a particularly great case study, with McGrath and her team using the product backstage but blurring the bottle out to generate anticipation and frenzy over its eventual reveal,' she adds.
So, while Fashion Week is the location of the launch, social media marketing is the key to seeing it succeed, and this is all the easier for brands with built-in beauty lines. As Katia Beauchamp, CEO of Victoria Beckham Beauty notes, 'fashion week is a whole brand experience,' so leveraging the story-telling moment across all elements is only going to amplify this message even more. After all, if you have a stage, it’s best to use it as best and as loudly as you can.
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