For the last two decades, fashion has occupied the economic throne of the glamour world. Celebrities were launching their clothing lines left, right, and centre. No points for guessing that names like Victoria Beckham, Kanye West, the Olsen twins, Salman Khan, Hrithik Roshan left a somewhat significant mark in the fashion industry (even if it was for mere 2 seconds). Flash forward to 2021, and it looks like there’s a new kid in town ready to share the limelight – Beauty.
From Hollywood and Bollywood stars to renowned luxury fashion brands, everybody seems to be turning a face towards the beauty industry, and we are forced to ask, why? Why beauty, and why now? Why the shift, and why so sudden? According to many journals, blogs, and research online, here are our finds.
The Big “Why”
On the right, a few celebrities are enjoying beauty-led billionaire statuses (say hi Kylie), and on the right, our favourite luxury brands are turning to beauty. It is a widely known fact that a huge portion of luxury brands’ income is the result of small luxuries (quite literally), like watches, wallets, jewelry, etc. The luxury marketing researches indicate that the reason for this disproportional income tally is due to the public’s demand for brand status. To explain in laymen’s terms, if you have an affinity to Louis Vuitton, but are not able to afford the LV Monogram Trench, your instinct will turn to another LV buy that comes in your budget – may be a luggage tag?
A Little Nudge, A Tiny Push
While stats dictate that the transformation of classic luxury brands was inevitable, we believe that this remodelling was nudged into a sooner activity in light of the pandemic. During the harsh cycles of repeating lockdowns and undefeated waves of the pandemic, people had nowhere to go, and hence the halt of clothing shopping sprees. Albeit, the skincare, and makeup essential market was not only functioning as per usual but picked up a faster pace in the name of ‘at-home care’ and ‘Tik-Tok trends’.
Kylie Jenner must have stepped into the cosmetics business first, but Rihanna did it 2 years later and achieved the billionaire status not soon after Kylie. While bigger fashion sharks like Hermes and Gucci are exploring their beauty verticals now more than ever before, smaller fish in the sea are not left behind. Do you remember how every other start-up wanted to be the next online fast-fashion retailer? Yeah, now every second business establishment is aiming to become the next leading cosmetic and beauty website.
Where We Are At Now
The beauty industry is at a point where all definitions of beauty are welcomed, luxury is far more accessible than before, and makeup is no more considered ‘less real’. Will this transition push for an even bigger change for the beauty community? Will we have a bigger pool of beauty influencers on social media? Does the future hold more radical realness or will we bend towards fairness creams once again? We’ll discuss our hot take on these questions in another episode.
Do you think beauty is the next big thing?
Featured Images: Instagram
