On the heels of its fashion-forward partnerships with Proenza Schouler, Grace Coddington and Tove, Merit Beauty is further establishing its cross-category collaboration strategy, now venturing into jewelry. The beauty brand teamed up with London-based jewelry label Completedworks to create two pieces inspired by its first-ever fragrance: Retrospect L’Extrait de Parfum.
These fragrance-inspired earrings are merely the latest installment in a larger industry trend of beauty brands linking up with independent fashion labels in an effort to drawn in more customers.
In October, French beauty brand Violette_FR and Paris-based fashion label Maison Alexandra Golovanoff partnered on a “rouge noir” capsule featuring two autumnal shades of liquid eye shadow and liner, as well as a coordinating clothing range in the black-red shade. Meanwhile, Smashbox Cosmetics tapped Mexico City-based accessories brand Ilka to create a four-piece handbag collection combining the two brands’ aesthetics. Ole Henriksen recently launched a limited-edition shimmering shade of Pout Preserve Peptide Lip Treatment with designer Anine Bing, while French skin-care brand Doré partnered with Clare V. on a travel kit centering the accessory label’s Petites Vacances cosmetics case in Doré’s signature green.
Merit’s packaging has always felt jewelry-adjacent (see: Retrospect’s vintage jewelry-inspired bottle), so it was only a matter of time before the beauty brand extended into the category. Launching on Dec. 5, Merit’s collaboration with Completedworks features silver and pearl earrings ($248) and gold earrings ($189) mirroring the molten-like style of Retrospect’s bottle. Completedworks had long been on Merit’s styling table for photoshoots and in Chief Marketing Officer Aila Morin’s personal collection, so reaching out to partner with the independent label founded by Anna Jewsbury was a “very natural extension,” Morin tells Fashionista.
Photos: Courtesy of Merit Beauty
“When we look at brands to collaborate with, we love brands that think of the story and think of the consumer, and we both have that intentionality in common as well as the consumer that likes both brands,” she continues.
Merit has consistently embraced independent fashion labels in its nearly four years of operation. But what specifically draws the beauty company to these indie designers over better-known industry giants? “Of course, there’s a kinship, right? But also there’s a willingness to try new things, I think particularly when you’re indie and when you’re smaller,” Morin explains. “It’s that direct connection with founders that’s so incredibly important to us to create things that feel really natural.” Especially as a beauty company, it looks at these collabs as “a creative and artistic arrangement,” rather than focusing on “the ideal business format.” The goal is to dream up products “that are designed for surprise and delight.”
Honing into that “surprise and delight,” Merit’s collaborations with Proenza Schouler and Tove saw both brands reimagine Merit’s Signature Bag into their own stylized gifts with purchase, which Morin says resulted in “significant engagement and lift.” She also notes that these fashion-forward partnerships have allowed the brand to build stronger relationships with its consumers and further drive brand loyalty. “We have a phenomenally high repeat rate, and that repeat rate is really buoyed by listening to consumers and creating things that they actually want,” Morin says.
On the design side of Merit’s upcoming jewelry collaboration, Jewsbury explores “aesthetic juxtapositions” — or a hard, rigid form taking on a softer, fabric-like appearance — to capture Retrospect’s organic, pinched exterior, which is a practice Completedworks often employs within its own creations. For Jewsbury, Merit represents the right fit to team up with due to both brands’ “shared sensibilities,” including an “anti-trend” approach, multi-generational appeal as well as an emphasis on classic aesthetics, she says.
Photo: Courtesy of Merit Beauty
While getting the chemistry right between two brands is a key part of any successful collaboration, these cross-category partnerships also pose a unique marketing opportunity for smaller fashion labels. With a handful of celebrity placements (including Nicola Coughlan‘s October Time cover) and a growing U.S. consumer base, Completedworks has the opportunity to further connect to its U.S. shoppers — as well as reach entirely new audiences — though this Merit partnership, Jewsbury notes.
“Aside from the creative fulfillment that you get through the collaboration, the visibility of Merit and the huge audience that Merit has is a really special opportunity for a small, independent brand like us,” she says.
Similar to Merit’s playbook of partnering with cult-favorite indie brands, RMS Beauty recently released its second collaboration with Dôen, a California-based fashion label founded by sisters Margaret and Katherine Kleveland. Their first partnership back in 2023 — The Sunkissed Set, including RMS Beauty’s Buriti Bronzer, Liplights gloss and an exclusive Lip2Cheek shade packaged in a floral quilted Dôen pouch — was a quick success, with the kits selling out in four days.
Now, both brands are back with a holiday-ready offering: The Soirée Set ($128), featuring RMS Beauty’s Kakadu Beauty Oil along with its Lip2Cheek and Luminizer in two new exclusive shades, all encased in a black velvet pochette designed by Dôen.
Photo: Courtesy of RMS Beauty
RMS Beauty’s Chief Creative Officer Elaine Sack echoes Morin and Jewsbury’s sentiments on collaborating with brands that share key values: “We want to find brands that have a great consumer base that we want to tap into that have a like-minded view on their products [to] us,” Sack says. She references RMS Beauty and Dôen’s shared values of sustainability, minimalism and timeless-yet-modern offerings, but the connection between the two brands also extends into RMS Beauty founder Rose-Marie Swift’s closet: Swift often wears a black scoop-neck top or a fuzzy red sweater by Dôen in her TikTok videos. Sack felt both brands “were always popping up in the same creative spaces” as influencers have also posted videos about RMS Beauty while donning Dôen.
With two Dôen collabs under her belt, Sack emphasizes the importance of mutual respect for each other’s craft while developing a collaboration behind the scenes: “You always want to make sure that you’re partnering with somebody where you really have a similar vision for how you see this going, but we also let them be the experts in all things fashion and they let us really be the experts in all things beauty.”
To promote its latest Dôen collaboration, RMS Beauty took a “celebratory approach” to marketing: The brand hosted a private event for celebrities and influencers at San Vicente Bungalows and Swift visited customers at the Dôen store at the Brentwood Country Mart. RMS Beauty also tapped Credo Beauty as the collaboration’s retail partner and leaned into social media marketing via partnering with influencers and utilizing Swift’s TikTok presence. This celebratory strategy is yielding results: According to Sack, one event celebrating the collaboration garnered a reach of more than 15 million in less than a week.
As for Merit’s marketing strategy, both creative and marketing work as a unit on Morin’s team to ensure cohesive storytelling and address consumer questions. For its Completedworks collaboration, Merit will introduce the partnership through a moodboard detailing how the brands met, their history of working together and the design inspirations behind the earrings.
“I think that quality, value and intentionality is incredibly important because, by keeping that as our north star, we have such strong trust with the consumer that we’re able to take these swings that most brands can’t,” Morin says.
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Source: Fashionista.com
