Brigette and Danielle Pheloung had a master plan all along.
Long before they set foot on “Acquired Air,” the temporary name Brigette Pheloung gave the jet transferring her 16 guests to her April 23 bachelorette party in St. Barth’s, the twin sisters were planning the launch of the next collection by their clothing brand, Phe Phe. The jet was owned by Colby Mitchell, founder and CEO of Swan Beauty, as Glossy exclusively reported on April 27. And while the plane was decked out with Swan-branded pillows and Swan’s $795 Smart Mirror, the host and her guests were wearing coordinating turquoise and yellow sweat sets and tank tops from Phe Phe.
Phe Phe, borrowing from the first three letters of the founders’ last name, debuted in November.
After the Internet worked itself into a tizzy about Swan all last week, Phe Phe’s St. Barth’s collection was strategically launched on Wednesday.
The Pheloung sisters said all of this has gone according to plan. “Everyone keeps asking me, ‘Did you know it [the trip] was gonna go this crazy?” Brigette said on a Zoom, along with her sister and co-founder, from a hotel room on an influencer trip. “And I definitely think with all the planning and how strategic we were with every little step — the involvement with Swan, the involvement with Phe Phe, all the girls — we definitely knew it was gonna do numbers.”
“But no one can prepare you for the way people responded to this trip,” Danielle said, “We know our followers are excited about everything we do, and we knew that they would be majorly excited about this just because of how intense it was. But we were not expecting …”
“To break the internet,” Brigette said.
The bachelorette trip translated into big results for Swan — the brand confirmed to Glossy that, as of April 28, it had generated $1.9 million in total earned media value, with $793,100 from Instagram and $1.1 million from TikTok. In addition, Brigette’s post of her boarding the private plane saw 1.5 million views; another, where she’s getting ready to leave for the bachelorette party, saw 1.3 million. And a post showing the guests’ outfits for a mermaid-themed evening received 2.7 million views.
The rollout plan for the Phe Phe collection involved their guests dressing in Phe Phe, but not necessarily tagging Phe Phe. (A representative for the brand said this was not due to Swan’s exclusivity, but rather a strategic choice.) But the brand name was spelled out on the back calves of their sweatpants and emblazoned in rhinestones across the chest of some of their tank tops. And it was verbally mentioned in some of the content. According to the sisters, they were intentionally driving curiosity.
During the trip, people were watching the trip in real time, asking, “What is this Phe Phe collection? [Are these clothes] part of a new collection? When is it dropping? How are all these girls styling it?” Brigette said.
The trip played out like a reality show across Brigette’s Instagram, where she hit 1 million followers during the trip, and TikTok, where she has 1.8 million followers — as well as on Danielle’s social media pages. She has 422,000 Instagram followers and 654,000 TikTok followers. The posts of guests, including creators Kit Keenan, Audrey Trullinger and Lauren Wolfe, among others, also told the story.
“We took this approach of storytelling,” Brigette said, calling the bachelorette party a teaser for the St. Barth’s collection’s release.
It paid off.
From the first day of the bachelorette party until May 6, Phe Phe’s Instagram account saw 7.2 million views. Many of the views came from non-followers — the brand has over 76,000 Instagram followers.
“Since [the days] after the trip, our engagement on Phe Phe has never been higher,” Brigette said. “People were very excited about this launch and figuring out which pieces from the trip were actually going to be in the St. Barth’s collection.”
“You may have noticed that Phe Phe didn’t start posting until after the trip [April 27], and the twins were not tagging the brand while in St. Barths,” Ashley Leo told Glossy via email. Leo is the founder of The Leo Group which serves as the Pheloungs’ business partner on Phe Phe. “Our strategy was to be as organic as possible — nothing forced — and to let the clothes speak for themselves.”
Leo, who introduced the Pheloungs to Swan Beauty’s Mitchell, also works with Mitchell’s stepdaughter on her clothing brand, Ddam.
On April 27, Phe Phe further teased the collection with its first dedicated post, which earned over 20,000 likes. The brand’s TikTok page, which has 34,000 followers, reached 1.54 million views across seven posts related to the collection.
On May 3, Phe Phe closed a giveaway offering 10 winners the full St. Barts collection, with three also receiving the Swan Mirror. The Instagram post announcing the giveaway garnered 30,000 likes and 67,000 comments — including 2,000 within the first five minutes of going live. Within 48 hours of the giveaway post going live, the brand gained 6,000 followers.
Not having guests tag Phe Phe during the trip worked out perfectly, because the sisters were then able to market the collection as “a souvenir from our trip,” Danielle said.
Plus, Brigette said, “I’m a seasoned professional. The best partnerships [on] brand trips come from when everyone is organic about how they’re posting, and no one’s being told exactly what to do. … We purposely told our friends not to worry about tagging. We said, ‘That’s not what this is about. We just want to see how you guys organically wear it and love it.'”
The bridal pieces, a subset of the St. Barth’s collection, sold out in the first five minutes after hitting the brand’s e-commerce site, Leo said. The turquoise and yellow sweatsets sold out in 20 minutes. Though the rest of the collection will not restock, a restock of the bridal collection is now open for pre-orders.
“We weren’t able to gauge before, when we were buying into all these units, how many bride customers do we have — and, on the trip, we gained even more bride customers than we had before,” Brigette said, explaining the demand-based restock.
And more bridal styles are to come.
“We have so many other things in the works, including some other bridal-related pieces, which are coming between now and my [August] wedding,” Brigette said.
“We’re stepping into a lot of different categories throughout 2026, and I think that will greatly expand our community and our customer base,” Danielle added, “We’re gonna be pushing the limits, and we’re very excited. … People are gonna continue to be like, ‘OMG, what is Phe Phe?'”
Week in review
- The Met Gala, predictably, dominated the news on Monday — and multiple brands cleverly seized the moment to tease upcoming new launches. Marc Jacobs Beauty, which will relaunch direct-to-consumer on May 25, teased its upcoming arrival by working with makeup artist Lilly Keys on Rachel Sennott’s glam. Keys’ post teased the brand’s forthcoming eyeliner launch. Rhode’s Instagram post featuring Hailey Bieber’s glam showcased several unidentified new Rhode products, with commenters quick to guess what they might be. Comments include speculation like “bronzer???? finally???? skin tint??? i’m screaming” and “bronzer and something glowy???✨” The post has 205,000 likes.
- Olive & June debuted a Star Wars collaboration inclusive of eight new polish colors, four new gel colors, six new press-on designs, six new kid-sized press-ons and a collectible-edition Mani System. The collection is available on the brand’s e-commerce site.
- Glow Recipe expanded its largest franchise — its family of watermelon products — with a $40 Watermelon Milk Peptide Cushion Cream Refillable Moisturizer for Dry Skin & Barrier Support. This product was first previewed in late March, when the brand gave the creator Glamzilla (1.2 million Instagram followers) the “exclusive” on leaking it on social media.
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