This week, I checked in on Nette’s first creator partnership, which joins the ever-growing world of sports-and-beauty crossovers. Additionally, BEMT sunscreens are finally making their way to U.S. customers, and Sol de Janeiro also taps into sports marketing with its newest partnership.
Nette and Morgan Riddle are translating tenniscore to fragrance
Nette founder Carol Han Pyle didn’t have her sights set on doing an influencer collaboration — until she saw that content creator Morgan Riddle was a professed fan of her brand’s candles.
“I love Morgan. I think that she is one of the more interesting creators out there,” said Pyle. “If we were ever going to work with a creator-slash-influencer-slash-tastemaker, I was always really clear that whoever the person ended up being really needed to be substantive, and just have their heart in the right place.”
On Tuesday, Nette and Riddle launched Mr. Cloud, the brand’s first influencer collaboration and Riddle’s first fragrance launch. Made with Givaudan perfumer Antoine Maisondieu, the perfume is a milky tuberose scent that intends to capture the “world of leisure around tennis,” as Pyle put it.
In the days leading up to the launch, Nette and Riddle created a three-part short-form video series showing Riddle traveling from a tennis court to the New York subway and back home again. The brand has also rolled out further behind-the-scenes content of Riddle and Maisondieu at work on the fragrance. Creating the scent was a year-long process that began with a four-hour meeting between Riddle and Maisondieu. Riddle described the process as a “hands-on partnership.”
“That back-and-forth is the whole point. If a brand isn’t willing to let you shape the thing you’re putting your name on, it’s not going to feel authentic to me or to my community,” said Riddle. “I wanted to create something that I myself would actually want to buy and wear.”
Riddle first rose to fame as part of an emerging group of tennis “WAG” creators when she began making content while on tour with her then-boyfriend, top U.S. men’s tennis player Taylor Fritz, in 2022.
Capturing the ongoing tenniscore craze, Riddle grew her platform to encompass more than 1 million followers across her social channels, correspondent positions with the likes of Wimbledon and a co-founder role in the 400 Club, a women’s sports community. In April, Fritz and Riddle announced the end of their six-year relationship.
“What I built career-wise the last few years in sports will always be special to me, and I still find myself endlessly curious about the culture that surrounds it,” Riddle said of her plans for her career going forward. “Right now, I’m most excited about opportunities that let me build something that feels intentional and purposeful for where I am in this chapter of my life, around people who share the same vision that I do.”
Crossover between sports and fashion and beauty is only growing, not only in the world of tennis, but also in the likes of Formula One racing, basketball and soccer. Many of those partnerships include emerging female leagues and aim to speak to a growing female viewership.
“More and more female audiences really enjoy seeing women who are kind of in their power, for lack of a better word, and really bold and opinionated and not afraid to be themselves,” said Pyle of the many sports and beauty crossovers. “The world of sports, and women playing in sports, is a really good breeding ground for personalities like that.”
Tennis offers a unique opportunity to reach a wide audience as the men’s and women’s divisions typically play side-by-side in major tournaments. Riddle’s collaboration with Nette comes on the heels of the 2026 U.S. Open, which saw a new crop of beauty and wellness brands like Sephora and Oura capitalizing on tennis’ growing popularity through official tournament sponsorships.
But the increased commercialization also came with some degree of backlash over the obtrusive behavior of some influencers attending on behalf of brands. Pyle said she is not concerned with Riddle being associated with such negative behavior, however.
“I understand how annoying it would be for a serious tennis player to have influencers taking selfies and talking and making a lot of noise, but I don’t think that’s necessarily Morgan,” said Pyle. “My experience of Morgan is that she’s a super respectful, kind of quiet person, actually.”
Pyle first launched Nette as a candle brand in 2021. In 2023, she expanded Nette to fine fragrances built around “neuroscents,” or fragrances that promise to impact users’ emotions, with an exclusive launch at Sephora. According to Pyle, scents like Lemon Puff and the on-trend Mochi Banane have become the brand’s best-selling perfumes, with Laide Tomate and Sunday Chess leading its candle sales.
After making its debut at Sephora, Mr. Cloud will also roll out to Nette’s retail partners like Space NK and Saks Fifth Avenue, the latter of which the brand entered earlier this year.
“The Saks customer is really aligned with our audience,” said Pyle. “We were only a couple of years into our brand when we launched at Sephora, and we did get locked into an exclusivity with Sephora for a few years, which is really the main reason we held off on any other retail partnerships. Sephora is still a hugely important partner for us.”
Retailers from specialty beauty stores like Sephora and Ulta all the way to high-end department stores are hungry for more indie and niche fragrance brands as the category continues to grow. But Pyle said she is still cautious about how and when to grow her brand.
“I don’t want to overextend ourselves. We’re such a small team. We’ve never raised money, we’re still completely self-funded, so we can’t actually financially overextend ourselves,” she said. “Out of every, I don’t know, five retailers that we reach out to, we’ll probably launch into one.”
While scents with an edible note like banana or lemon remain Nette’s best sellers, Pyle said she expects fragrance to grow beyond the super sweet gourmand scents that have dominated the category in recent years — maybe that will include a return to more floral scents, like the tuberose-centric Mr. Cloud.
Executive moves:
- Laura Hogan joins Molton Brown as chief marketing officer. Hogan joins the Kao-owned British perfume brand from the Estée Lauder Companies, where she worked across brands like Jo Malone London and Kilian Paris. She will lead the brand’s global positioning and marketing strategy across international markets.
- Blair Lawson joins Heretic Parfum as CEO. Lawson previously held roles at Goop, LVMH and, most recently, sleepwear brand Lunya, where she was CEO. As the debut CEO for Heretic, Lawson will work with founder Douglas Little to scale the fragrance house.
News to know:
- Bemotrizinol sunscreens are hitting the U.S. market. Though long since available globally, the ingredient, abbreviated as BEMT, is the first new sunscreen filter to receive FDA approval in over 25 years. Kenvue-owned Neutrogena and Australian brand Ultra Violette are among the first to launch BEMT sunscreens in the U.S.
- Sol de Janeiro taps soccer stars Trinity Rodman and Tara Rudd as its newest ambassadors. The fragrance and body-care brand was previously named the official body care and celebration partner of the Washington Spirit, Rodman and Rudd’s team in the National Women’s Soccer League. Rodman and Rudd will begin their partnership by promoting the brand’s new Intense Perfume Mists.
- Extravaganza Beauty acquires niche perfume house Roja London. The Middle East-based beauty conglomerate will invest in product development and expansion into key markets. Audrey Minard will remain on as global CEO, while Roja Dove, who founded the brand in 2011, will take on a consultancy role.
Stat of the week:
According to NielsenIQ’s A Tale of Two Consumers report, 67% of Gen Z consumers say private label products are just as good as national brands, compared to 58% of overall consumers who say brand or store brand is irrelevant.
In the headlines:
Why more companies are fighting over consumers’ beauty, health and wellness spending. Experts say Fall 2026 will smell like these notes. Katia Beauchamp built Birchbox in the DTC boom. She’s building Buff Beauty for the “prove it” economy. How do you resurrect a lost perfume?
Listen in:
In the latest episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, Allure editor-in-chief Jessica Cruel sits down with host Lexy Lebsack to unpack the ins and outs of the publication’s prestigious beauty awards program, including how beauty and wellness brands can better appeal to Cruel’s team of editors.
Need a Glossy recap?
Why “anti-blush” is taking over social media. Fresh off its viral influencer “bachelorette trip,” Swan Beauty attempts a NYFW blitz. Can cooling tools be the hot new accessory? How the role of creators has evolved in fashion and beauty. Beauty creators are thinking beyond viral videos. The sports and beauty crossover still has “lots of room to grow.”
