Following in the footsteps of fashion brands such as Adidas, indie beauty label Glamour Dolls now has a collab with Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs as it returns to the market.
After a hiatus due to a legal dispute with Lisa Frank, Glamour Dolls is relaunching with a new beauty line featuring images of two NFTs from the Bored Ape Yacht Club collection. Featuring Bored Ape #8240 and Bored Ape #772, in collaboration with their respective owners, the new Glamour Dolls Flower collection includes CBD skin care, body care and hair care products, as well as candles. The announcement comes after brands such as Adidas and PrettyLittleThing launched Bored Ape collabs. Meanwhile, other brands have canceled collabs featuring the NFTs due to consumer backlash.
“We’re in an exciting new space that doesn’t have a lot of history. This is part of what Glamour Dolls does. We get in the mix with all of the new fun stuff and see where it all goes, sometimes to our benefit,” said Peter Georgotas, the co-founder of Glamour Dolls and CEO of a newly formed parent company, Ethereal Holdings, which owns Glamour Dolls Flower.
Each product will have a 10,000-piece run that will be dropped in batches over the next four months. Users who sign up for the brand’s mailing list on its site will have first access to purchase, with products available through the brand’s DTC site. The launch date is sometime “probably over the next few weeks,” said Georgotas.
The brand is targeting both the beauty and NFT online communities with the launch. The products “have a real collectible aspect to them that would appeal to the NFT community and the Bored Ape community, because these are some of the first real products that are featuring Bored Apes in an official capacity,” said Georgotas.
The brand is also creating a Discord group as part of its relaunch, and Georgotas is considering launching NFTs for the brand.
Beyond the NFT community, the brand is also hoping to appeal to the beauty world with the new collab.
“Beauty is always at the forefront of pop culture,” Georgotas said. “Our thought was by making these really great products, from both an art and an actual product standpoint, we could help people dip their toes into the water, get some exposure to NFTs and learn about the language.”
Some brands have pulled out of Bored Ape collabs in recent months after consumer criticism. The most recent was MeUndies, which canceled its Bored Ape project on March 10.
The MeUndies backlash came from multiple critiques of the NFT market and Bored Apes specifically. Users have been criticizing the environmental impact of NFTs due to the massive amounts of energy used to mine cryptocurrency. They’ve also criticized the structure of the NFT marketplace, comparing it to a pyramid scheme.
“There is a real conversation to be had around the environmental impact of NFTs,” said Georgotas. In response, he said the brand is purchasing carbon offset credits.
Bored Ape Yacht Club has also specifically been criticized for its imagery. Designer and creative director Ryder Ripps — who has worked with musicians such as Kanye West, Grimes, James Blake and Travis Scott, and brands including Nike — has posted connections he saw between Bored Ape and Nazi imagery. Yuga Labs has denied the allegations. Georgotas said he had not yet read about the allegations.
“Whoever’s on top always gets shots taken at them. So I imagine that Bored Apes are going to be the lightning rod for most of the NFT flack right now, because they’re the most recognizable and most known by people,” he said.
Owners of Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs can approach brands for partnerships because Bored Ape founding company Yuga Labs allows owners to license the images. Bored Ape #8240 is owned by an NFT influencer who goes by @Devinthedude07 on Twitter, while the owner of #772 is Pinar LaCroix, a former creative director in L’Oréal’s global professional products division.
As part of its return to the market, Glamour Dolls Flower functions as a subsidiary of Ethereal Holdings focused on CBD. Glamour Dolls Makeup is separate from the new company, and its co-founder Jessica Romano is not a part of Ethereal Holdings, Georgotas said.
The 7-year-old makeup company is currently in litigation with Lisa Frank after raising funds for a collaboration with the brand that never came to fruition. Georgotas said he cannot comment on the lawsuit while it is still in progress.
“We did get derailed for a few years after the Lisa Frank thing happened. I had to focus on moving the litigation forward,” Georgotas said.
