One of the most physically demanding sports, women’s artistic gymnastics is also one of the most glamorous. Athletes perform sky-high twists and tumbling all while decked out in bedazzled leotards, styled coifs and perfect makeup. One of the gymnasts performing such feats is Shilese Jones of the United States, who is aiming to make it to her first Olympic Games, in Paris this summer.
And she’s already snagged a major beauty contract in the process. This week, Jones announced a campaign with NYX Professional Makeup, making her the brand’s first individual athlete partner.
“We see the opportunity to bring sports and culture and entertainment together,” said Yasmin Dastmalchi, gm of U.S. at NYX Professional Makeup. The brand was acquired in 2014 for $500 million by French conglomerate L’Oréal, which reported €11.2 billion in sales for the first quarter of 2024. “Shilese’s sport specifically is really driven by artistry, and we’re going to continue to highlight her self-expression.”
Jones, now 21, has emerged as a top competitor in a deep field of American female gymnasts. At the Artistic Gymnastics World Championships last fall, Jones helped the U.S. women snag a team gold medal, while also earning bronze medals in the individual all-around and uneven bars competitions. At the U.S. Olympic Trials this weekend, she is expected to officially earn her spot on the five-person team that will go to Paris next month.
As part of her partnership with the makeup company, Jones will be featured on NYX billboards across regions including Washington — her home state — and Minnesota, which will host Jones and other Paris hopefuls at this weekend’s Olympic Gymnastics Trials in Minneapolis. Jones will also highlight NYX products in social media content like get-ready-with-me videos for her 90,000-plus Instagram followers.
Should she stamp her ticket to Paris at the Olympic Trials, Jones, already a favorite among gymnastics fans, has the potential to become a breakout star at the Paris games. And like many of her fellow athletes, she’s already catching the eye of brands looking to bank on gymnasts’ power as fashion and beauty ambassadors.
This week, fellow Team USA gymnasts Simone Biles and Jordan Chiles announced partnerships with biotech hair-care line K18 and makeup brand Milani, respectively. Olympic champion Rebeca Andrade of Brazil has fronted local makeup line Vult, owned by Grupo Boticário, since 2021. France’s Mélanie de Jesus dos Santos is an ambassador for Dior, whose parent company, LVMH, is an official partner to the Paris Olympics — the gymnast attended Dior’s Fall 2024 couture show this week, where Maria Grazia Chiuri showed clothes with an athletic bent.
While women’s gymnastics has long been a marquee sport at the Summer Olympics, few individual gymnasts have achieved the household name status common in other sports. But that may be evolving. Whereas female gymnasts were once regarded as peaking in their teenage years, more top gymnasts, like Jones and Biles, are staking out longer careers into their 20s.
“Women’s sports is evolving,” said Dastmalchi. “It’s evolving because the sports space is evolving.”
And changing rules are allowing those athletes to monetize their image in new ways. In 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that college athletes can now profit off of their name, image and likeness. Gymnast Sunisa Lee, who earned headlines in 2021 not just for winning the all-around gold medal in Tokyo, but also for the sky-high lash extensions and acrylic nails she sported while doing so, has brand partnerships with nail brand KISS and Kim Kardashian’s shapewear line Skims. Lee has continued her elite gymnastics career while also competing in the NCAA for Auburn University.
And NYX is no stranger to the value of athletes as brand partners. Earlier this year, the makeup company was announced as the official sponsor of Los Angeles’s Angel City Football Club, part of the National Women’s Soccer League, following its previous partnership with the WNBA team New York Liberty.
With no pro league like the WNBA, gymnastics is a relatively niche sport to tap into. But as the excitement around events like the Olympics often shows, sports and athletes can reach beyond their core fans.
“It’s not just sports fans, I think it’s future fans of sports,” said Dastmalchi. “I think we’re reaching people that are interested in culture.”
