The Glossy 50 honors the year’s biggest changemakers across fashion and beauty. More from the series →
The Leaders: These founders and CEOs are taking their influential brands into the next phase of growth.
LoveShackFancy’s 10th year in business has proven pivotal. The contemporary fashion brand entered the beauty category, collaborated with Gap, opened its 17th store, invested in new executive hires and grew its direct-to-consumer sales to 70% of the business. At the same time, the team set ambitious plans for 2024 that include international expansion, additional big-name collaborations, the appointment of brand ambassadors, a ramped-up TikTok strategy and new product colorways, including black.
“My design team and merchandisers [sold me on the notion that] we can’t just have a world of pink for every season,” said founder and creative director Rebecca Hessel Cohen, who, over the past decade, has cemented Edwardian- and Victorian-era aesthetics as brand signatures. Her constant inspiration has been her mother’s Bridgehampton, New York home, which is decorated accordingly.
Hessel Cohen said she owes her brand’s growth, both this year and every year prior, to trusting her gut. The company has reportedly doubled its sales over the past two years.
“It always goes back to the brand’s DNA. Everything needs to feel on brand, and there should never be any confusion about who made our [styles],” she said. “If something’s not right, I know it right away. If I hesitate even for a second, it’s not right.”
In September, LoveShackFancy entered the beauty category with a collection of three fragrances sold at Sephora. They “sold out right away” on Sephora.com, Hessel Cohen said.
Rather than leverage a licensing deal, the brand developed the fragrances in-house. The project was led by newly appointed beauty gm Stephanie Barker Supo, formerly an executive at Unilever Prestige.
“The success of the launch made me realize that there are no limits to where we can go,” Hessel Cohen said. “LoveShackFancy truly is a lifestyle, a way of life.”
A month prior, LoveShackFancy and Gap released a 76-piece product collaboration, which married both brands’ “icons,” Hessel Cohen said. Think: LoveShackFancy florals on Gap-logo sweatshirts. Ciara was the face of the collection, which included womenswear, menswear, kidswear and baby styles. It went viral, seeing 9.8 million Instagram impressions and 5 million TikTok views. And according to Hessel Cohen, it sold out “in minutes.”
Both the beauty launch and the Gap collab provided brand awareness to large segments of potential new customers across ages. “Many Sephora shoppers have never even heard of LoveShackFancy,” Hessel Cohen said. “I like to say that we’re now ‘for babies to 80s.’”
LoveShackFancy’s long-term collaborative home collections with Pottery Barn’s Kids and Teen businesses have also worked to attract new customers. In the year ahead, the partnership is set to expand beyond bedding and bathroom products to include furniture inspired by Hessel Cohen’s vintage finds.
“I’m very impulsive and passionate,” Hessel Cohen said. “So it’s nice that we’re still a relatively small business. If something [new] feels exciting and authentic to the brand, we just pivot and go.”
Click here to see all 2023 Glossy 50 honorees.
