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Fast beauty isn’t selling out — because they’re sellouts
The fast fashion year-end sales may be on fire. Their makeup lines though? Not so much
H&M launching their beauty line in India to a severely lukewarm reaction would have millennial jaws hitting the floor had the pastel products made their way to the glocal hub a decade back. But the formula that had American retail giants like GAP Inc. and Victoria’s Secret become global cultural zeitgeists in the 90s, sadly — and for obvious reasons — does not apply to the current crop of 20-something spenders.
Brand building back in the day relied rather heavily on faces, places and rule-of-thumb trends that managed to hold attention for months on end if not years; the Victoria’s Secret angels X Juicy Couture crossover is a great example, iconic in real time and in memory. Now for better or for worse, Gen Z just isn’t that impressionable.
Haters (and there are many) may call it the attention span of a goldfish but making a trend float today let alone fly, rests on several undefined variables beyond just catching the algorithm, one of them being the ever-illusive ‘vibe’. If it doesn’t give, it just doesn’t give. Period.
Trends are cyclical but the generation’s ‘aura’ — which their signature scent and lip mix are honestly, tenets of — isn’t. And it’s not just the beauty bit. Brands like H&M and Zara have also been taking the hit on the sartorial front with thrifting and vintage sourcing having become all the rage.
Curating and updating your personal vibe as a young adult today is a full time job and a deeply unique experience. That being said, the one thing common here is the aspirational energy, ever-present, though without being obvious. So yes, an H&M or a Zara satin lippie may be half the price with twice the colour payoff than a Kylie Cosmetics original, but the latter’s still the one that’s going to be sold out, even if possessed on EMI payments.
The bottom line - dupe-core drugstore beauty just isn’t it, even for the broke bunch.
