RIHANNA
From chart-topping singer to beauty entrepreneur, Rihanna is going from strength to strength. Now her fashion brand is set to disrupt the industry.
From chart-topping singer to ground-breaking beauty entrepreneur, Rihanna is going from strength to strength. Now her newly launched Fenty fashion brand is set to disrupt the fashion world with clothes women actually want to wear.
From Victoria Beckham to Kanye West, the tradition of recording artists turning their hand to fashion design is a welltrodden path. It’s also one littered with failure – remember Lily Allen’s ‘Lucy in Disguise’ line? Or Robbie Williams’ ‘Farrell’? Thought not.
But the launch of Rihanna’s new Fenty fashion brand is significant for many reasons – not least because she is the first black woman to become CEO and artistic director of an LVMH company. While the singer may not have had any technical training (we’ll get to that later), her latest venture – two years in the making – looks poised for financial success in a way that no other musician-turned-fashion designer has shown at such an early stage.
Combined with her existing fame and influence, it makes for a heady combination that could set her on a path to becoming this generation’s answer to Coco Chanel.
CHANGING THE GAME
For a start, Rihanna, like Chanel, truly understands what women want to wear. As Chanel liberated women from their corsets by draping them in soft textiles like jersey, a century later Rihanna is filling a genuine gap in the market with a collection of tailored blazers, trousers and shirt-dresses that are unquestionably cool, yet also versatile, luxurious and created with curves in mind. “I’m a curvy girl, and if I can’t wear it myself, it’s not going to work,” she told press at the brand’s launch event. It’s clothing that women – fans of her music or not – will likely want in their wardrobes.
Rihanna is also unafraid to embrace a new business model. Fenty products will be released in monthly ‘drops’, like highly successful streetwear brands such as Supreme, rather than in seasonal collections twice a year – as we see from most major catwalk labels.
Rihanna says this is because she is “too greedy” to endure the six-month gap between an item’s appearance on the runway (when department store buyers traditionally place their orders) and its arrival in stores. But it’s also a savvy commercial move – not only will it bypass multi-brand retailers, meaning Fenty keeps a greater share of profits, but the frequent newness will satisfy a consumer used to living life at the pace of social media. Many in the fashion industry consider this ‘direct-to-consumer’ strategy to be the business model of the future.
Rihanna comes with a strong track record, too. Her lucrative Fenty x Puma sportswear partnership, which launched in 2015, continues to drive sales for the activewear company – while Fenty Beauty, developed with luxury conglomerate LVMH in 2017, enjoyed sales of over A$817 million in its first year alone – thanks to an inclusive 40-shade foundation range, Instagram-friendly packaging, and a product range that reflects the current trend for flawless, radiant skin.
Nor do sales show any sign of waning – on a recent Sunday lunchtime visit to British luxury department store Harvey Nichols’ beauty hall, I noticed that staff at the Fenty Beauty concession stand were overwhelmed by young women testing foundations, concealers and highlighter hues on their hands and cheeks. And last year, Rihanna launched Savage x Fenty, an accessibly priced lingerie brand that caters to a truly diverse range of sizes. It’s already so popular that it has been regularly named as one of the new competitors serving to topple Victoria’s Secret.
“I’m a curvy girl, and if I can’t wear it myself, it’s not going to work.” RIHANNA
But it is the backing of LVMH – the French company that owns Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior and Fendi – that is the biggest vote of confidence in Rihanna. The group, which consistently turns a profit quarter after quarter, has not launched a new maison since Christian Lacroix in 1987 – instead acquiring existing brands that show promise. LVMH chairman and CEO Bernard Arnault is effusive about Rihanna’s leadership potential. “Through our partnership at Fenty Beauty, I discovered a true entrepreneur, a real CEO and a terrific leader,” Arnault said in a press release. “She naturally finds her full place within LVMH.”
Arnault is no fool. There are significant commercial advantages in harnessing Rihanna’s star power, says Lorna Hennelly, consultant research analyst at Euromonitor. “For LVMH, Fenty is intended to draw a younger customer and broaden its base – and delivering … cutting-edge fashion to millennials and Gen Z consumers definitely fits the direction in which the industry is heading,” she says.
In turn, Rihanna can tap into LVMH’s extensive experience and resources in manufacturing, marketing and business management, while enjoying “no artistic limits” – a rare opportunity for a designer, professionally trained or not.
WHAT WOMEN WANT
That brings us to the criticism – which is fair, because Rihanna has not spent upwards of four years at art school followed by a series of internships and junior-level roles in preparation for her role as artistic director of a major fashion house. Yes, she has shown herself to be a woman who enjoys wearing fashion on the red carpet, but we all know that a team of stylists and image-makers will get her ready behind the scenes.
Rihanna does have something critical though – an innate sense of what today’s young women want, and that’s rarer than many are prepared to give her credit for. Major brands spend millions on market research trying to anticipate how the Millennial and Gen Z demographics will spend their money. With 72 million followers on Instagram alone, Rihanna understands this audience far more intimately than a typical fashion executive.
“Rihanna’s business plans aren’t just disruptive, but democratic,” says Hennelly. “In a fast-evolving market, where many established brands are struggling to maintain relevance, Rihanna has succeeded because she is relatable, and she’s catering to a consumer base that has been underserved for far too long.”
As Chanel herself once said, “the designers have forgotten that there are women inside the dresses”. Perhaps Rihanna will seek to rectify this problem once and for all.