Resilience Has Taken Her From ‘The Hills’ to Brooklyn Heights
The New York Times
Glossier founder Emily Weiss attributes her success to never giving up. Plus, jewelry shopping from coast to coast and Wet Seal’s gilded age.
Speaking on the phone as she was driving through Manhattan, Emily Weiss turned the conversation to cocktails while discussing the fragrance offerings from Glossier, the beauty brand she founded 10 years ago this month.
Its first perfume, You, introduced in 2017, has a formula that is intended to smell a bit different on everyone. Glossier has said it sells units of the scent every 20 seconds. Building on its popularity, the company has released two follow-ups: You Doux, a version with notes of violet and palo santo, and You Rêve, which has sweeter elements like buttercream and toasted almond.
“From the early days of creating this, what came to mind right away was a martini,” Ms. Weiss said, using a comparison she has made before. “If you think about a classic martini, you can have it with olives or a lychee martini. They all have different ingredients on top of the same vodka base.”
The fragrances, each $78, are meant to align with the company’s strategy of offering moderately priced makeup and skin-care products that enhance a person’s natural features. That approach has resonated with millennial, Generation Z and now Generation Alpha consumers, who can often be seen lining up outside Glossier stores in cities like New York, Atlanta and Chicago.
Over the past decade, Ms. Weiss, 39, Glossier’s executive chairwoman and former chief executive, has steered the brand through highs (landing a lucrative Sephora distribution deal in 2022) and lows (a poorly received line of makeup in saturated colors, called Play). Much of its history was written about in “Glossy,” a dishy book about the company published last year.
