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NEW YORK -- Carol's Daughter, one of the industry's most star-studded indie brands, has hooked up with the merchandising might of Sephora.
The boutique beauty brand, which had its roots in founder Lisa Price's Brooklyn kitchen, will enter 28 of the retailer's U.S. doors in March. Locations will include South Beach, Fla.; Times Square in New York; Santa Monica, Calif., and the Houston Galleria, as well as sephora.com.
"We were approached by a number of retailers, but what we liked about Sephora was that it has a business model that works well with boutique brands like ours," said Steve Stoute, the entertainment mogul who brokered the deal between Price and a constellation of Hollywood heavyweights -- including Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter, Will Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith and Tommy Mottola -- last May. Stoute is now also the managing partner of Carol's Daughter.
"When you're a boutique brand, you don't necessarily need to be in 700 doors [like a department store brand often is]," continued Stoute. "And when you're up-and-coming, you can't necessarily afford chargebacks [also a department store issue]. And Sephora is widely seen as a beauty authority -- that's all they sell. This is our first outside partnership, and doing this with Sephora further announces that we have arrived [as a brand]."
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