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Pleasing has been fairly quiet since Harry Styles launched his direct-to-consumer beauty and lifestyle brand in 2021 with a line of nail polishes and skin products. Now, nearly four months since hiring its first CEO, Shaun Kearney, the brand is readying for growth. Pleasing is heading into new markets and introducing new products, starting with a fragrance line and its first retail partner.
Pleasing’s three new scents — Closeness, Rivulets and Bright; produced with fragrance house Robertet and its perfumer Jérôme Epinette — are now available for sale at Selfridges’s Corner Shop in London, alongside an exclusive holiday range of nail, apparel and accessories products. The brand will also roll its products out to Selfridges’s other UK locations in Manchester and Birmingham and expand into Dover Street Market in Paris later this month.
Kearney joined Pleasing in June from Goop, where he was mostly recently chief design and merchandising officer. “We wanted to be very thoughtful about who we partner with, and Selfridges’s approach to retail is very much aligned with our brand values. They tell compelling stories and strike the right blend of art and commerce,” says Kearney, who is in London this week to celebrate Pleasing’s first-ever fragrance collection.
Pleasing is among a wave of digitally savvy brands that began selling directly to consumers via its own channels, which brings higher profit margins, while traditional department stores have seen sales decline. However, many multi-brand retailers are now updating their stores and offering brands more control over how their products are priced and displayed. Many DTC holdouts are also pivoting to wholesale in a bid to reach new customers as digital marketing costs rise.
The decision to enter into fragrance appears to be a well-calculated move, experts say. While Pleasing experienced high consumer interest during its initial unveiling, there was a notable decline in engagement after October 2022, according to social analytics firm Brandwatch. Following the recent news of its fragrance line, online mentions of Pleasing witnessed an uptick by 4,286 per cent (between 2-5 November) compared to the median mention volume, data shows.
Kearney declined to comment on Pleasing’s profitability, annual revenues or sales growth but says that “for a company so early on, it has been very impressive” and on its current path predicts “a really healthy trajectory over the next few years”. His goal is to build “a powerhouse lifestyle brand” that “really influences the conversation and truly impacts people’s lives”. Kearney explains: “It’s not just about the product; it’s about leading the conversation and being part of what’s happening in the world and offering a place that people trust and can meet.”
Despite stiff competition, shifting consumer behaviour means there’s still money to be made from new fragrance launches. Victoria Beckham, Harry Styles and Millie Bobby Brown are among those embracing the opportunity.
Pleasing’s retail space at Selfridges, which is inspired by its fragrance bottles as well as the golden days of early cinema, intertwines nostalgia with contemporary design elements — an approach that is reflective of its DNA, according to the brand. Customers can discover and sample through a vintage-style beauty counter. There will also be a trio of ticket booths, where visitors can collect a free “ticket”, spritzed individually with one of the fragrances, printed on archival paper that serves as physical keepsakes. Each day, visitors will discover surprises, such as confections and sporadic mini-shows performed by roaming artists.
“Selfridges is a great destination for discovery [and] really allows us to bring Pleasing to existing customers but introduce it to a new audience, too,” says Kearney. The brand has a broad customer base that ranges from 10 to 85 years old, although the highest engagement comes from Gen Z and younger millennials, he says. Among Kearney’s goals for Pleasing is to capture older millennials, and striking partnerships with stores where they spend time and shop is key.
Kearney’s not here for long — by Tuesday, he’ll be on a plane back to his home city, Los Angeles, where Pleasing will also stage a holiday pop-up, as well as in New York (both open at the end of the week). The US is currently Pleasing’s biggest market, followed by the UK. Secondary cities in America, such as Chicago, Austin, Dallas and Atlanta, are showing continual strength and are also on Kearney’s radar for 2024. He’s hopeful for a similar result to the brand’s month-long pop-ups throughout 2022, which also took place in London, New York and LA (cities where Pleasing does the most business) and fared extremely well. “We’re a very young brand. It’s highly impressive to see such promising foot traffic metrics and sales per square foot.”
Part of that is driven by consumers’ positive association with the brand. Data from Brandwatch, tracked from January to November 2023, shows that joy dominates consumer emotion towards Pleasing (76 per cent), as fans enjoy the products and express genuine excitement about its new launches. Mentions of sadness are tied to customer disappointment when products are sold out were at 9 per cent, and 7 per cent of anger and 6 per cent of disgust are made through sarcasm and humour rather than being directed at the brand itself, Brandwatch notes.
Conversion rates were “very, very strong”, says Kearney, although he declined to share numbers. “There were lines around the block almost every day. It gives me a lot of confidence about what our permanent retail strategy could look like [and] that we’re on the right track to be expanding our distribution footprint over the next couple of years.” To test customer appetite, Pleasing will keep its new pop-ups open for a little longer than a month, he says. “Once we gather more insights, it will give a little bit of an indication as to how soon we should lock in some of the permanent opportunities we see for the brand.”
A different kind of celebrity brand
Pleasing, which launched in November 2021, operates in a market where more male celebrities are talking openly about beauty and grooming and are coming to market with their own beauty offerings. While the makeup and skincare sector for men remains small, Pleasing’s offering of nail polishes, multi-use gloss and cream pigments that can be used on the eyes, lip or skin, as well as accessories and other products, has young consumers hooked. One standout feature is that they don’t fit into clearly defined makeup categories like highlighter or eyeshadow — a growing trend in the industry.
The products, like Styles, also take a gender-fluid approach, which, while still new, resonates with Gen Z and millennials, many of whom eschew gender norms. Last September, Pleasing unveiled a collaboration with Brazilian fashion designer Marco Ribeiro for his debut Spring/Summer 2023 presentation at Paris Fashion Week. Both Styles and Riberio connected over their desire to create inclusive products that allowed for creative self-expression.
Pleasing acts as an extension of Styles’s universe, allowing consumers to feel like they are one step closer to his world, says Kearney. But unlike other celebrity-led beauty brands, where the stars are more noticeably involved with the creation and marketing of their products — such as Victoria Beckham Beauty or Hailey Bieber’s Rhode — Styles has remained behind the scenes, leaving his brand in the hands of co-creative directors Harry Lambert and Molly Hawkins.
“It’s a team effort,” asserts Kearney. He believes that Pleasing may even be more authentic than other celebrity brands, where it’s difficult to prove how truly involved the stars really are. “[We have] Harry [Styles]’s direct team working on the brand, so they can allow for a more genuine connection. We very much tap into his brain, and it’s a setup that really works.”
“Every great brand has an imaginative founder, great at building teams and making things people want. Ours happens to be a celebrity,” Hawkins tells Vogue Business. “I think some people are surprised that Harry chooses to make Pleasing about his ideas rather than about his image. He doesn’t star in campaigns and only makes appearances in cheeky ways that feel very him,” she adds. “He has rich experience of the world and uses Pleasing as another way to explore and share his unique experiences. Pleasing is another way to create the world he wants to see.”
Still, Pleasing has a lot to do to increase consumer awareness. Based on Brandwatch data from January to November 2023, it only commands a 2 per cent share of online voice compared to other celebrity beauty brands, such as Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty (44 per cent) and Selena Gomez’s Rare Beauty (32 per cent). Lady Gaga’s Haus Labs, Hailey Bieber’s Rhode and Pharrell’s Humanrace also earned single digits. However, it is worth noting that some of the competing brands have executed extensive media strategies: Fenty Beauty’s significant upswing in engagement was driven by Rihanna’s Super Bowl performance in February. Some other brand founders have also faced recent controversies, which is reflected in increased online mentions.
Pleasing benefits from a stable foundation thanks to Styles’s avoidance of controversies to date. It also takes a more low-key, community-first approach. For example, it didn’t announce its fragrance launch with a splashy campaign or public announcement from Styles. Samples of the scents were discreetly included in all recent Pleasing orders as a way to reward its most engaged shoppers — an unusual go-to-market strategy. “We never disclosed that it was a fragrance either,” laughs Kearney. “We wanted [our customers] to just experience the scent. They started to share it on their own social media like TikTok. Everyone started talking about which smells they liked, although nobody was really sure if we were launching fragrance at the time.”
Pleasing saw it as an opportunity to learn from its community, which is highly vocal about their likes and dislikes, says Kearney, noting that the brand chose to launch fragrance after high demand for the category. “From the beginning, Pleasing has been about prioritising our customers first. It’s really about being of service to our community, and also inspiring them, versus dictating to them.”
Kearney points to similarities between Goop and Pleasing. Despite their different target audiences, both founders have had “a profound impact on culture” — a valuable asset that can’t be bought, he notes. “It’s important to be part of a movement that moves culture forward. A founder brings cultural impact and significance to the brand so that there’s longevity and, in a way, it feels timeless because the brand encompasses [who they are and what they stand for],” he explains. “That’s powerful.”
On entering 2024, Kearney’s top priorities are continuing to establish the right infrastructure that helps to set a strong foundation for the business. “We’re in foundation-building mode now, and that will help us optimise the next year. When we optimise that, it will allow us to scale,” he explains. “A lot of that is about continuing to build on our loyal community and continuing to establish strong credibility in other lifestyle verticals.” That includes collaborations with brands in adjacent categories alongside new distribution channels and product categories. Kearney declined to share what could be next but assures: “There are some really exciting things in the works.”
“Chasing relevance is a losing game,” concedes Hawkins. “If you have your reason and perspective, and you keep it front and centre, you’ll find and build your community.”
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