ON a recent rainy evening, Rose Estime, a 35-year-old accountant who lives in Manhattan, left the Macy’s Herald Square store with a small bag containing a cleanser by Fashion Fair that she was eager to try. Ms. Estime has been a loyal customer of the cosmetics line, which is meant for black women, for more than a decade. “It matches my skin color, and I have itchy, sensitive skin and it helps me,” she said. “They’re the only products I can use without issues.”
For many of the 38 years it has been in business, Fashion Fair, which is owned by the Johnson Publishing Company in Chicago, filled the makeup bags of women of color — because, in part, there were so few other options. But more recently brands including MAC, Nars and Bobbi Brown, all of which command significant counter space at Macy’s and other department stores, have been siphoning away Fashion Fair’s core demographic. In late September, Chanel introduced Perfection Lumière, a foundation line that includes 20 shades, including dark ones, available in the United States. Cover Girl has its Queen Collection, represented by Queen Latifah; niche lines like Iman Cosmetics and Black Opal have also built a loyal client base.
“We’ve been asleep,” said Desirée Rogers, the chief executive of the Johnson Publishing Company and the former White House social secretary. “Some women refer to the brand as their grandmother’s makeup, and we’re working to change that.”
As part of the division’s makeover, Ms. Rogers and the brand’s president, Clarisa Wilson, have appointed Sam Fine, 41, as creative director of Fashion Fair. Mr. Fine, a veteran makeup artist, has painted the faces of Iman, Patti LaBelle, Vanessa Williams, and more recently, Mary J. Blige, Tyra Banks and Jennifer Hudson. “I started out with Mikki Taylor and Brooke Shields doing Essence and Cosmo covers,” he said. “But it wasn’t until I really started dedicating my career to beautifying women of color that I found purpose, and really found a greater level of success, strangely enough.”
Mr. Fine, however, has his work cut out for him. An informal survey of younger African-American women showed that brand awareness of was faint at best. “One day I was in Green Acres Mall in Queens and saw a Fashion Fair promotion or something,” said Danielle Byrd, 38, another shopper at Macy’s, who works at David’s Bridal in Manhattan and said she uses Iman foundation and MAC lip gloss. “I didn’t know they were still around,” she added, “I was surprised.”
“I love the shine and their color choices. My lips are very pink, and it’s hard for me to find stuff for my color.”
Natalie Pryor, 22, a senior majoring in advertising at Michigan State University, uses BareMinerals blush, lip color and eyeliner from Ulta. “I have heard of them and they have my attention, but I probably won’t buy any until I get a job,” she said in a phone interview about Fashion Fair, adding, “As a college student, I cannot afford them right now.” (In fact, at a list price of $17, a Fashion Fair blush is $2 cheaper than a comparable item by BareMinerals.)
Ms. Wilson said that she was working on re-educating the young, plugged-in consumer about Fashion Fair, in particular trying to make the brand a presence backstage at fashion shows, where MAC and Maybelline, which has no special line for black women, have long dominated. “We are going to transition every touch point within the Fashion Fair brand,” Ms. Wilson said. “So you’re going to feel it online, you’re going to feel it in store, you’re going to feel it with the personnel, our advertising, with our new products in color as well as skin care.”
But Krissy Reed, who runs the makeup blog Addicted to All Things Pretty, is unsure of the brand’s ability to evolve, though it introduced her to makeup as a teenager and she still wears their foundation. “Expecting Fashion Fair to have a strong online presence is like expecting your grandmother to be more social on Facebook and Twitter,” Ms. Reed, 28, wrote in a blog post. “I’ve always felt that they conformed too much to the expectations of their customers and failed to grow within the beauty industry as a whole.”
At least one promotional event has been successful, though. Fashion Fair partnered with Sony Pictures on a capsule makeup collection based on the movie “Jumping the Broom,” starring Angela Bassett and Paula Patton. When the movie had its premiere on May 6, the makeup company sent an e-mail blast to customers. Women’s Wear Daily reported that traffic on the company’s Web site’s went up 111 percent, and the site’s sales increased by 53 percent compared with the week before.
But the in-store experience, at least for now, is a different story. Over 650 stores across the United States and Canada, as well as locations in London and Paris, carry Fashion Fair products, but they are often sedate, if not deserted. At Macy’s Herald Square, there seemed to be a party going on at the MAC counter, with club beats pounding over speakers. Elaine Welteroth, until recently the beauty and style editor at Ebony, published by Fashion Fair’s parent company, was hopeful that the glamorous Ms. Rogers, who she said had “generated some really good buzz around the brand,” could turn things around, though she does see hurdles. “I’m in a generation where MAC is the reigning brand for a lot of women, black, white and other,” Ms. Welteroth said. “I think that has put Fashion Fair in a precarious situation, where they really need to rethink their strategy. They need to redefine what it means to be a black beauty company in this multifaceted market.''
NYTimes
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