How hype fashion is trying to get into the beauty industry

We are now used to waiting impatiently for Supreme's drops to find out which items we will find in the online shop, and which new collaborations were born from the minds behind the product choices of the American brand. To date, the most unexpected item was launched just a couple of weeks ago: a red lipstick in collaboration with beauty icon Pat McGrath. There would be nothing so special about a red lipstick, except that this was the first item created and designed by the brand specifically for a female audience.

The collaboration of the most iconic hype brand with an important name like Pat McGrath, a true legend of the beauty industry and make-up artist of celebrities and models, establishes a symbolic union between these two worlds - but we are still far from a definitive opening of the streetwear world towards women.

In recent years, beauty has become an increasingly important and continuously growing market, so much that many brands in the sector generated a real hype around them. The world of skincare in particular has become a trend and during the lockdown period even proved to be a growing market. On the opposite, streetwear is undergoing a transformation and the hype around it is slowly declining, as also predicted by Virgil Abloh.

Today beauty brands like The Ordinary or Glossier see their website crash and their products sold out in just a few minutes, just like - before the lockdown - skincare enthusiasts used to camp out outside the store in Soho of the brand of Emily Weiss, to have access to a Milky Cleanser or a Lip Gloss. Many celebrities have also exploited this moment of glory for the beauty industry to create their own cosmetics and make-up brands - like Rihanna with her Fenty Beauty and Fenty Skin, Kylie Jenner with Kylie Cosmetics and Kylie Skin, and new entry Jennifer Lopez with JLo Beauty - helping to generate interest and a sort of "obsession" for beauty.

But way before Supreme, A Bathing Ape was the pioneer of the partnership between streetwear and beauty, with a collaboration with the brand MAC Cosmetics back in 2005, which included a lip balm, a camo beauty case and blotting papers. In 2018, Off-White and Byredo created a perfume for hair, hand creams and an eau de parfum in a beauty line that took the name of "Elevator Music".

It is clear how the two worlds can benefit from each other: brands in the cosmetics industry by imitating hype fashion with raffle systems, collaborations, limited editions; and streetwear by including products in its offer that, in addition to exploiting the hype of the moment towards the beauty world, are the sign of an increasingly complete inclusion of the female audience.

However, a red lipstick, sold out in a few seconds, is not enough to make women feel part of a community made up 90% of a male audience, a boys club that offers products designed primarily for a single part of the market. In the future, we hope that collaborations like Fenty Beauty x Off-White, or to find a mascara in the next Palace drop, will be closer and more probable.