The Tamesis
Welcome to The Scoop: a weekly email series in which I ask fashion insiders about the week’s stories. This will be a way for the Vogue business community to synthesize and reflect on the latest headlines every Friday and get a little inside scoop.
This week’s guest is Emma Lewisham. Emma founded her eponymous brand in 2019 with the vision of creating truly premium round-packaged skin care products. Refills are a bit of a cliché now, but when I learned about the brand in 2023, I thought Supernatural Blemish Face Serum’s cocktail dispenser was incredibly innovative.
Emma founded the brand in her native New Zealand. But since launching in the UK three years ago, it’s certainly become a firm favorite among London fashion circles. That may have something to do with this week’s scoop.
Hi Emma, any scoop?
Next week we will launch two products for retail. With our launch on Tuesday at Bluemercury, we’re expanding further into the US, which is exciting and kind of deepens our presence in the region. But we’re also deepening our presence in the UK with the launch of Cult Beauty.
We very much want this brand to still be around 100 years from now, so we have to be very careful when expanding. It takes a lot of investment to do well in the U.S., and the U.S. is a more fragmented market. We’re very interested in Bluemercury because of their focus on the luxury segment, particularly in-store service and staffing models.
We are further established in the UK and Europe, so launching in Cult Beauty is more about expanding the reach. I will also be moving to London later this year to support the UK, US and European markets.
Then we have two scoops! You are expanding your retail network and moving your family and company headquarters to the UK. How long has this been in the works?
Success in the UK market cannot be achieved overnight. They want to see if you stand by what you say, and that requires blood, sweat, and tears, and being prepared to roll up your sleeves. I’ve been traveling to the UK at least two or three times a year since we started to maintain a consistent presence, and we’ve had a UK team from day one. We’ve also hired a UK and European retail executive – she used to work at Sunday Riley and she’s brilliant.
I also feel a kindred spirit with London and the UK. I loved the network I built there, the brand and our team, and I really loved the culture and our clients. So while we were moving for business reasons, it was certainly attractive from a personal and family perspective. It’s such a wonderful, inspiring place.
Since we’re on the topic of expansion, Rhode has just launched in Australia. Drawing on some of the lessons you’ve learned along the way, how do you build a truly global beauty brand?
I think it sounds simple, but fundamentally you have to have a truly exceptional product and your brand needs to have a real point of view. This is such a competitive industry and your product must have enough depth to stand out. Drive-through is about providing real problem solutions.
Another thing I would say is that you need to be very clear about what your vision is and work towards it. I talk to a lot of brand founders, and you’d be surprised how many don’t know where they want to be in two years, let alone five, ten, a hundred years from now. Again, it may seem simple, but be really clear about what you want to achieve.
