I love Illamasqua even more

Questa lettera mi ha riempito il cuore. Un brand con i controcazzi. Amo Illamasqua. Punto.

Hi There,

A thank you from the founder of Illamasqua I want to thank you for having an interest in Illamasqua. As owner and founder of the brand I have, and always will feel, a great deal of satisfaction and gratitude when our customers appreciate what we do. Whether you’ve simply looked round our store, browsed online or are a regular customer, I’m confident you will have noticed that we’re not like other make-up brands. And you’d be right. For a start, in the world of make-up, mass marketing does all the talking. So why am I taking the trouble to write you this personal letter? It’s because Illamasqua is a brand that, I believe, belongs to its customers as much as me. Illamasqua is unlike any other big beauty brand that has ever been created. We’re proud that our approach to business is almost Victorian in its thinking. In only three short years we have created a brand new fashion icon, but with good old-fashioned values of fairness, strong principles and a hard work ethic. We’ve built a global brand, but with the commitment and pureness of a family-business. In the beginning we were faced with a choice. We could invest all our money in creating a great product, or spend the majority of our money on marketing and a fraction on product. Without any hesitation we chose to invest everything into our product. We did this for two reasons. 1. We wanted to create a premium product that would be bought and bought again (A poor product only sells once). 2. We identified, before anyone else, that by embracing the community of bloggers and by making our brand and ourselves accessible through social media channels, we could establish a genuinely strong relationship with our customers that was far more effective than any multi million pound ad campaign. This decision to reject convention is still, I believe, one of our most fundamental. This is what makes us different from the other shallow beauty brands. It’s also what makes you different from other beauty customers – because our customers were drawn to Illamasqua, without it being sold to them. They ignored the make-up industry’s billions. Rejected their multi-million pound advertising campaigns and dominance of the beauty halls. Turned away from their glitzy advertisements and celebrity endorsements deals. Today, many industry commentators hail us as the fastest growing British cosmetics brand in years. This is all because our customers blogged, tweeted, emailed and evangelised. It’s thanks to them that we can refuse to be like everybody else. We refuse to pay for celebrity endorsements - preferring people to wear our products because they want to, not because they’re paid to. It’s a brave stand to take in an industry where celebrity deals are the norm. But we’ve never done anything normal, and it’s a decision that has paid off. Especially when celebrities who have deals with other brands choose to wear our products instead. We also refuse to allow our retailers to overlook our more creative colours by only stocking our best sellers. We refuse to use animal hair in our brushes even though it affects the levels of stock we are able to produce, and as such affects our earnings. But we refuse to abandon our principles, even when they cost us money. And we refuse to play the industry’s games, the best example of which is to tell women of a certain age that their time of colourful self-expression is over - that now they must choose to use ‘age-fighting’ products and beige, matt make-up. To us, hiding your age is like hiding your true identity, and we find it as deplorable as the unthinkable idea of telling you, our customers what to look like. So it won’t come as a surprise when I tell you that our latest campaign features older models. Why? Because Illamasqua is not just make-up for the skin. It’s make-up for a mind-set. The reason why we can make such stands is because of our independence. Unlike 99% of cosmetics brands, we are not owned by the big beauty cartels. So we see our selves as the ‘David’ to their ‘Goliath’. We expose the industry’s shameful tactics and throw them right back in their face. We’re proud of what we have created – the make-up, and a whole new book of rules. And we’re proud to have customers who believe so passionately in what we do. This support means that we can continue to challenge the beauty cartels. What we’ve achieved is unprecedented in this industry. Before Illamasqua, to launch a successful beauty brand you needed either 100 million pounds or 25 years to establish yourself. It also helps to be French. We had none of these things. But what we did have was the best product on the market and an understanding of how to speak to our consumer and, most importantly, how to listen. This letter isn’t asking you to part with your friend’s email addresses. Just tell someone about our journey. Over a drink. At dinner. On your way to work. Thank you for being part of our journey so far, and walking this road with us.