NEW YORK BY THE LAST MAGAZINE: GLOSSIER FOUNDER EMILY WEISS SAYS EVERYONE IS AN INFLUENCER

The 32-year-old Connecticut native Emily Weiss has a different approach to beauty. Her brand, Glossier—launched in 2014 and now a collection of over thirty minimalist, Instagrammable beauty essentials in millennial pink—is based less on traditional top-down dictations of what a cosmetics group should be and more in the democratic, you-are-your-own-expert style of communication of the internet era. “The beauty industry is really going through some of the biggest and most rapid changes of any industry, consumer-facing or not,” she says. “It is being completely democratized and flattened by social media. Every single person today is an influencer in everything from what they eat to where they shop to whom they elect. That means it doesn’t matter so much what a brand—be it Glossier or otherwise—says about our products. It really matters what the customer says about our products.”

Recognizing the voice that everyday women have gained through social media, Weiss and her team engaged a diverse community through Instagram and other platforms as they developed their core range, starting with four skincare basics. The line’s vision of beauty is dewy, natural, glowing—a stripped-down, best-case version of who you already are. “At the end of the day, our job is to deliver happiness and to connect people,” says Weiss, who was a fashion assistant at Vogue before launching her beauty blog Into the Gloss in 2010. This concept of community and connection goes hand-in-hand for Weiss and her team’s command of social media sometimes supersedes the items themselves. When Glossier launched its first fragrance, a cherry red and rose pink affair, in November with a brick-and-mortar pop-up, women flocked to buy it, scent unsmelled.

“Glossier is truly for everyone,” Weiss explains. “It is an ecosystem that grows and shifts and takes shape based on the participation of our customers.” In the Glossier world, there is no development without inclusivity. The brand grows as women share images on social media—posting photos of their new highlighter fresh out of its pink bubble wrap packaging or selfies from the Glossier showroom, posing in front of a powder-pink mirror reading “You look good.” Anyone can spread the word and self-brand through Weiss’s clean, visually comforting offerings, and many, many women do. (Glossier’s pop-up reportedly sold more product per square foot than an Apple store.) “Beauty has historically been an industry that has been very top-down and quite exclusive, so the control has been in the hands of major corporations and brand-appointed experts to create rules and a framework for how women should think about themselves and purchase products,” Weiss says. “Glossier seeks to create products in a very different way. It all starts through listening.”

Pick up our tenth-anniversary issue to see the entire portfolio of notable New Yorkers photographed by Mario Sorrenti and styled by George Cortina here.