Podcast: Lauretta Roberts and Anthony Hawman

Our latest Industry Leaders episode is out now with Lauretta Roberts and Anthony Hawman, co-founders of the excellent TheIndustry.Fashion and TheIndustry.Beauty, each an invaluable source of news, insight and events for their respective industries.

Lauretta and Antony each have more than 25 years of experience in the field having held senior roles in major market-leading businesses such as WGSN, Birchbox, Retail Week, Drapers and Management Today. Both are lifelong fashion and beauty obsessives and are driven by a shared goal of creating a forward-looking platform that supports and unites the industry as it navigates the seas of change.

Let's hear what they have to say!...

Listen to the full episode below or search Industry Leaders wherever you get your podcast

You can also read the interview below: 

Sorcha: Hello, and welcome to the Industry Leaders podcast. I'm Sorcha O’Boyle, and I’m delighted to welcome Lauretta Roberts and Antony Hawman from TheIndustry.fashion and the TheIndustry.beauty onto the show with me today. Guys, it is really great to have you both here. How are you?

Antony: We’re great.

Lauretta: We’re good. We’re hot.

Antony: Yeah.

Lauretta: …and we’re together in the office, but, yeah, we’re good. We’re excited to do this. Thank you for asking us to be on.

Sorcha: Oh, I mean, I was just thrilled when you said yes. I mean, we’ve hoping to get you guys for ages. Everyone here is maybe not familiar with what you guys do. Could you tell us, yeah, a little about TheIndustry.fashion, TheIndustry.beauty, what you guys do?

Antony: Sure. Yeah, they’re two business media platforms, one for fashion and one for beauty, as you would expect, and we do daily news. We do insights. We do interviews. We have a podcast channel. We create exclusive reports, and we also have a really thriving event side of the business. We bring together the best in beauty and the best in fashion to hear from big name speakers, be inspired, how better to do their business, basically, from these kind of people that speak our events, and we also now do awards. We just did our first TheIndustry.beauty awards on the 4^th of July. There was something else happening that night, but yeah, it was an amazing, amazing turnout. We brought together the best in beauty and celebrated some incredible brands like Space NK, Diptyque, and so on.

Lauretta: Sephora.

Antony: Sephora, yeah, it was incredible.

Sorcha: Yeah. I think you’re in a really interesting position because you talk to all these amazing brands every day of the week, and you get that really broad spectrum across the whole industry. What kind of things are brands telling at the moment? What kind of challenges are they facing? What stuff are they doing?

Lauretta: That’s a big question. They’re different for fashion and beauty. I would say it’s still fair to say that fashion is more challenged than beauty at the moment. Beauty’s high growth still. Beauty is very driven, and I imagine there’ll be some listening today, by founder-led brands. Yes, we have these big groups like the Lauders and the L’Oréals of the world, but there are lots and lots of founder-led brands out there that are doing incredible things. Ultimately, you end up sometimes getting bought by those big groups I just mentioned, and they’re launching all the time. It’s just constant newness in beauty, isn’t it?

Antony: It’s living.

Lauretta: It’s quite interesting, and it’s very tech driven. It’s very social media driven. I suppose their challenge is almost getting seen and noticed and growing in that market because what you can end up being is a flash in the pan in beauty.

Antony: Yeah, it’s very busy, isn’t it?

Lauretta: Yeah.

Antony: It’s a very crowded space.

Lauretta: Yeah. There’ll be a trend for a certain product that you produce, and you can be very hot for – white hot for a very short period of time, and then they’ve moved on to the next thing. I think it’s about being seen, longevity, and continuing to be able to innovate, I think, in beauty, but it’s an exciting space. Fashion is different right now. I suppose it’s challenged for various reasons, the retail side. I’m sure we’ll talk about that in a bit more detail because it’s coming back, retail. It’s coming back, for sure, but we’ve had difficulties related to COVID. We’ve had difficulties related to big groups going bust and leaving massive great big holes in the high street. It’s challenged in terms of sustainability, and there’s a big backlash against fast fashion from the consumer at the moment and just from government and the world in general and quite rightly so.

I get the sense, to some extent, that fashion isn’t that fashionable at the moment. I think young people are more driven by beauty, really, as a form of self-expression. Fashion needs to become fashionable again. I know that sounds completely mad, but it does seem to be a little bit out of favour with the consumer, seen as frivolous, seen as wasteful, but I love it. I think that’s cyclical. I think it will come back, and we’re starting to see that, I think. With a bit of consumer confidence, with more interesting brands, with a greater focus on purpose and sustainability, I think we can definitely bring that back, don’t you?

Antony: Yeah. I do. I think the younger crew – me, a 47-year-old saying that. I think the younger people are more about the eBays and the Vinteds. I think the rest of the fashion’s got a big job to do, I think, to get those guys back on the side. Then, in beauty, it’s just so much more experiential, isn’t it, in its nature?

Lauretta: Yeah, yeah.

Antony: If you like the stores, obviously, they have to make it exciting for you to go in and want to try the makeup, want to try the fragrance, want to try the skincare, whatever it might be. Whereas, with fashion, it is literally try it on. You take it or you don’t.

Lauretta: There’s work to be done there, right?

Antony: Yeah, exactly.

Lauretta: It’s interesting because I think the young people – oh, we sound ancient, don’t we? They want to go shopping. They like shops. That’s one thing we found through our research that, actually, the assumption was, particularly during COVID, that everything would go online. Young people, very united, got their noses in their phones, and they’re happy to stay there. That will be end of shops, but actually, the opposite’s happened. This Gen Alpha that’s coming up beneath Gen Z and even Gen Z as well, they like going out in the shops. They like seeing people. They like trying things on. They like experience. That’s quite exciting, and it’s a good opportunity.

Sorcha: How do you think the physical store will react to that? How can a physical store position itself to be interesting place that these young people want to go, want to spend time, want to hang out with their friends?

Antony: It’s interesting, isn’t it? I mean, just talking about beauty again because it’s on our mind because it’s so incredible, there’s the new Diptyque Maison on the street. You could have so many things to describe this. It’s a shop. It’s a gallery. They had a coffee shop in there. It was an art installation that just – everybody was going in and getting their coffee, and it is such an experience. I mean, obviously, they want to sell you things, but even if you go in and just hang out, it’s the most incredible space. Like I said, you can just look at the art. You can look at the archive. Look at the product, have a coffee, whatever you want to do. Everyone talks about experience and service and all of that, and of course, everyone’s trying to get it right. Wouldn’t you say that – I mean, it blew our mind, didn’t it?

Lauretta: I think it is that. Yeah. No, it’s mind-blowing. I mean, that’s totally extra, that place. I mean, if you haven’t been, go, and it’s also like a workshop and a place of knowledge. You can go and learn about – it’s amazing. I think that’s almost a day out, that shop. I mean, I hesitate to call it a shop, but it is almost a day out. Even at the more accessible level of the market, Sephora has arrived, and Sephora, particularly for that young consumer, I mean, it’s…

Antony: Playground, isn’t it?

Lauretta: It’s a playground. It’s fun. You go get your nails done, get your hair done. People chat to you about product. You can try stuff on. It’s not stuffy. It’s energetic, isn’t it?

Antony: Mm-hmm.

Lauretta: They’re only going to roll out more of those, and I think that sort of thing sets the bar that people just expect that. I think it doesn’t have to be massively expensive what you do. It’s just about making sure that you’re staff know what they’re talking about, that they’re prepared to speak to people. I think gone are the days when you go into a store – well, they’re not gone, actually. They’re not gone, but that you will be gone if you carry on doing this when you go into a store and you’re ignored. They don’t want to talk to you. They don’t know the product. They just stare at you. They’re filing their nails in the corner or whatever. You’re an inconvenience. You can’t get away with that anymore. I don’t think people will care.

It's difficult, isn’t it? You don’t want people just coming to your store and just have a nice time and leave with nothing. I mean, they have to earn their keep, but I think you do have to judge the value of your store somewhat differently, measure its performance somewhat differently from how you used to. It used to be all about product density per square foot, sales per square foot. I just don’t think you can operate like that anymore. I think it’s got to be more about did that drive online sales in my area? Often, what happens if you put a store in a certain area? The online sales increase because you can come in, look at your store, go home, and buy it, or they might be able to order it store, whatever it might be. You have to look at things a bit differently, I think. Just be very, very welcoming and just know your stuff and show that you care.

You might have things in there where you’re able to bring that product that you brought online. You’re able to take product back to be repaired, to be recycled, whatever it might be. There’s all sorts of smart and interesting things happening.

Antony: The RIXO store over in – on the King’s Road. That’s incredible. I mean, those girls have done such a brilliant job with that. Like Lauretta says about prepare and stuff, they’ve got – I think, the seamstress, wasn’t she there one of their first hires or something? Yeah.

Lauretta: Yeah, she’s literally there. there in storage if you take – you can either get something you’re buying altered to fit, or you can take something in to be repaired. You can go have a cocktail. This is not a massive store, and that’s not a massive brand. It’s a growing brand, but it’s not massive. They’re able to do – I think they’ve got it right. I think that’s the sort of thing that consumers are going to be looking for now.

I don’t think they see – and I see this in big, big retailers where it’s, oh, we don’t take returns in-store anymore. It’s just like don’t make my life more difficult than it needs to be. That’s just going to upset me. Just take the damn thing back, give me my refund, or replace it. These barriers that retailers put up sometimes between their different channels, I think they’ve got to be broken down because the consumer just doesn’t want that hassle. I might buy it on my phone and pick it up in-store. I might buy it on my phone, have it delivered home, and decide I want to drop it back in-store. Let them do all of that and let it happen quickly. The new ZARA stores are wonders to behold for that. They’re doing a really, really good job for that and much better.

Antony: And M&S.

Lauretta: M&S is better.

Antony: I mean, we are M&S stands over here. We cannot say enough about M&S and how brilliant it is that they turned everything around and stuff. If you’ve ever taken anything back to M&S, it is unreal. On your app, you’ve got the barcode. You go in. You scan it. You just give the bag over and you’re out. I mean, it’s unreal. You drop it in the box. It’s brilliant.

You’re right, ZARA, they’re doing that as well, but there are so many. It’s like Uniqlo. They are so brilliant at their tech where you can just drop everything in the basket, and then it checks out for you, but try and return anything from the online, forget it.

Lauretta: Oh, yeah, you can’t do that.

Antony: Yeah. It’s just such a missed opportunity.

Lauretta: It’s really strange that you put up a barrier. Eventually, somebody coming to your store, even if they’re going to give you something back that they didn’t want, didn’t work for whatever reason, they’re coming into your store, so you should kind of want them to, even if that’s all they’re doing is returning something. Chances are, they walk past a lot of other stands, and they’ll find something else that they want to buy. If you’ve been nice to them and if you’ve encouraged them to come back in, then they might buy something, and they might not buy that there and then, but they might come back later in the day, next day, next week. Give them reasons to come back. I mean, I think it’s interesting that – we’re getting there, but it’s going to be seen less, I think.

Sorcha: Yeah, interesting that you mentioned M&S because I wanted to talk to you about their new clothing repair and alteration services, which I think sometimes some older brands might think it’s maybe easier for them to do that seamstress in-store like RIXO because it’s immediate, whereas M&S are now rolling it out across loads of stores. They’re big scale, which I think is so interesting and so exciting.

Lauretta: It is. Yeah, it is. They’re not the only ones as well. Are they doing that at SOJO’s, at the…

Antony: Yeah, they are.

Sorcha: Yeah, it is. Yeah.

Lauretta: Yeah, I think Josephine’s just remarkable. She’s done such a good job with that, and I think, actually, we have to get to the situation where people do repair and resell and re-wear things and pass them down and all of that. Retailers have to be seen to be facilitating that, and it might seem as if they are potentially impacting their sales. They’re there to sell you stuff. That’s the basic premise of being a retailer, and it might seem to some, well, I don’t want to do that. I want them to buy a new romper. That’s just not realistic. That’s not the world we live in now. You have to sell somebody something for them to understand that they can keep it for a long time, and they can keep repairing it because that will aid you in new sales. There’s no question about that.

You see that luxury where before they didn’t really want to talk about that sort of thing. They didn’t want to talk about resale values. They didn’t want to talk about repairing, but now they say that to you when you’re buying these things. You know. if you buy this, you can get it repaired here, there, and everywhere. You know, if you buy this, you can resell it for X amount of money, and I think that aids the conscious consumption. Seeing that rolled out on a mass level at M&S is fantastic. It doesn’t surprise me they’re doing it because I think it fits with their quality ethos, doesn’t it, of M&S of old? It was always about investment pieces. They were never the cheapest of the cheap, and they’re so innovative. I’m literally in awe of them at the moment. They’ve moved so quickly.

Antony: Across all parts of it. Their food is incredible. I mean, I’ve even bought – again, this is an age thing, but I actually bought a couple of T-shirts from M&S the other day, which I thought I would never do.

Lauretta: Oh, God, that is a turnaround.

Antony: I know, exactly. They’re great quality. It was a great experience. They wash, wear, etc. They’re just great.

Lauretta: That’s back to what the fashion used to be when I was a teenager, which was a long time ago, but I mean, it’s actually quite aspirational. It wasn’t ever cutting edge, but it was always acceptable to wear an M&S jumper, M&S T-shirt, or nick your dad’s M&S cardie, or something like that because it was really well made. To see they’re getting better, to see that they’re promoting this notion of longevity with fashion I think is a good thing. There’s no point, I think, for retailers to resist this. There’s just no point because it’s happening. They may as well be part of it. Otherwise, it will pass them by, I think.

Sorcha: Yeah, there’s so much to talk about a circular economy, and there’s a couple of brands like Lucy & Yak that I think do that really, really well. I think their store experience is just fantastic. There’s so much personality, and they’re one of those brands that I think really carry their personality across into their ecom and their social sites as well. Secondhand I think is expected to reach 10% of global sales this year, which is just enormous and driven, I think, primarily by that young cohort. I wonder, when you’re speaking to fashion brands, how are they thinking about this? Are they thinking about this, and how are they trying to build it into their kind of model, which is not really built for this kind of thing?

Lauretta: No.

Antony: No.

Lauretta: It’s not. Then what they’re thinking about, they’re experimenting with it, most of them, but you’re completely correct. It is tricky because their entire business model and their financial modeling is all set up around low input margin. They’re trying to buy stuff as cheaply as they can, sell it for as much as they can. They’re building in assumptions in there about how much of that product is going to be, I guess, remained, and how much of it’s going to be reduced in sale? The whole business is built around an old way of doing business. You might be able to argue that if you make something and it cost a little bit more to make but you can sell it for a fair price and then, at the end of its life for that particular customer, they sell it back, and then you can resell it. Therefore, your margin would be better long term. We can argue all of that, and I think it’s true. I’ve spoken to retailers who have modeled it. It’s not massive increase in margin, by the way, some of them are saying, but you can argue that.

Try getting the finance directors to understand that. Try really accurately modeling that. It’s hard because you don’t know what you are going to get back, or if you rent something, there’s X amount of times that it gets used. Then you’ve got to build in all the back and forth, all the cleaning. It’s the kind of financial modeling almost that’s the barrier to this. I think they have to work all of that out, and you’ve got to make better clothing for it to have a second life be there in a rental space or in a resell space. If it falls apart on the second wash, that’s not going to happen, is it? There’s a whole lot that needs to change, and we’re seeing retailers doing a lot where they’re partnering with third parties. They might have a resale partner. They might have a rental partner, and they let them worry about all of that. Then they just take a little commission of it, and that seems like an easy way to do it.

I do think what will have to happen and it will happen eventually but it might take a little bit of time is that just becomes something that’s completely embedded within your own business. You go onto their website, go into their store, and it’s like, well, I’ll buy that. I’ll rent that. I’ll sell you back that. It just becomes this exchange that’s all wrapped up into one channel, into one business. I just think it’ll take a little while for people to get to that, but they are. They’re aware of it. They’re aware that that’s probably where they need to go, but it’s going to take them a little while to get there, I think.

Antony: One of our event strands is TheIndustry.fashion LIVE!, and we’ve had three now on the circularity conversation. The audience are, as you’d expect, sponges. We get the most incredible speakers that come and speak about what they’re doing. We had COS talking about what they were doing. For such a massive organization, they’re doing some great strides, aren’t they?

Lauretta: Yeah. It’s interesting what they’re seeing, actually. I think it’s fascinating. Actually, reselling your clothes is a hassle. It’s like when you drive around for three months with a bag of clothes in your boot that you need to drop off at a charity store and you never do it. I remember somebody saying they had their boot broken into and someone stole the stuff that they had. They said, “Part of me was actually quite pleased.”

Antony: Saved me.

Lauretta: You saved me the hassle of stopping and dropping on their doorstep or whatever. Also, listing things on eBay, they’re making it much easier now, by the way, and that will become a little easier with use of RFID technology and things. You just scan it, and it will automatically list it on eBay for you. That’s all going to get easier, but it is slightly hassley still to do that. I think consumers have all these good intentions, and I’m pointing the finger at myself here. Then never do it, and you end up with these piles of things. I will sell that. I will sell that. We all quite love certain brands. I mean, I certainly am. For brands that I shop with, I could just send them back with a whole chunk of stuff, and then they gave me credit or…

Antony: Yeah, to buy new.

Lauretta: To buy new or even to buy stuff that they’ve got on their resale side, credit to buy from whatever channel is appropriate. I would definitely do it, but I’ve got so many – managing my own little…

Antony: Resale household.

Lauretta: …resale shop myself. It’s just not something I’m going to do. Some people have the time to do it. I certainly don’t, so I do think that retailers actually make that a little easier for people. Tech will enable that, I think.

Antony: Then, if they do – obviously, if they do it themselves, they’re owning the journey, aren’t they?

Lauretta: Yeah.

Antony: They’re owning all the data, and they’re owning the brand. They can say how it is, whereas, I think, of course, there are brilliant third parties that do it for them and everything in a very on brand, etc. It’s still putting your trust in someone else, isn’t it? It must be quite a decision that has to be made, I guess.

Sorcha: Yeah, for sure. Now, so we’re talking two weeks after not only your award night I’m talking about but also a little matter of the general election. It’ll be pretty much total reset with labor in government. I wonder, what do you expect to see from Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves, and what will the implications be for retail?

Lauretta: What I’m hoping for after 10 years of us banging our heads against a brick wall on this is a reform of business rates. They promised it. It just seems so iniquitous to me the burden that retail has to carry when it comes to business rates. Just because their properties are in prime locations, they have to pay more. You might think, well, of course they do, but they have to be in prime locations. Otherwise, they can’t do business. What’s the point of putting a shop in the middle of an industrial state? Nobody’s going to go to it. Why on earth, when you’re forced to be in prime location because that is where you have to be, should you carry such a high burden of business rates versus somebody that operates on an industrial state, let’s say, for example.

They have promised that they will look at that, and I think that will – makes trading on the high street much more attractive and much more sustainable, and I mean that in a financial sense for brands and retailers. Vibrant high street is absolutely important for your community, every community, and it creates jobs and all of that sort of stuff. We don’t want to see derelict high streets, do we? That is number one on my list. In their manifesto, they promised to change that, and I hope to God that’s true. I hope they do that at the earliest opportunity.

I’m also expecting but I don’t know what it looks like probably a renewed focus now on legislation. At the start of last conservative government, we had some working groups and things looking at the right things to do or not, put tax on fast fashion, whatnot. I’m not saying I think it’s the wrong thing to do, but I’m expecting that now we haven’t got a government that’s in its last gasps and isn’t totally consumed by things like Brexit and COVID that it will start looking at things like that, hopefully engaging with industry. I think we do need some legislation around it. Hopefully, it’s workable legislation. I’m expecting a renewed focus on that, really.

Sorcha: During the election period, there was a drop in retail more or less across the board. Food, it’s better than fashion, and that’s probably a combination of poor weather, bad news cycle, so on The pressure is really on the second half of this year for businesses to perform. If you were sitting at the top table in a – say an SME fashion brand, what would you be focusing on?

Lauretta: There were lots of pieces that were in there. I think the weather was atrocious. Everybody was watching football, weren’t they? I don’t think they were rushing out buying clothes. I think, also, there was a wait and see, wasn’t there, in terms of what we all…

Antony: Yeah, what would happen after that?

Lauretta: What will happen. I don’t think the result was necessarily a massive surprise, but people always get a bit cautious. I think there’s always a bounce. After you get a new government, I’m very curious to see what the numbers will look like next month from the ONS. They literally came out this morning, didn’t they, saying that they had gone down? Actually, the month before they’d gone up and then went down. It’s usually was a bounce in confidence because people know what they’re dealing with. If I was at a fashion brand, I’d be hoping that that was true, that we would get a bounce.

I think, what I would be doing and I don’t know if it’s necessarily related to the government of the day or not really, I would be looking at my business model and thinking whether or not I wanted to continue to operate on this basis of buying collections six to eight months out and trying to guess what my consumer wanted and then putting all I could in sales at some point in time and getting involved in Black Friday. I don’t think I would want to be doing any of that, so I think I’d be looking at my business model, looking at things like seeing a lot of brands in Europe and in France, in particular, that I watch closely, doing monthly drops and preorders. I think I’d be looking at my model, and I would be thinking I probably want to get into a situation where I am maybe producing less, maybe, but selling out of as much as I produce as possible. That might be that I need to look at nearer shoring, my production, producing less. Like I say, I like the idea of preordering. I would be looking for sources of dead stock fabrics and things like that that maybe I could do limited editions with and sell those out. I guess I’d be trying to just improve my margin and reduce the waste in my model, I suppose.

Antony: Have tighter finances

Lauretta: Yeah, if I could be quicker. I think fast fashion people think, oh, that’s a bad thing, but I think being faster at fashion generally is not like being faster to react and faster to make things. As long as you’re doing it well, it is a good thing. I would most certainly be looking at those things we just discussed such as resale and rental. What could I do there and repair? I might be calling up Josephine at SOJO. I might look at shops as well.

Antony: Really?

Lauretta: Yeah.

Antony: Hmm, this is fun.

Lauretta: I might have to setup a fashion brand.

Antony: Give us some money, and we’ll set up a fashion brand.

Sorcha: I’ll fund you guys and off we go. It’d be great. It’d be beautiful.

Lauretta: Look at you.

Antony: Yeah, I would do all of that. No, I’m kidding. No, I would do – absolutely, I agree with you. I mean, listen, anyone listening to us who knows me knows I hate all the old ways of doing things, so I think looking at new ways is absolutely the way forward. Yeah, I hear what you talk about with those French brands that you love and everything, and they do these monthly drops. I think that’s a brilliant way to do it and just, yeah, trying to tighten up. It is an awful, awful landscape now, though, isn’t it, at the minute? I feel for all these fashion – I mean, it’s just, if you are wedded to that old way of working, I mean, it must be not the most fun place to be, I have to say.

Lauretta: You have to change.

Antony: Yeah, exactly. It’s about evolving, isn’t it, and making sure that you find a new way of doing it to work for you, I guess?

Lauretta: You just have to look at the industry of the universe of fashion in general, don’t you? That model we described previously of low input margin producing vast numbers of units, trying to shift as much as possible for price, then reducing and then ditching what you can’t sell, it’s not that old. It’s been going on for what, since the ‘90s, maybe when we moving production out of the UK? It went on in the ‘90s, in the 2000s. It was like a 20, 25-year period in the whole history of fashion. It doesn’t have to be the case. It can change. That was a big change.

That was traumatic change for a lot of people. A lot of people fell by the wayside as a result of that. I guess it’s a cycle that the people that are wedded to that will also fall by the wayside because they’re going to have to adapt. Just because it has been that way in our adult life, it doesn’t mean it has to carry on like that.

Sorcha: That’s really interesting, and actually, I do really love the idea of that limited edition I think you were talking about earlier. Yeah, doesn’t that give you another opportunity to make a really, really special experience with the customer? Then they’ll look at that piece, and if it’s made well, that experience is theirs. They will remember that experience.

Lauretta: You have to be realistic. I mean, I don’t want to ever be seen to be doing is wagging my fingers at people that shop in value fashion retailers.

Antony: That’s a consideration for them. Yeah.

Lauretta: If you are in a low income and so you got a few kids, Primark is a godsend, right?

Antony: Mm-hmm.

Lauretta: It’s a godsend, and I think they’re doing their best. I do believe that looking at what they’re doing to now produces responsibility as they can at the volume of which they’re producing to serve a customer that really needs that so that the kids can be smartly dressed and have what they need for school and all that sort of stuff. I don’t want to ever be seem to be wagging my fingers at people that consume cheaper fashion. There are ways, and I think they are trying to do that, of producing cheaper fashion in a better way. Yeah, I probably wouldn’t want to get into that area of the market if I was setting up my own company just because it’s too hard.

Antony: It’s interesting. It’s the flipside in beauty. You’ve got now all of those incredible disruptive brands like The Ordinary, the INKEY List, Revolution Beauty, that are able to make pretty good formulations for a 10-pound hyaluronic acid that Estée Lauder would charge you 110 for. Everyone’s been educated now. That 110 product, 90% of it goes on the billboard, the model that’s in it, the packaging, the beautiful magnetic top that connects to the product, that kind of stuff. Those incredible disruptive brands have really made everyone see that the juice inside – not always, by the way.

Lauretta: Not always.

Antony: There are some that are making incredible actives and stuff, but a lot of the time, it is just as good to buy your 10 pound INKEY List hyaluronic acid as your – I think, now, it’s cool to buy smarter, the younger, the cooler, the cheaper product. All those expensive ones are having a really hard time because everybody’s like, well, actually, maybe I won’t bother buying my Estée Lauder repair, night repair, whatever it’s called.

Lauretta: Yeah, exactly.

Antony: I’ll get one from Revolution Beauty, so they’re having a bit of a different time of it. Maybe I wouldn’t work in a fashion realm. I’d go for beauty realm.

Lauretta: Maybe I’d decide.

Sorcha: It’s funny you say that because I have the INKEY List hyaluronic acid, and I have The Ordinary. They’re great. They are great. They still have the nice little glass bottle with the two – you still got a fancy moment.

Lauretta: It’s true, actually.

Antony: Oh, it’s cool. Yeah.

Sorcha: Yeah, it’s great.

Lauretta: It actually true what you say. I mean, in beauty, it’s cool to buy cheap, isn’t it?

Antony: Yeah, exactly.

Lauretta: The opposite is the case in fashion.

Sorcha: Okay, guys, that was such an interesting chat. Thank you so much. I actually feel like I need to go away and think about that and just absorb it all.

Lauretta: I feel I might setup another business now.

Antony: Yeah. No, that’s, really.

Sorcha: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Watch this space, six months’ time. We watched. Thank you so much.

Lauretta: All right, thanks to you.

Antony: Thanks for having us.

Sorcha: Thank you. Thank you.

Lauretta: Bye-bye.

Antony: Bye.

Sorcha: That was Lauretta Roberts and Antony Hawman from TheIndustry.fashion and TheIndustry.beauty. Thanks for listening to this week’s episode, and don’t forget that you can catch up on all our previous episodes wherever you get your podcasts. That’s it for now. From me, Sorcha O’Boyle, and all of us here at more2, take care, and bye-bye.

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