Like long-lasting lipstick, Wende Zomnir hasn’t dried out or fallen into the creases. She’s worn well for Urban Decay, the funky-chic Costa Mesa cosmetics company.
Back in 1996, Zomnir was mixing nail polish and stuffing Urban Decay press packs from her Laguna Beach cottage with the help of her neighbor. In the past few years, her company,started with Cisco Systems Inc. co-founder Sandy Lerner,has ridden a trend toward edgy makeup and nail polish all the way to the mainstream.
This past February, Mo & #235;t Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA, the huge French luxury goods conglomerate that resulted from the merger of designer Louis Vuitton and wines and spirits maker Mo & #235;t Hennessy, acquired Urban Decay for $22 million, according to estimates from trade publication Women’s Wear Daily.
Urban Decay’s annual sales stand at about $12 million. This year, the company hopes to exceed $20 million in sales with the added marketing muscle of Louis Vuitton. About half of Urban Decay’s employees are in Orange County.
“We are currently the number three brand in Sephora,” said the 32-year old Zomnir, referring to the swanky cosmetic emporium.
It doesn’t hurt that Sephora also is owned by Louis Vuitton. But even before the company became part of the Louis Vuitton empire, Urban Decay wasn’t doing too badly as Sephora’s No. 5 best selling brand, Zomnir said. That’s likely one of the reasons Louis Vuitton approached Urban Decay in the first place, she said.
“They are obviously paying close attention to the people who are performing in their own stores,” she said.
In addition to Sephora, Nordstrom and Bloomingdale’s also are big Urban Decay customers.
At first glance, the coupling of Louis Vuitton and Urban Decay seems odd.
Louis Vuitton is known for its designer leather handbags, haute couture cosmetics and sophisticated fragrances. Urban Decay’s calling card is its brassy, wild-colored lipsticks with names such as “Gash” and nail polishes dubbed “Stray Dog,” “DTs” and “ABC Gum.”
But Louis Vuitton is diversifying its product line, aiming at a younger market. Urban Decay’s core market is the edgy, street-savvy teens, 20- and 30-year-olds.
Last year, Louis Vuitton also bought Hard Candy, one of Urban Decay’s competitors that’s popular with teens. Now Hard Candy and Urban Decay have merged the back office parts of their businesses on the first floor of Urban Decay’s new two-story office and warehouse in Costa Mesa.
The two brands remain separate in terms of sales and creative. Urban Decay’s creative department sits on the top floor. Hard Candy’s creative department is in Los Angeles.
Urban Decay developed a niche market with its vivid, offbeat colors in products like Eye Chalk and Lip Gunk. Celebrities ate it up. Dennis Rodman, Marilyn Manson, the Spice Girls, Drew Barrymore and Kate Winslet have sported Urban Decay products.
Once dominated by Urban Decay and Hard Candy, the alternative cosmetic market now has a handful of competitors. Stila Cosmetics Inc., GirLActic and Tony & Tina are targeting the young, hip market, too, as well as getting snatched up by big companies. The Est & #233;e Lauder Cos. recently acquired Stila for around $30 million, according to Women’s Wear Daily.
Urban Decay is branching out in terms of its products and consumers, Zomnir said.
“Mainstream,” wouldn’t be the word she would use, but Urban Decay’s appeal has definitely broadened. The company is starting to target baby boomers and others who may harbor independence streaks.
“You can walk the line a little bit but you don’t have to cross over if you don’t want,” Zomnir said. “You don’t have to get a tattoo. You don’t have to get your body pierced. But you can sort of walk that line a little bit. I think people enjoy that.”
Take the tall, lean, dark-haired Zomnir. Surprisingly, her look is soft, not outrageous. She has on a beige eye shadow called Midnight Cowboy, it’s Urban Decay’s No. 1 seller.
“We put sparkle in it. So it’s not just plain beige eye shadow,” she said. “It’s got a little edge to it.”
As part of its new, expanded approach, Urban Decay is gearing up for the launch of its Urban Defense skin care line. The company plans to roll out a new product, color or line about once a month, Zomnir said.
The skin care products, along with Urban Decay’s cosmetics, will be sold in stores and online. Its Web site is being overhauled and begins anew in August.
Melissa Longfellow, the e-commerce manager, handles the Web content in-house. On a recent visit, she was slapping mud masks,one of the new skin care products,on the warehouse guys for promotion on the site.
The working tag line: “They might work in the warehouse but they know their products.”
With each season or product line comes a “color story,” Zomnir said.
With its Vegas line (you can imagine the colors) launching in August, the Urban Decay team went to Las Vegas with models, makeup artists and photographers and shot an entire story to go along with the look.
“We always shoot the visuals so they understand what the look is,” she said.
So far, the Louis Vuitton-Urban Decay relationship has been smudge proof. The first board meeting ended in a margarita party on the beach, Zomnir said. Louis Vuitton hasn’t intruded on Urban Decay’s creativity, she said.
“That’s what they bought,” Zomnir said. “They don’t want to lose that.”
Louis Vuitton has taken on a consulting role, she said.
“We get this whole great information source of people who have done it before,” she said. “I can call and ask ‘what happened when you tried this?'”
Still, the folks at free-spirited Urban Decay expressed a bittersweet sentiment about selling to Louis Vuitton. At first, Zomnir said she just wasn’t “emotionally” ready.
“It’s very difficult in an environment when you’re up against Louis Vuitton and people like that,” said Malcolm Kemp, who bears the title of “Big Kahuna” at Urban Decay, otherwise known as president. In 1998, Urban Decay hired Kemp, a former president for Revlon Inc. He lives in London and spends two weeks out of the month in Orange County.
Offbeat Office
Urban Decay’s office d & #233;cor and culture is awash in originality. Painted grape-jelly purple and lilac to match the purple carpet and clash with the leopard-skin rug, the office has a smattering of odds and ends, lipsticks, nail polishes, tubes, face cases, and assorted bottles that make it look more like a teen-ager’s room. Magazine cutouts and posters decorate the walls.
Inside, you’re likely to be greeted by a whiff of nail polish,go figure,and a small, scruffy dog named Rosie. She belongs to Sarah Haynes, public relations manager. Marley, Zomnir’s black lab, also comes to work. Urban Decay has a strict “dogs allowed” policy and no formal dress code.
All marketing and promotions are handled by Urban Decay employees. And even though Zomnir is a former ad exec, Urban Decay doesn’t spend money on advertising. It concentrates on direct mailings and in-store events. Vital to the business are beauty editors at magazines like Vogue, Harpers Bazaar, Cosmopolitan and Seventeen, she said.
When Urban Decay has a new lipstick, it ships it off to the beauty editor, who then tries it out and, hopefully, writes about it.
“They’re really important to us.”
Urban Decay has never been short on press. The company has been written up in virtually every beauty magazine and featured in other publications such as Time and Forbes. Zomnir also has made plenty of TV appearances. Last year she did makeovers on the daytime talk show, The Montel Williams Show.
“There was a woman there who had white hair and was probably in her early 60s,” she said. “I used Screaming Green eye shadow on her and she looked amazing.”
When Zomnir first started developing her products, she knew she wanted highly pigmented color. “You can reduce the cost of goods and you can make it easier to make an eye shadow if you put binders in it,” she said. “But the payoff, which is what you see on your skin or hand is not as intense.”
Working with labs in Los Angeles, she learned she couldn’t simply accept the chemist-mixed colors.
“To get great quality you really have to push them, which a lot of people don’t do.” Color, innovation and formulation are key to a wearable product, Zomnir said.
“Believe it or not there are objectives and strategies to lipstick,” she said.
Zomnir follows shoppers, visits cosmetic counters, reads lots of beauty magazines and is intuitive. “I love all things that are sort of wacky and out there,” she said.
“It’s a talent,” Kemp said. “The harder she works the luckier she gets.” n
