Challenge

Beauty had always been big business, but Sephora knew that to scale the opportunity, it needed to break all the rules of beauty retail and create an experience that anybody could buy into.

Exterior view of a Sephora retail store at night, with a large cosmetics advertisement featuring a woman with vibrant makeup displayed on the building's facade, and light trails from passing vehicles.

What we did

Together, we evaluated which interactions and experiences would deliver that iconic move. We re-imagined key touchpoints so that they had all the accessibility and ease of the supermarket experience. And we made one critical change: we stocked the brands in alphabetical order, in well lit, orderly rows, completely altering the previous convention of branded units, and ending the dominance of brand over the retailers and the customers. A generous approach to product sampling created inviting spaces to play with makeup and helped to redefine customer expectations of luxury cosmetics retail.

EXPERIENCE
Interior view of a cosmetic and fragrance display in a store, featuring shelves stocked with various perfume and cosmetic products, and a black-and-white striped column.
Exterior view of a Sephora store, featuring a prominent black sign with white, capitalized letters spelling "SEPHORA," topped with the company's logo, a stylized flame-like shape. The store front is brightly lit from the inside, illuminating the entrance and suggesting an open invitation to enter.

Outcome

Now, Sephora is the number one beauty specialist retailer in the world. Its combination of opulence and access remains undefeated over twenty years later. Beauty never looked so bankable.

Exterior of a Sephora retail store, showcasing the brand's logo prominently displayed above the entrance, with cosmetic displays visible within. A blurred figure of a woman is walking inside the store.
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BUGATTI

Driving incomparable success through hyper luxury solutions.