Beauty News

Why Harry Styles Is Putting His Weight Behind Designer Marco Ribeiro

British singer Harry Styles has collaborated with the Brazilian fashion designer through his lifestyle and beauty brand Pleasing. Here’s what to expect.
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Pleasing has collaborated on beauty and apparel with Marco Ribeiro.Photo: Naguel Rivero for Pleasing x Marco Ribeiro

Emerging Brazilian designer Marco Ribeiro may not yet be a household name in fashion, but his dramatic, gender-fluid designs are already known in certain circles. That includes the orbit of Harry Styles, who recently wore the designer’s clothing on his latest tour and artwork for his new album Harry’s House.

Now, the British singer’s lifestyle and beauty brand Pleasing has worked on a collaboration with Ribeiro, which will be revealed at the designer’s debut spring/summer 2023 presentation during Paris Fashion Week this Thursday.

The collaboration is a first for Pleasing, which was launched by Styles in November 2021 as a direct-to-consumer brand, and also marks Ribeiro’s entry into beauty. The focus is on hybrid formulas; inclusive palettes that can be used in multiple ways on different skin tones; and creative self expression, according to Ribeiro. With a bold vision for what beauty could be, it replicates Ribeiro’s forward-thinking approach to fashion — although it remains to be seen whether consumers will understand the concept and buy into the range.

Pleasing has collaborated on beauty and apparel with Marco Ribeiro.

Photo: Naguel Rivero for Pleasing x Marco Ribeiro

“To me, the way Marco uses colour is so inspiring; everything he makes radiates fun, joy and playfulness,” says Styles. “When we started discussing collaborators for Pleasing, Marco was the first person I wanted to ask.”

The collection, which will be sold exclusively on Pleasing’s e-commerce site from Thursday, includes a palette of pressed powder pigments ($50 or £46) that can be used anywhere across the face or eyes; a trio of buildable cream pigments ($40 or £37) designed to be worn alone or mixed together; a multi-use gloss ($25 or £23) that can be used across the lips, eyes or skin; five shades of nail polish (the rich brown is available as a single polish for $20 (£19), while the other four colours — orange jelly, aquamarine creme, vibrant green and glossy burgundy — are sold as a $65 or £60 set); and limited-edition apparel including two logo hoodies ($110 or £102).

The beauty products don’t fit into clearly defined make-up categories like a highlighter or eyeshadow — a new trend that is emerging in the industry. The collection also takes a gender-fluid approach, which, while still new, should resonate with Gen Z and millennials, who eschew gender norms (75 per cent of 13 to 39-year-olds globally believe “it’s OK for girls to be masculine and guys to be feminine”, according to youth culture firm YPulse’s 2021 trend report).

Shared values

Styles and Ribeiro were introduced by the singer’s stylist Harry Lambert. Lambert has been responsible for some viral fashion moments, including dressing Styles in the rainbow-coloured knitted garment from JW Anderson’s Spring 2020 menswear collection that spurred many DIY videos on TikTok. Styles’s star power has helped to propel other emerging designers into the limelight, most notably Harris Reed, who dressed the singer for his 2020 Vogue cover.

For the Pleasing collaboration, Ribeiro worked closely with Lambert, who is co-creative director of the lifestyle and beauty brand alongside Styles’s visual artist Molly Hawkins. While Pleasing is responsible for production, logistics and sales, Ribeiro is the driving force behind the creative process, bringing his expressive eye for colour and silhouette to the product’s development, formulation and packaging.

“I was first introduced to Marco’s collections while styling for 10 Magazine in 2019,” Lambert says. “I was instantly attracted to his use of colour, but also how joyous and exciting his work was.”

The patchwork trousers from Marco Ribeiro’s Autumn/Winter 2022 collection worn by Harry Styles.

Photo: Courtesy of Marco Ribeiro

Ribeiro was born in Brazil and grew up watching his parents operate an atelier supplying local stores. “I found it inspiring watching them create something from nothing,” he recalls. “I always knew that I had something to express, a unique and distinctive point of view that I wanted to explore.” In 2018, while living in Paris, he began working on his eponymous label, which is largely inspired by the exploration of shapes and his South American roots, giving prominence to the colours and textures of his heritage in his designs.

Ribeiro is among an emerging wave of designers, including Terrence Zhou of Bad Binch TongTong, whose buoyant silhouettes were a highlight at New York Fashion Week; Fashion East alum Chet Lo, known for his spiky knitwear; and Harri, whose balloon pants went viral after a London Fashion Week debut, who push the boundaries of silhouette by creating garments that can double up as art.

While Ribeiro has always presented his designs digitally, he says it “feels like the right time to have a physical presence” at Paris Fashion Week. He is also hoping to attract the attention of buyers: the business is currently direct-to-consumer via his e-commerce site, but Ribeiro plans to introduce wholesale, and is already in talks with some potential stockists.

Pleasing has collaborated on beauty and apparel with Marco Ribeiro.

Photo: Naguel Rivero for Pleasing x Marco Ribeiro

Revenues are in the five digits, and the brand has seen 348 per cent growth in 2022 from the year prior. Ribeiro’s long-term ambition is to show on the official couture calendar, but his short-term priorities are “building a respected brand” although, he quickly adds, that doesn’t mean being “ubiquitous”. The main focus is “establishing structure and stability for the brand, while growing the team” (it currently counts two full-time employees).

“Both Harrys have always been supportive of me,” says Ribeiro between Paris Fashion Week model castings. He believes that his label and Pleasing are aligned in their values of “openness, transparency and fluidity” and that those principles were reflected in the collaboration. “It was important that the final products were universal in terms of usage and audience. The product pigmentations and formulas allow for experimentation and creativity.”

Pleasing intends to partner with other emerging creative talent in the future, according to the brand. “We are excited by the opportunity to lend our platform to people and organisations that we admire.”

Should we expect to see more from Ribeiro in the beauty arena? Give it some time, the designer says. “It has been a dream of mine to launch make-up and I really enjoyed the process [with Pleasing], so maybe Marco Beauty will launch one day. But not yet — in the near future.”

This article was originally published on Vogue Business.