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Ami Colé will close in September.
The brand, which was founded by Diarrha N’Diaye-Baye in 2021, will stop operating in September.
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The decision follows an expansion with the partnership of Ami Colé with Sephora in 2024 and counted L’Oréal’s bold risk capital arm, true beauty, imaginary ventures, greycroft and debut capital as investors.
“I am really curious about the fate of this beauty industry that is so diverse and complex and complex than the pace that we measure the success,” N’Diaye-Baye told the WWD of the decision. “Partners like Sephora really try their best, but it has to hire all the heads, brands, retailers and the investors in the community to understand whether we hold all hands together or” we don’t take care of it “. The misalignment is really painful.”
For the first time, N’Diaye-Baye revealed the decision to close the brand in an essay in The Cut Thursday of the New York magazine.
N’Diaye-Baye spent time in the media and worked both at L’Oréal and Glossier before creating the brand that was to use the no-make-make-up aesthetics for melanine-rich skin. “It was very clear that black experiences and black beauty were very in the peripheral view and did not really celebrate their true fame,” she said at the time of the brand’s debut.
After the murder of George Floyd, Ami Colé started in 2020 and the subsequent rush of financial and retail support for brands. As reported, this landscape has changed significantly, with the financing for brands in black property and wider de & i rollbacks as part of the current presidential administration, which hindered institutional support.
“I worked very hard as a solo founder, and each of my investors can confirm that I shot every stone and stone and pebble to ensure that we were as hardworking as possible,” said N’Diaye-Baye. “Are we a business? Yes. Do you fail? Yes.”
Companies of all sizes feel the heat, with the Estée Lauder Cos., Coty Inc. and finally Shiseido Americas reduces their number of employees.
“I sometimes came to the table with many very difficult questions that it could not be answered as a pioneer and the first brand to do many things, especially at this speed,” she said. “I can only say that I tried my best. I wish the fate would be different. I wish that this would be a billion dollar company, and every investor with whom I spoke in 2019 and 2020 believed that it could be sad that this could not come into play.”
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