Fashion Fair Cosmetics Accepts Change, Returns to Store | Black Voice | Chicago News

Many black women are probably familiar with Fashion Fair cosmetic brand — founded in 1973 by Eunice Johnson, wife of John Johnson, the black publishing magnate behind Ebony and Jet magazines.

Although the publisher is no longer what it used to be, new ownership has given Fashion Fair its own makeover and returned it to store shelves.

“We are the queens,” said co-owner Desiree Rogers, who bought the company along with former Ebony executive Cheryl Mayberry McKissack. “We started 56 years ago, you know, and we are, if not the first, close to the first. And we always focus on darker skin tones. It’s not a novel. It’s not something we, you know, we thought was like, ‘wow, isn’t this cool and cool to do, let’s be politically correct.’ It doesn’t exist.”

Founded in 1973, Fashion Fair caters to black women who can afford department store cosmetics at prices that fit their skin tone spectrum.

“So for me, it was my first makeup. It was the first makeup my mother allowed me to use and it was a huge deal in any girl’s life because when we all were young we wanted to wear something!” said Rogers.

Packaged in the iconic pink tube and compact case, the brand has been seen in hundreds of Ebony Fashion Fair models, as well as members of the fashion show audience, over the years.

But when Johnson’s publishing house filed for bankruptcy in 2019, it sold Fashion Fair to former executives Rogers and McKissack.

The business duo, along with other partners, pick it up with plans to restore it to its former glory.

“So the opportunity to take on the legacy of the Fashion Fair history that has been known around the world, of course all the work that Mrs. Johnson brought the Fashion Fair to market, it was incredible,” said Mayberry McKissack. “But it’s a bit scary because, you know, there’s history and heritage and you know, we have to make sure we get it right.”

Chicago-based makeup artist and celebrity Sam Fine is back to help redevelop the product.

Today’s Fashion Fair is vegan and includes natural additives such as vitamin C and green tea extract to provide skin care benefits.

The range of lipsticks and foundations — in both new and old — now comes in white and gold packaging, perched on the shelves of beauty retail giant Sephora instead of department store counters.

“Can say that you can go to this gondola and find something for your cousin, your sister and your aunt, I think that’s unique because a lot of brands, even in the shade extension they don’t really talk about the shades, the coloring speaks for us. very beautifully,” Fine told WTTW News.

But the return of the Fashion Fair comes at a time when women of color already have more options than they did in the late 20th century.

Legacy brands have expanded their lines to include darker colors, and Rihanna’s complete Fenty beauty line has sold enough to turn the pop star into a billionaire business mogul.

Research shows that black women alone spent an estimated $1.3 billion on color cosmetics in 2020 — down from nearly $1.7 billion in 2019, likely due to the pandemic.

Rogers and McKissack say while there’s room for everyone, the Fashion Fair is the original — and the new changes are for those who know when, and fresh faces who can find out now.

“They’re also going to look at us and I think in a very different way and it’s really about us really focusing on women with darker skin tones. That’s our number one focus: we don’t do anything else,” McKissack said.

The couple also owns Black Opal, a mass-market brand designed for black women, sold in drugstores and Ulta.