Sending from the plane with very shaky wifi on my way home from a lovely long weekend in the mountains. Apologies for the late send + any typos. Hope everyone enjoyed the holiday weekend!
The Nordstrom Anniversary Sale launches on July 18, with Nordstrom cardmembers able to shop as early as July 14. The sale always makes me nostalgic for back-to-school shopping growing up. I don’t know if they still offer the program, but I was part of the fashion club at my local mall, so I go way back with Nordstrom. To celebrate the big sale, Nordstrom sent cakes to influencers to announce the sale and launched a social campaign with five NYC-based creators.
Fara Homidi launched new bronzers in three shades. Along with sending mailers ahead of the launch, the brand also hosted an event with their New York community. They set up a long tables on the street with cold cherries and red cocktails to match the bronzers on display, which guests were able to play with and test out
Sophie Whitelaw Jewelry, a fine jewelry brand, launched their Coastal Collection this week. To celebrate, the brand hosted New York influencers on a sailboat around the city, co-hosted by Lilly Sisto. Guests were able to try on the jewelry collection and capture content for Sophie Whitelaw’s organic channels.
Marc Jacobs showed his Spring 2027 collection at the New York Public Library, with influencers like Sai De Silva, Charlotte Groeneveld, and Tina Leung sitting front row. I just interviewed Sai De Silva last week and asked her about the luxury brands that stuck around after she became a reality star. Marc Jacobs was one of the brands we both talked about as continuing to support her during the transition from influencer to reality star.
There were many influential weddings this week. Of course, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, but that is for someone else to cover. Influencer Brigette Pheloung announced that she had a small wedding with her family ahead of her larger wedding and wore a dress designed by her brand, Phe Phe.
Halley Kate also celebrated her wedding weekend with many influencers in attendance, all creating a similar video around the prompt, “when the bride asks you to wear white.” You can follow along with her wedding through the last 30 Instagram posts on her feed. She had fun with her wedding looks!!
I always love following along with tennis tournament partnerships. Last week, I mentioned Ralph Lauren’s Wimbledon kickoff. As the tournament started, I noticed the on-court partnerships: Coco Gauff in New Balance x Miu Miu, Aryna Sabalenka in custom jewelry she designed with Material Good, Naomi Osaka working with Tokyo-based designer Hana Yagi on her pre-game outfit, and Taylor Fritz starring in content with BOSS as he wore the brand on and off the court.
Rare Beauty launched a social campaign creating paparazzi-style shots of Selena Gomez to tease their upcoming Soft Pinch Lip Oil Stick, which officially launched today on the Sephora app and tomorrow across Rare Beauty’s DTC site, Sephora.com, and Ulta. This content style is trending, with Saie Beauty first creating similar content that I mentioned in Open Tabs in April.
Sirapop hosted a dinner in NYC with its influencer community, co-hosted with Nylon’s EIC, Lauren McCarthy. All of the guests were dressed in different looks by the brand, with beautiful fan table settings, just as the heatwave rolled into New York.
Crown Affair is launching The Aperitivo Collection tomorrow (7/7). They seeded the collection to influencers early and are leaning into their summer air dry ritual with this limited edition set.
Lulu and Georgia invited influencers to their Hamptons pop-up, where guests captured content around the space, linked to the featured outdoor furniture, rode bikes, and enjoyed beautiful meals from breakfast to a beachside dinner.
The Millennial Decorator hosted an eBay live shopping event with Vogue Shopping featuring plenty of Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein and Marc Jacobs vintage, specially curated by the Vogue team.
Paige Lorenze is the new face of Clinique’s Black Honey Lip campaign. I love when brands tap influencers who organically use their products because it makes the partnership feel natural. Paige has talked about Black Honey in press and organically shared on social that it has been part of her favorite lip combo over the past year. You know a campaign lands when other creators and fans are commenting that they have been waiting for the partnership.
Similar to Clinique leaning into creators who are already organically mentioning the brand, I’m always interested in how brands are reacting to creator content to inform their social and influencer strategies. Califia Farms recently shared how influencers have become a source of trend forecasting for the brand. Johanna Albertsson, Senior Communications Manager, shared with me:
Absolutely, creators are the trendsetters. Creator marketing, when harnessed at the right moment, can take a business from zero to viral overnight. We pay close attention to trending flavors and drink concoctions so we can innovate thoughtfully. A great example of this coming to life is in our Simple & Organic Almond Creamers. We’ve seen creators build entire content series around their favorite flavors, how they are incorporating them into their daily little treats, or creating something entirely new with them, like cold foams, popsicles, adding flavor into recipes, pairing with other brands, etc. That reinforced how we thought about our creamer launches and the kinds of creator partnerships we wanted to anchor them. When a trend is already living authentically in creator content, it gives our campaign a strong foundation.
They have done a great job at consistently featuring creators in collaborative content in their feed like this video with author and cook, Zoya and food creator, Kiley O’Donnell. The brand works with creators to highlight thier products across a variety of recipes beyond coffee drinks, while still incorporating new flavors and consistently using classic products.
Other Things I Saw This Week: Are beauty brands already strategizing their future brand collaborations with Trinity and Kayda from Love Island?, Jemima Kirke for Merit, Meg Stalter x Betsey Johnson, THE LOVE LIST x Gigi Burris collaboration launched early for TLL paid subscribers, Elemis hosted a brand trip in Montauk this past weekend, and speaking of Love Island, beauty brands aren’t only featured in the house this year — they are now sponsoring challenges, from Maybelline to CeraVe.
Things I’ve Been Influenced By: Since I am hyper-focused on influencer activity, including gifting and paid partnerships from brands, I was starting to notice an uptick in Vivrelle mentions. I figured the brand had been focusing on ShopMy with gifting and Opportunities. I was right when they reached out to offer me a gifted membership (always want to be transparent when a brand reaches out in this way). It’s a fun way to mix up your accessories for upcoming travel, wedding season and nights out! If you want to try, you can use the code CLAREMOORE for 50% off the first two months of your membership.