Once considered a niche market, women-run beauty start-ups are now joining the prestigious list of companies with billion-dollar valuations. Chloe Malle meets the visionaries changing the face of self-made success.
THE ENGINE OF THE MAYBACH is silent, but the raffia fringe on Anastasia Soare’s Dries Van Noten bolero crunches as she turns into the lot at her West Hollywood office. The sedan’s headlights brighten the plaque of her parking spot: reserved: CEO, Anastasia. When Soare, 60, moved to Los Angeles from Communist Romania 30 years ago, she could only afford to buy a $200 Ford station wagon with a leaky exhaust to shuttle her from her home in the Valley to Beverly Hills, where she worked as an aesthetician. “It was an enormous car,” she laughs, her accent throaty and warm. The used Mitsubishi Mirage that followed was no better. “Claudia was so embarrassed,” Soare recalls of her daughter’s horror during school drop-offs. Today, Anastasia Beverly Hills, the cosmetics empire Anastasia and Claudia have built together, is valued at roughly $3 billion.
This story is from the August 2019 edition of Vogue.
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This story is from the August 2019 edition of Vogue.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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