The lingerie fashion brand by Rihanna, Savage X Fenty, promotes “fearlessness, confidence, and inclusivity,” and they do an excellent job at celebrating this tagline.
Fenty, the singer’s cosmetics and beauty brand launched in 2017, first gained recognition for its wide range of foundation skin tones offering customers 50 shades. To compare, French cosmetics and beauty brand, Lancôme, only has 11 shades to choose from.
However, Rihanna’s brand is gaining a lot of attention and being praised for breaking barriers few in fashion have ever dared to cross.
Become the best CRMer you can:
CRM Hack: measuring the right marketing campaign KPIs
How To: use loyalty data to power retention and reactivation
See how brands take their email deliverability to the max
Get inspired: great sports betting campaigns to follow
Her latest Savage x Fenty Fashion show, which showcased its latest collection of sexy underwear – is one of the first brands to promote male plus-size models. This has mostly been reserved for women models like the famous plus-sized supermodel, Ashley Graham.
With the show featuring Steven G, US size 2XL, modelling boxer briefs is a step forward in normalizing plus-size male body types.
We’ve already seen other intimate apparel brands like American Eagle’s Aerie lead and choose models representing real people, not only perfect beauty. The British fast-fashion retailer, Missguided, is also proving to the world that strength and beauty come in all shapes and sizes.
But Rihanna is taking it to the next level. And to make sure everyone sees it, the singer asks famous celebrities like Bella Hadid, Paris Hilton, and Demi Moore to model her lingerie line.
Cara Delevigne, also featured on the show in a non-conventional way, said: “As a child, I was definitely a bit of an alien, or a bit of a creature. I just felt very feral.”
While supermodel Bella Hadid said, “For me, that was the first time on a runway that I felt really sexy,” during the Vogue Fashion Festival in Paris.
“Because when I first did Fenty, I was doing other lingerie shows, and I never felt powerful on a runway, like, in my underwear.”
“What I love about this show is that everybody is beautiful, everybody is sexy,” Paris Hilton said in an interview with Amazon Prime, where the show is currently streaming. “It’s celebrating everyone, and I think that’s incredible.”
What’s more, is that Rihanna is also promoting gender diversity and expression beyond the binary framework. Indya Moore, the transgender actor famous for their work in Pose, has fans crediting their cameo as one of the show’s top appearances.
But still, with all that, no brand is safe from stepping on some toes.
Savage X Fenty has been called out for the offensive musical performance that samples a hadith, a sacred Islamic text.
“I’d like to thank the Muslim community for pointing out a huge oversight that was unintentionally offensive in our Savage X Fenty show,” Rihanna wrote.
“I would, more importantly, like to apologize for this honest, yet careless mistake. We understand that we have hurt many of our Muslim brothers and sisters, and I’m incredibly disheartened by this. I do not play with any kind of disrespect toward God or any religion and therefore the use of this song in our project was completely irresponsible! Moving forward, we will make sure nothing like this ever happens again.”
