Makeup by Mario has come a long way since its launch in the teeth of the pandemic.
“The first thing I really think of is scrappiness,” said founder Mario Dedivanovic of the launch days, in conversation with Jenny B. Fine, editor in chief of Beauty Inc, at the LA Beauty conference. “We were a level of scrappy that you cannot imagine. A level that I never, ever want to experience again. I’m a very resilient person. I come from very humble beginnings, so I can endure, right? But at that time, there were no traditional playbooks, and so we had to be very careful on where we were allocating resources.”
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With a 22-piece collection about to launch exclusively at Sephora, the small but mighty team based in a tiny WeWork room set about doing much of the work themselves.
“I just remember gathering the team and putting a light box in the little room, and literally doing our Master Mattes palette swatches on ourselves and photographing on ourselves and those actually were the assets that we used across Sephora, on makeupbymario.com probably for two years,” said Dedivanovic. “But as I reflect back to that time, I think those constraints that we were under actually were positives, because they forced us in a way to be more creative, to be very solution-focused.”
When the brand launched exclusively at Sephora, Dedivanovic, a former Sephora sales associate, praised his former beauty adviser colleagues for an uptick in brick-and-mortar sales at a time many people weren’t venturing outside.
“I’ll never forget that Sephora contacted us and said, ‘You guys are overpenetrating in brick-and-mortar, and we can’t figure out why.’ It turned out that it was all of the beauty advisers across North America that were actually purchasing all of the product. It was my people, because I was one of them,” he said.
Almost six years later, the brand has continued to go from strength to strength and expanded internationally with Sephora. “The brand has evolved, but we are always rooted in our core values, which is education, the artistry, translating my techniques, into the products that we create,” said Dedivanovic.
His advice for winning at the retailer still lies with its army of beauty advisers. “Never underestimate the power of the beauty advisor. Because if they like your brand,” he said, “if they love your product, if they like you, that is a level of momentum in store that is hard to duplicate.”
In terms of the focus on artistry when he has so many other tasks such as running the business and hosting master classes, it’s always at the core.
“I’m always going to keep my hand in artistry,” said Dedivanovic. “But for me, it’s about being disciplined in terms of where I’m focusing my time and especially my energy, and for the past few years, it’s been in the makeup and my own brand,” he continued.
“So working with the artistry, shaping the product, working with the product development teams, with creative artistry teams, that’s where I’ve had to pivot my energy,” said Dedivanovic. “As far as external makeup artistry, I will still do it once in a blue moon, but really more because I just legitimately miss my clients.”
He views his role at the brand as leading and shaping the business, as opposed to operational. “I have an incredibly talented leadership team that’s doing an amazing job with operating. I’m really focused more on shaping the brand DNA and protecting it as we scale and as we grow, carving out that brand DNA as well.”
In 2024, the brand hired bankers to explore deal options. When asked for an update, Dedivanovic said: “We are a growing brand, and we are always exploring possibilities and options.”