King of Makeup’s fall is a warning to all Aussie businesses

How does one makeup brand go from global success story to ghost town in one decade? Simple, writes Michelle Andrews, by ignoring the changing market.

Ten years ago, Napoleon Perdis cosmetics were a staple in Australian women’s makeup bags.

Today, less than a week after the company announced it has entered into voluntary administration, the founders are holding the detritus of their empire and wondering where it all went so wrong.

At its peak, the brand boasted 65 stores across Australia and New Zealand, with another 4500 makeup counters around the globe. If that wasn’t enough, the giant was also simultaneously plotting a takeover of the U.S. market, running its makeup academy for aspiring artists, and curating a reality TV show based on its flamboyant founder.

For a long time, Napoleon Perdis the man and his wife and co-founder Soula-Marie Perdis did a lot right. After meeting at Sydney’s Macquarie University and marrying in the early 1990s, the couple quickly transformed one makeup store in Ultimo into a national movement. Their careful dabbling in the media — Napoleon Perdis products were always dotted throughout glossy mags — paid off in dividends, as did the founder’s appearances on hit millennial obsession Australia’s Next Top Model.

It was a rise as dizzying as the company’s fall.

Last week Napoleon Perdis’s eponymous makeup brand went into liquidation. Picture: supplied

It’s no coincidence that the downfall of Napoleon Perdis has mirrored that of traditional women’s media and shopping. As women have turned to the online world and opted for shopping sprees behind their laptop instead of traipsing the walkways of shopping centres, the brand that once mesmerised us slowly became invisible.

While products from other Aussie brands like The Beauty Chef and Lanolips are touted by the country’s most followed and trusted faces, you rarely — if ever — hear beauty influencers and bloggers utter “Napoleon Perdis”. And that’s not because the products aren’t cult classics or hugely popular, but because Perdis seemingly wanted it that way.

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What’s most bizarre about the brand’s absence from Youtube and Instagram is that it’s purposeful; while competitor brands embraced influencer marketing, Napoleon Perdis seemed resentful towards the most prominent voices online.

“These bloggers, they do their face a million times, what makes them a makeup artist?” the 48-year-old asked Foxtel’s YourMoney channel on Thursday.

“I have worked with everyone from Kim Kardashian, all the way down. You see my portfolio, that makes me a makeup artist. My editorials from VOGUE covers to Rihanna covers, to everything, that makes you a makeup artist … doing your own face a million times, why do people think that’s majestic? It’s not.”

Perdis has been scathing of the influencer market, instead opting to make his daughter Liana the most recent face of the makeup empire. Picture: Mark Cranitch.

After musing “let’s see how long that [influencer] bubble lasts”, it appears the lasting cultural prominence of the influencer economy has been lost on the father-of-four.

It’s easy to feel disillusioned about social media in 2019. Paying bloggers hundreds of thousands of dollars to endorse your blush or mascara feels ludicrous — particularly when those bloggers aren’t supermodels or actors. But what entrepreneurs like Perdis have ignored is that these women and men, live-streaming from the comfort of their own bedrooms, are the new celebrities. They have our attention at a time when nobody else does.

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Ironically, as Perdis lamented the hobbies and interests of his own customer base, makeup powerhouse MECCA was across the city unveiling its plans for 2019, including taking on Zoe Foster-Blake's cult skincare range, Go-To. 

MECCA isn’t the only makeup company flourishing down under; according to market research company Mordor Intelligence, the Australian beauty industry is going from strength to strength. The national market is growing, on average, by 9.31 per cent, and by the end of 2020 is pegged to be worth in excess of $7 billion.

If Napoleon Perdis wants to have any chance of a resurgence, those at the helm need to re-evaluate not just how they market themselves as a brand. Picture: supplied

And so if Napoleon Perdis wants to have any chance of a resurgence, those at the helm need to re-evaluate not just how they market their products, but how they market themselves.

Perdis is a man who is anything but vanilla and whose reputation would best be described as divisive. In Thursday’s YourMoney interview he appeared to blame everything from #MeToo to the flailing housing market for his company’s downfall. He grew exasperated and irritated when journalists asked him the obvious questions.

Perhaps his biggest mistake, then, was in 2016, when he made his own daughter Lianna the face of the brand.

That’s not to say that Lianna isn’t worthy of such a coveted position, but to infuse the brand with more of the same DNA — to enmesh the Napoleon into Napoleon Perdis so inextricably — was a curious decision. Given the company was already under the power of Perdis, his wife, and his brother Emmanuel, if there was ever a time to bring another perspective to the table and to infuse the brand with relevancy, this was it.

It was — just like influencer marketing — another opportunity missed for the family brand.

And now? Without some big changes, it looks like a brand once recognised and loved by women across Australia might all go down together.

Michelle Andrews is a freelance writer and podcast host from Melbourne.

Originally published as King of Makeup’s fall is a warning to all Aussie businesses