Have you ever wondered how awards show beauty partnerships come together to create big, splashy red carpet moments that seem to reverberate across social media for weeks or months?
Award season partnerships are big business for everyone involved: the celebrity, who may be fulfilling, or courting, a spokesperson deal; beauty and lifestyle brands, which are often promoting a new product or simply seeking brand awareness; and professional artists, who are oftentimes the glue that holds it all together.
In today’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, host Lexy Lebsack interviews beauty industry agents Marissa Alfe and Lauren FitzGerald. The duo opened their full-service Los Angeles talent agency, PRTNRS Management, in 2020. They currently represent 18 standout hair, makeup and nail artists including Patrick Ta, Ariel Tejada and Laura Polko. Together, their artists work with stars like Gigi Hadid, Rosalia, Kylie Jenner, Olivia Munn and Alix Earle, while Alfe and FitzGerald have brokered deals for their clients with brands like La Mer, Chanel, Morphe and Redken.
Alfe and FitzGerald are longtime friends and former colleagues at competing agency Cloutier Remix Agency. Alfe’s CV also includes Burberry and founder of Greyscale Management, while FitzGerald has held roles at InStyler and Digital Brand Products, the licensing and products division to Digital Brand Architects.
On whether or not artists must also create content
Alfe: “No; if you are in high demand for your editorial or your education, or if you have your own lane [you may not need to create content]. I think that’s the beauty of artistry. For my agency specifically, I personally do the best [at managing artists] when those individuals hit all those brackets, but there are successful people in the industry that are brought in for editorial, for campaigns only [who don’t make content for social media. But opting out] definitely poses a problem when you’re not allowed to go to set [because of something like Covid-19 or industry strikes]. … I find it really important to have a variety of things in your back pocket just like any kind of freelancer. … We’re in a place [where brands and celebs are] attracted to individuals that embrace social media [and who] go on set and say, ‘How can we maximize this opportunity, but in a tasteful, beautiful way?’”
On pre-planning social media content
FitzGerald: “If it’s a bigger red carpet, I would say, like an Oscars, Met, SAG, Golden Globes or Grammys, it is a bit more planned out because those moments, especially for the celebrity, are in a very intense time. I mean, hopefully they’re in a very relaxed state and they have amazing people around them, but of course, it’s about them ultimately, and so we have to be very sensitive to that. So those [candid red carpet moments that appear on social] are planned out, and typically, what will happen is, in a dream scenario, the celebrity is already an ambassador or partner of said beauty brand or hair-care brand at that time. They’ve obviously used the brand, they can speak to the brand, their audience is already used to seeing them paired together, so it feels really natural and good. And then our client can come in and use the products, take photos behind the scenes, …Something that people don’t recognize is that the celebrity artist really is often taking the actual photos that you see on Byrdie.com or in People Magazine. It’s on their iPhone because they just know their clients. … Leading up to that, there are conversations, obviously, with the brand, there are conversations with our clients, and then there are conversations with the celebrity publicists to make sure everyone’s aligned on what’s happening. …Everyone’s winning, at the end of the day, and everyone’s aware of what’s happening.”
