MILAN — Typology, the French beauty brand founded in early 2019 by serial digital entrepreneur Ning Li, is continuing its slow yet steady expansion, officially launching in Italy on Wednesday.
In town for the occasion, Li sat down with WWD to discuss the potential of the market for his clean, direct-to-consumer and gender-neutral company, which after becoming a leading skin care brand in France during COVID-19, gradually stretched its presence to Belgium, the U.K., Germany, the U.S. and Japan.
“We try not to do too many things at the same time, so we handpicked markets, and all for different reasons,” Li said. “The reason Italy came a little bit later than the others is the maturity of e-commerce. Even in 2019, when we launched in France, the market was quite new for shopping online. But now everyone shops online, so I think it’s good timing.”
The second reason was the increasing demand received from local customers for Typology’s products and its eco-conscious ethos, Li said. “We’ve seen that the Italian market and brand awareness were particularly strong without us doing anything…even if we have never done any activity here.”
The B-Corp company is known for its simplified approach to skin care and minimalist formulations addressing precise concerns, from hydration and signs of aging to hypersensitivity and scalp imbalances. The products use targeted active ingredients clearly stated on the packaging, made of mono-materials that are both recyclable and recycled.
According to Li, this minimalist attitude still resonates among consumers, especially in such a saturated beauty market and with social media platforms such as TikTok making it “even more overwhelming.”
“The approach is really about coming back to the essential: less ingredients also means less ingredients that are problematic for your skin,” said the founder about keeping Typology’s formulations under 20 ingredients as opposed to the average 30 to 40 ones promoted by competitors.
Counting more than 100 references, the assortment includes the bestselling 9-Ingredient Face Moisturizer D41 and the Tinted Serum T10, a hybrid product with vitamin C and aloe vera melding color and skin care in a light, silicon-free texture.
Yet, as the brand is expanding its footprint, Li noted differences in customers’ preferences across markets.
“In the U.S., for example, they are a lot more driven by the immediate effects of skin care. They want something to work fast,” he said, underscoring how the tinted serum is particularly popular in the country. “In Europe, the skin care component remains much more important. I think it’s a culture of skin care and there’s maybe some more tolerance for patience and taking some time to get the result right.
“In Japan, there’s yet another different kind of approach because the market is very mature for skin care and has very good quality products already, but what really makes the Japanese consumers curious about Typology is that it’s one of the leading brands in France. I think the credential of us being very strong in the French market intrigues them.”
After Italy, the brand will continue to enlarge its scope on the Old Continent, as the founder identified in the Netherlands and Eastern Europe as potentially strong markets for the brand, and acknowledged a relatively smoother process for expansion given the proximity to the central logistic platform in France.
“Europe has still an advantage for us,” he said, recalling the effort made in the U.S. to open a subsidiary, set up a warehouse in Pennsylvania and hiring a local team.
Typology’s distribution still largely relies on its online presence, which also enables the brand to keep its prices accessible, swinging between 15 euros and 40 euros.
“The reason we started as an e-commerce business is because of my own personal bias,” said Li, nodding to his previous entrepreneurial ventures in design, MyFab and made.com.
“I just chose the one channel that I was comfortable with. Having said that, not everyone is comfortable shopping online.…So the idea is to test with [brick-and-mortar] but with very targeted, dedicated spots because digital remains really our core expertise and for me it’s more important to do [one thing] really well than doing a bit of everything,” he said, referring to the IRL corner opened in Printemps Haussmann two years ago.
To enable customers to experience Typology’s products without the pressure of a physical retail rollout, Li decided to step into hospitality last year. As reported, the company signed a deal to bring Typology amenities in more than 30 MGallery Collection luxury boutique hotels around the world.
“They are very premium hotels and they are very small: that fits the brand very well,” he said about MGallery, which is part of the Accor Group. The main goal of this partnership is to deepen the brand connection with consumers and “create a physical experience via a different environment [compared to the one] we are usually in,” rather than to build sales.
To be sure, Li has a long-term vision for his third business. A graduate of HEC Paris, he went into entrepreneurship straight after completing his studies. He first founded Myfab — which he later sold to Kering — and then moved to London to establish made.com, specializing in online furniture retail.
Typology is majority-owned by the executive, who raised a seed round of $10 million in 2019 through investments made by Xavier Niel, Alven and Firstminute Capital. The company has 60 employees based in Paris, with an in-house R&D laboratory and offices in the 11th arrondissement. These are complemented by a network of French partner laboratories based in Normandy, Provence and Picardy.
“This is my third company and my desire for Typology is really to build something that can stand the test of time. For that reason, we’re trying to optimize for the very long run. We never discounted any product, for example,” he said. “It’s a very considered approach…because the power of the brand is often in conflict with the short-term revenue. Sometimes you want to just hit your quarterly target and you try to make the compromise. And I think as a founder still in control of this business, I’m in a position to say what I really care about is the long-term health of the brand,” he continued, quipping that “in my two other businesses I’ve been very impatient.”
Li came into the beauty business as an outsider. He had the intuition to pivot from design to beauty when he moved back to Paris from London, which coincided with his fatherhood.
“My baby girl was born and I was shopping for her. I snuck into a pharmacy for a cream…and realized how many beauty products there were. I never really paid attention to that but thought ‘Oh it must be a big business,’” he said flashing a smile.
“The second thing was that I was overwhelmed by the amount of choices….I think being an outsider also led me to make some decisions that maybe helped us and led us to be somehow different from the traditional brands of the market,” he said, pointing to betting big on digital and matching innovation with simplification rather than complexity.
With the same spirit of observation, Li recently looked to tap into the niche fragrance boom as he quietly introduced his second beauty venture at the end of last year. Flanking Typology, the Sujet fragrance brand was also launched under the banner of Good Brands, the company Li set in 2018 with the ambition of building a portfolio of labels that are more responsible toward both the planet and consumers.
“It makes sense to have a portfolio of brands that can help the business overcome some of the hard times. And also from the talent perspective, it will allow people to move from my team to one another, which is very good for retention of business talent,” he said.