Actress Tracee Ellis Ross started building her vision for Pattern Beauty while starring on the sitcom Girlfriends, but it was her lifelong experience as a “curly girly” (a woman with curled and coiled hair) that inspired the idea and was validated by generations of women with similar experiences.
“I wanted to actually create products that supported hair the way it grew out of its head — not to straighten it or anything,” Ross said during a conversation with Business of Fashion’s Sheena Butler-Young at a keynote presentation during this year’s NRF. “The textured-hair masses that exist in the world just didn’t have a lot of products. I spent years trying to find things, and I remember in high school saying to myself, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if I could have one brand on my counter?’ And I realized I wasn’t the only one. I was part of a massive group that was not being serviced in that way.”
Her business plan, which centered around creating products for people with curly, coily, tight and textured hair, was decades in the making (20 of dreaming, 10 years in development and five years in-market, according to the Pattern Beauty website), but now Ross and her Co-CEO Christiane Pendarvis are setting their sights on growing the brand. Pattern Beauty currently has more than 50 SKUs (starting with seven), 11 retail partners and 47 employees — and isn’t slowing down.
During her session, Ross candidly shared key lessons from her journey so far.
Learn by Doing, but Don’t be Afraid to Admit what You Don’t Know
Although Ross acknowledged her business acumen, she admitted that she had a day job that prevented her from knowing all aspects of the retail industry, inside and out. So while she learned quite a bit organically by simply doing the work, she also knew she needed to build a knowledgeable team.
When she was in early-stage conversations with retail partners (one of which was Ulta and then-CEO Mary Dillon), Ross asked for recommended business partners and settled on LA-based Beach House Group. “I am a very intentional and purposeful leader and a very creative leader,” Ross said. “And my business acumen is very based on my creativity — I am an artist first and foremost. But now, as I build a team, I’m looking for people that are team players, looking for people that really understand the full picture of what we do, that are experts in what they do. I am not a micromanager. I have no intention of micromanaging because there’s many areas of the business that are not my expertise. Bringing in the right people has been extraordinary.”
Pendarvis is a prime example of the “right people,” given her illustrious 25+-year career in retail working for and supporting brands like Old Navy, Victoria’s Secret and Savage x Fenty. She now acts as Ross’ right hand, enabling her to focus on her strengths as a product ideator and creative while Pendarvis runs and manages the business operations.
“Pattern had scaled at a pace that was unexpected to me, and also that brought on new challenges in areas in a business that I didn’t know a lot about, and I realized that the best use of me was to really continue to be the guardian of the brand and the vision of the brand, stay focused on the marketing, the creativity and the product development, and really bring somebody in who knew and had the experience to scale a business, who understood the purpose and the intention of Pattern, and the beauty of what we do in the internal community for the external community,” said Ross. “That’s how I found Christiane.”
The ‘Solve-a-Challenge’ Marketing Approach is Broken
Historically, marketing and advertising executives have followed a similar formula: tell people about a challenge they may or may not know they have, and show how your solution (or product) can fix it. But Ross believes this model feeds into longstanding negative connotations around “Black hair” that have been internalized by many consumers.
“I wanted to change the paradigm in the way that Black people were marketed to,” Ross explained. “I am a shopper. I am somebody who loves beauty products, and I also understood the way marketing works and does not work. I feel like when I feel good about myself, I actually buy more. Particularly when it comes to the Black customer, that [problem-based approach] in and of itself is a problematic equation. Telling Black customers that their hair is a problem and that you needed this to fix it absolutely did not work for me.”
Instead, Ross built Pattern Beauty in celebration. “How can we celebrate our hair, meet people where they are, and create a space of joy where people can enjoy what they have?” she added.
Use Data to Drive Company and Industry Change
When Pattern Beauty first launched in Ulta, the market’s response was resoundingly positive. So when products sold out, the team found they couldn’t restock fast enough. “As we all know in retail, the consumer is fast to change their mind,” she admitted. “You pick something that you like or try. If you can’t get it again, and you need something, you’ll try something else, and that might become your favorite thing. The ability to restock is an important part of the process, and that is a math game that is not mine. But what I discovered [in this experience] was the underestimation of the Black consumer.”
Specifically, this underestimation is rooted in the “myth” that “Black hair care is a niche market.” In fact, 65% to 75% of the global market is technically part of Pattern Beauty’s total addressable market (TAM) because of these consumers’ hair texture.
Ross explained that all members of the retail industry, from the C-level to entrepreneurs, must work together to “tackle those pitfalls along the operational line in how products get on shelves. That was a learning lesson for Ulta. It was a learning lesson for Pattern, and those are the things that create the data that help us all as an industry continue to grow and learn and change.”
Pattern continues to take a data-led approach to ensure it remains connected and accountable to its community. “Many of the products we develop come out of listening to and being in exchange with our customer. That is, to me, at the core of humanity; that the more we listen and respond — not react, but listen and respond from informed places — we can serve each other in a much more robust way that allows for opportunity and growth and also shared humanity.”
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Ensure Expansion Opportunities Center Around Your Mission
In addition to its branded ecommerce site, Pattern has a presence across key retail partners, including Ulta, Sephora, Target and Amazon, and is always exploring new retail partnerships. However, the real opportunity arguably lies in the brand name itself.
When asked about the long-term vision for Pattern Beauty, Ross explained: “It’s about keeping an eye on the prize of our mission, which is to serve the curly, coily and tight-texture community with our hair care. It’s about centering Black beauty. It is about making effective products that are good for you, or they’re not going to harm you. And I think when you do that, if hydration and moisturization is at the center of the brand, it can ripple out easily. There’s still so much uncharted territory in the hair space. And then, you know, the company is called Pattern Beauty, it’s not called Pattern Hair. So there’s space for expansion.”
She added: “I think the core of the business is to really articulate your mission, your vision and your promise. Stick to that and build a company around a purpose, not around making money. I think when you do that, there’s really always room to grow.”
Innovation: More About Simplifying than Digitizing
In the retail industry — especially at trade shows like NRF — there’s a misconception that innovation is all about creating apps, new tools and digitizing operations. But Ross (and in turn the broader Pattern Beauty team) defines innovation as “taking a blank space and creating something that is needed, that makes life more efficient or elevates the effectiveness of something in a way that’s better.”
Ross used the Pattern Blow Dryer as an example, an appliance that was designed to shape, stretch and define curly, coily, tight and textured hair. “Some of the things that were important to me is that when you use a diffuser, for example, often you put a diffuser on the blow dryer. When it gets hot, it slips off and it hits you in the head. I wanted a lock-in mechanism so the diffuser would stay on.”
The blow dryer also has special attachments, such as a brush and comb, that connect to the device, so users don’t have to worry about juggling two things while styling their hair. “I was solving for a lot of the things that innovation was moving us away from… and I wanted to get us back to innovation being [about] solving problems in the most efficient way possible.”
