"I love to win - winning is my life," said Serena Williams, sitting on a couch overlooking the backyard of her home in West Palm Beach, Florida.
About ten meters in the distance lies a private tennis court, while a long, wooden table to Williams's left is covered in mood board images, from which a few themes can be inferred: dewy skin, defined brows, a range of neutral to bold-colored lips. Scattered throughout the photos are cosmetic packaging, each with a bright yellow-green shade called "Wyn Chartreuse" - the signature color of Williams' new makeup line, Wyn Beauty.
More from WWD"Our chartreuse is a tribute to the tennis ball, a kind of tribute to championships, a tribute to the idea of winning," continued the 23-time Grand Slam singles champion, widely hailed as the greatest women's tennis player of all time.
Since playing her last official tennis match at the 2022 US Open, Williams has been busy. She introduced her Will Perform recovery brand to Target stores in December; welcomed her second daughter, Adira, last summer and has spent the past year and a half realizing her vision for Wyn - a brand she first started talking about with retailer Ulta Beauty before the COVID-19 pandemic.
'I've been working on it [Wyn] for about six years now," says Williams, who teamed up with joint venture partner Good Glamm Group and Ulta to introduce the vegan, cruelty-free line. The launch comes not only at a time when the makeup category is booming - Circana reports that sales of prestige makeup are up 15 percent by 2023 - but also as female athletes are rapidly gaining fame in the beauty space, with buzzing Brands such as Glossier, Mielle Organics and La Roche-Posay are increasingly using the group for ambassadorships.
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Female athletes endorsing their own beauty brands, however, is a more emerging phenomenon - one mainly characterized by tennis stars and SPF lines. Four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka launched her suncare brand Kinlò in 2021, while in 2014 Russian player Maria Sharapova - who has five Grand Slam titles - became co-owner of Holly Thaggard's Supergoop, now owned by Blackstone.
Williams, the first athlete of her caliber to launch her own makeup brand, wanted to leverage not only her celebrity, but also her sport and experience as a black woman and working mother to develop Wyn.
"We are optimistic about Wyn. Firstly, because it has been in the making for a long time, but also because of what Serena evokes in consumers. She is very powerful; she is probably the most recognized female athlete in the world, she is empowering and she just happens to have always been passionate about beauty," said Monica Arnaudo, head of merchandising at Ulta, where Wyn launches online and in 680 doors on Wednesday, sold in chartreuse, gold and netted gondolas for the store.
The retailer has capitalized on the celebrity beauty boom, similarly introducing Tracee Ellis Ross's Pattern Beauty and long-carrying Ariana Grande and Billie Eilish's respective fragrance lines. "We have seen the success of these brands and how they resonate with our guests," said Arnaudo, adding that Wyn's accessible price point positions the brand to potentially capture a large share of consumers. "We have the masses, from mass to prestige to luxury - Wyn fits right in the middle."
Ranging in price from $18 for a hydrating lip serum to $29 for a gel-cream SPF 30 skin tint in 36 shades, Wyn strives to offer high-quality products that fit an active lifestyle - whatever that looks like.
"It could be someone who works from 9 to 5; it could be me, a mother - it could be someone working from home and participating in Zoom meetings. Being active doesn't mean winning Grand Slams or Wimbledon trophies - and that's okay too, because - check," Williams laughed. "It's about that one-touch makeup, where you can put it on once and rely on it all day."
Ulta will market the launch through a slate of social content featuring Williams detailing her dressing room makeup routine and inspiration for Wyn; free branded gifts with purchase, and in-store voiceovers by Williams encouraging shoppers to look in line. While neither Williams nor Ulta commented on sales expectations for the launch, industry sources expect Wyn could earn between $40 million and $50 million during its first year on the market.
Among the other offerings that include Wyn's 10-product, 96 stock units are a soft-matte concealer in 20 shades; snake mascara; waterproof liquid eyeliner; eyebrow and eye pencils; a hybrid lip and cheek color, and matte and satin lipsticks, each available in 10 shades. The complexion and lip products are infused with jojoba oil, sunflower extracts, squalane and other moisturizing ingredients to provide nourishment while worn.
"Longevity was the most important thing to me," said Williams, for whom winged eyeliner became an on-court signature during the second half of her tennis career. "I always had something on. As a tennis player you sweat and drip and then you think: 'What can I wear that suits me best?' - but that's not super easy either."
In other cases, Williams struggled with products that didn't suit her skin tone.
"For years I traveled to countries that didn't have products made for me, but I still had to appear in front of the press, for events and I had to look decent," continued Williams, who had to cultivate her own makeup skills at a young age as a result. . "I had to really advocate for doing my own makeup and learning how to do my own face to be able to appear years ago when there wasn't a 20 to 40 shade range."
When creating Wyn's skin tint and concealers, Williams started with the darkest skin tones first, and worked her way down to the lighter shades to ensure that people of all skin tones could use her products. The brand brings Ulta - which now carries 50 Black-owned and founded brands - one step closer to achieving its 15 Percent Pledge commitment. The retailer is approaching half-way towards 15 percent in its total range; in hair care this reached 15 percent in 2023.
Wyn also joins Ulta's Conscious Beauty range, a key consideration for Williams. "A big key word for me was 'clean,'" she said, pointing to the fruit patch in her backyard, a chicken coop and a bee garden. "As much as we understand gut health, we also need to start understanding what we're putting on our faces. Clean is where the journey began."
Among Williams's first encounters with makeup were her frequent childhood forays into her mother's red lipstick collection. "I used to put it on my lips, then on my cheeks and on my eyelids - and my dad would say, 'You can't wear red lipstick,' and I'd say, 'Oops,'" recalls Williams, whose passion for beauty goes wide; in 2020, she began a 240-hour course to obtain her nail technician license. "I've been doing my nails since I was very young, so I enjoyed learning the ins and outs of that."
For Williams, who splits her time between Wyn, Will Perform and Serena Ventures, the venture capital fund she co-founded in 2017 to support underrepresented founders, part of the significance of this launch is the synergy it brings to her ongoing efforts.
"Eventually they all come together - whether it's Will Perform or Wyn or Ventures - they all talk to each other, with Ventures being a bit like the mother," says Williams, whose goal in creating Wyn's debut collection was to put together a range of essential products, with future innovation based on consumer feedback.
"It's those 10 items where, if you were on 'Survivor' and you could only have 10 things in your makeup kit and you still want to look good because you're in front of the camera - this is that."
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Launch Gallery: Serena Williams' Best Makeup and Hair Looks Through the Years [PHOTOS]
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