Paloma Elsesser on Purpose, Representation and the New Rituals of Body Care
The Business of Fashion PodcastShow Notes
Diversity and body positivity have been important themes shaping the fashion conversation over the past decade. Yet a gap remains between the industry’s ideals and its reality. Few people have experienced that gap – and pushed back against it – more visibly than Paloma Elsesser. She’s walked the biggest runways, landed the biggest covers and used her platform to challenge the industry’s standards around bodies, beauty and who gets to be seen.
Now, she’s taking that authority somewhere new: building a body care brand rooted in the rituals she grew up with.
“My mother’s African American. You don’t get out of the shower and not put lotion on. That’s crazy,” says Elsesser. “The central tenets of my work obviously are deeply rooted within the body, but I would love to see body care be personal and esoteric and ritualistic and beautiful,” she continues. “I think what’s so powerful about this expansive tapestry of beauty that we have today is that so many different types of people get to meet themselves and find belonging in those different brands.”
Elsesser sat down with executive editor Priya Rao on stage at this year’s Business of Beauty Global Forum to discuss staying true to herself amid the pressures of tokenism and why — after a decade spent building other people’s brands — she’s finally thinking about building one of her own.
Key Insights: The Commercial Aestheticisation of Movements: Elsesser reflects on how crucial cultural shifts, such as body positivity and DE&I, have been superficialised and flattened by the industry. She highlights that when movements are reduced to simple marketing visual palettes – like turning Pride into a mere rainbow motif – it strips away the systemic realities and precarity of the marginalised lives they represent.
Navigating the Vacuum of Representation: Having inadvertently become the face of a movement, Elsesser addresses the complexity of corporate tokenism following the cultural reckonings of recent years. To sustain her personal equity and mental health, she detaches her individual worth from structural cultural swings, preserving her sense of self.
A Strategic Pivot Into Ritualistic Body Care: Transitioning from image-maker to brand founder, Elsesser is launching a science-backed, premium body care venture centred around specialised personal care products. The strategic thesis moves away from mass-market saturation towards a highly curated, object-forward, niche aesthetic that mirrors premium apparel.
Curation and Belonging Over Mass Scale: Rejecting a standard mass-market framework despite her high digital profile, Elsesser builds for a specific, highly engaged demographic looking for attainable luxury. She identifies beauty as a critical entry point for consumer belonging, where high-concept design on a countertop allows younger demographics to access prestige brand identity.
Additional Resources: Paloma Elsesser | BoF 500 | The People Shaping the Global Fashion Industry Embodying the Moment: Paloma Elsesser on Beauty, Bodies and Business | BoF The Business of Beauty Global Forum: Our Place in Culture | BoF
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