JCPenney Connected to Whitney Houston Biopic

Back in October, JCPenney celebrated the official launch of JCPenney Beauty, the retailer’s own beauty department following the exit of Sephora. What started as a pilot project in 10 stores a year before will expand to 600 stores by spring 2023.

The retailer is banking on an exclusive partnership with Thirteen Lune, an eCommerce site showcasing inclusive beauty products.

“Our purpose is to celebrate and serve diverse working American families. If we’re authentically going to do that, we need to have diverse individuals providing products for our customers,” said Michelle Wlazlo, Executive Vice President, Chief Merchant for the Plano-based retailer.

Prados Beauty is among the new beauty lines now providing products to JCPenney customers. The partnership with Thirteen Lune launched the brand online and now in stores.

“For us to be on the shelves in 600 mega stores, it’s really huge. I’m just so grateful and so honored to be part of the journey,” said Cece Meadows, the founder of Prados Beauty.

For Meadows, the journey to her beauty brand includes her cancer diagnosis at the age of 28. She was a single mom and struggling.

“I’m Chicana and I’m Indigenous. And, you lose all your hair. And you hold so much value in your hair and the traditional aspects of what beauty means in your culture. Not to have that anymore and to have this amazing makeover done by your gracious friends. I wanted to help people feel that way,” Meadows said.

She also wanted to show the world indigenous beauty. She identifies as Yaqui and Comanche with family ties to Arizona, Mexico, New Mexico and Texas.

“My family is from El Paso originally. We have family all over Texas,” she said. “My family is all diehard Cowboys fans.”

As much as Meadows wants Prados Beauty to inspire others, the Army wife and mom wants her four children to have what she didn’t have growing up: representation and inclusion.

“I wanted to create something where my children could grow up and see themselves in the space and show them when you walk into the makeup area of a retailer, they can see themselves and what their relatives look like on boxes,” Meadows said.

“In the beauty space, there are countless founders this is their first time ever on retail shelves. And not just on our retail shelf, but 600 stores with retail shelves and online,” Wlazlo said. “Everybody says what about established brands? Established brands all had to be a starter founder brand. And if we don’t give people a chance, who will?”

The retailer helped Psyche Terry get her brand Urban Hydration established. Terry, a wife and mother of three, co-founded the line of plant-based products for skin, hair, bath, and body back in 2009.

The partnership with JCPenney soon followed; first in the retailer’s hair salons and now on the shelves of the new beauty departments.

And now a new partnership between her, Sony pictures and JCPenney is connecting her to the Whitney Houston biopic, ‘I Wanna Dance with Somebody.’ An exclusive beauty collection is now on sale at JCPenney.

“The folks at Sony pictures felt like our story, the story of a woman-owned, black business is truly the story in the movie. We know a story. There’s also a story about a woman who is an iconic brand that she built from the ground up that’s now international. We’re coming. We’re on our way. We’re coming for sure,” Terry said. “This is a humongous, historic event for me and my family and our business. This is like, I can’t believe it’s really happening.”

“You know, my mom was in town for Thanksgiving, and she said, ‘You got a string in your hair.’ I was like, is that a gray hair? Is that what you’re saying here? So it’s been hard, definitely. I’ve got some grays from it but I’ve got more smiles and more memories to last a lifetime,” she said.

Meadows also thinks of family when she sees how far her Prados Beauty has come in such a short time.

“I wish my grandmothers were still here. And that was another driver for me, there will be other people’s grandmothers who are still here who will be able to see themselves represented on the shelves,” Meadows said.

Terry and Meadows saw a space where their ideas and voices were needed – and now in JCPenney, there’s a partner ready to lead the charge to foster beauty inclusivity on a national scale.

Both Urban Hydration and Prados Beauty have give-back programs.

Urban Hydration donates gallons of water to families in Kenya, Ghana and Puerto Rico.

And Prados Beauty donates to charities and causes that support indigenous communities.

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