Celebrity Business Moves: Marc Jacobs, Jen Atkin, Hailey Bieber, and Priyanka Chopra Are Making Brand Power Look Expensive

Celebrity business moves are heating up, from Marc Jacobs’ $850 million brand sale to Ouai’s new CEO, Rhode’s billion-dollar beauty glow-up, and Priyanka Chopra’s Anomaly acquisition.

Celebrity Business Moves Are Not Just Cute Little Side Hustles Anymore

Once upon a time, a celebrity “business move” meant someone slapped their name on a perfume bottle, smiled at a launch party, and pretended they personally hand-mixed the vanilla musk in a moonlit laboratory. Adorable. But now? Celebrity-linked brands are being bought, sold, scaled, restructured, and fought over like serious assets—because they are serious assets. Last week’s biggest moves across fashion and beauty made one thing painfully clear: fame may open the door, but distribution, leadership, licensing, and global retail strategy are what keep the lights on.

Marc Jacobs Gets an $850 Million Plot Twist

The biggest headline came from the fashion side, where LVMH agreed to sell Marc Jacobs to WHP Global and G-III Apparel Group in a deal valued at about $850 million. The arrangement gives WHP and G-III equal ownership, with each contributing up to $425 million, while G-III is expected to manage operations and WHP focuses on licensing. Marc Jacobs himself is staying on as creative director, which is smart, because buying Marc Jacobs without Marc Jacobs would be like buying a bakery and firing the person who knows where the croissants are hidden.

Why the Marc Jacobs Deal Actually Matters

This deal is not just rich-people musical chairs in designer loafers. It signals how legacy fashion houses are being reworked for today’s market, especially in the “accessible luxury” lane where handbags, fragrances, runway credibility, and youth culture all need to somehow sit at the same lunch table without throwing soup. Vogue noted that the new owners will have to unify Marc Jacobs’ many worlds—from runway to accessories to Heaven by Marc Jacobs—while preserving the brand’s cultural cool factor. Translation: please grow the business without turning it into a mall zombie.

Jen Atkin’s Ouai Brings in a New Boss

Over in beauty, Ouai, the haircare brand founded by celebrity hairstylist Jen Atkin, named Susan Kim as CEO. Kim, formerly CEO of Kopari, is set to lead the Procter & Gamble-owned brand while Atkin remains founder and chief creative officer. That setup makes sense: bring in an operator to scale the machine, but keep the founder’s taste, tone, and celebrity-world instincts intact. Because let us be honest, the brand did not become cool because a spreadsheet had excellent vibes.

Ouai Is Moving From Cool-Girl Shelfie to Bigger Business Energy

Ouai has always had that “your friend with perfect hair casually recommended this” energy, which is basically beauty marketing gold. But appointing a seasoned CEO suggests the brand is thinking beyond bathroom-counter aesthetics and into global growth, channel expansion, and operational muscle. Jen Atkin’s role as chief creative officer keeps the brand voice close to its roots, while Susan Kim’s appointment gives Ouai the executive structure needed to compete in a crowded premium haircare market. That is how you go from influencer favorite to actual category player without losing the plot—or the conditioner.

Hailey Bieber’s Rhode Is Still the Beauty Brand Everyone Is Watching

Hailey Bieber’s Rhode remains one of the biggest celebrity beauty stories in recent memory after e.l.f. Beauty announced its agreement to acquire the brand in 2025 in a deal valued at up to $1 billion. The acquisition positioned Rhode for broader global expansion, with e.l.f. calling out the brand’s fast growth, product innovation, and international potential. Say what you want about glazed donut skin—and many people have, loudly—but Rhode turned minimalist packaging and a very specific beauty mood into a very real business outcome.

Rhode Proved Celebrity Beauty Can Still Win—If the Product Has a Point

The graveyard of celebrity beauty brands is not small. For every breakout success, there is another brand quietly begging consumers to care because someone famous once used a moisturizer near a window. Rhode worked because it had a clear identity: simple, skin-focused, social-media-friendly, and tightly connected to Hailey Bieber’s personal aesthetic. That is the difference between “celebrity-backed” and “celebrity-dependent.” The former can scale. The latter collapses the moment the founder changes their haircut.

Priyanka Chopra’s Anomaly Finds a New Retail Home

Priyanka Chopra Jonas’ haircare brand Anomaly also stayed in the conversation after Reliance Retail acquired the brand from Maesa. Anomaly launched in 2021 with a focus on affordable, vegan, and cleaner-positioned haircare, and Reliance is expected to use its omnichannel network to scale the brand in India and internationally. It is a particularly interesting move because India’s beauty and personal-care market is not just growing—it is becoming a major battleground for global and local brands alike.

The Bigger Trend: Celebrities Are Becoming Brand Architecture, Not Just Brand Decoration

Here is the part that everyone who still says “it is just a celebrity brand” needs to write down, preferably in pen. The celebrity is no longer merely the face of the product. In the best cases, they are the origin story, the audience shortcut, the aesthetic framework, and the trust signal. But the companies that survive need much more: manufacturing, retail relationships, executive leadership, licensing strategy, and the ability to expand without making consumers feel like they are being mugged by a mood board.

Fashion and Beauty Are Still the Celebrity Business Sweet Spots

There is a reason these moves are concentrated in fashion, haircare, skincare, and beauty. These categories let celebrities sell aspiration in a way that feels personal but not too personal. Nobody wants a celebrity-branded municipal accounting software suite—although, frankly, give it five years and someone will try. Beauty and fashion are different. They are identity categories. Fans do not just buy the item; they buy proximity to a lifestyle, a look, a routine, a tiny fantasy that says, “Perhaps I too can look expensive while answering emails in sweatpants.”

The smartest celebrity business moves are not built on fame alone. Marc Jacobs has decades of design credibility. Ouai has a founder with deep beauty-world authority. Rhode has a sharply defined consumer identity. Anomaly has mass-market positioning and now a retail giant behind it. That is the blueprint. Fame gets attention. Strategy converts attention into sales. Operations keep the brand from becoming a cautionary podcast episode.

Last week’s celebrity business moves were less about flashy launches and more about grown-up business mechanics... acquisitions, CEO appointments, licensing structures, international expansion, and brand stewardship. In other words, the celebrity-brand era has entered its corporate adulthood. It has a calendar invite, a board deck, and probably a very expensive matcha. The fun part? The brands that combine cultural relevance with real infrastructure are going to keep making headlines—and money.

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References

Reuters — LVMH agreement to sell Marc Jacobs to WHP Global and G-III Apparel Group.

The Wall Street Journal — Marc Jacobs deal valuation, ownership structure, and Marc Jacobs remaining creative director.

Vogue Business/Vogue — Analysis of Marc Jacobs’ new ownership and future brand strategy.

Business of Fashion — Ouai names Susan Kim CEO; Jen Atkin remains founder and chief creative officer.

Global Cosmetics News — Ouai appoints Susan Kim to support global growth.

e.l.f. Beauty Investor Relations — Definitive agreement to acquire Rhode.

BeautyMatter — Reliance Retail acquires Priyanka Chopra Jonas’ Anomaly haircare brand.

Business of Fashion — Reliance Retail acquisition of Anomaly.

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