Latest news with #CassandraGrey
Vogue
22-07-2025
- Business
- Vogue
Just Browsing: Violet Grey Brings California Cool to the Upper East Side
With so much fashion existing online, there's something refreshing about trying pieces on in-store after eyeing them first on a little screen. Enter Just Browsing: We're taking you into the fitting room as we preview the newest collections from some of our favorite high-street brands and contemporary labels. We'll get into fabric and quality, fit and feel, and so much more as we make our way through the shop floor. Happy scrolling (and strolling)! 'New York is Violet Grey's boyfriend,' founder Cassandra Grey tells me over email. Melrose Place may have been the first outpost of her beauty retailer, but her dalliance with Manhattan is just as long-standing to Grey as Los Angeles is. It was New York where she dreamt up the business plan for Violet Grey. 'I was inspired by Zitomer, Barneys, Bergdorf, Central Park, Saturday Night Live, Bobby Short, the Barbizon Hotel, the beauty closets at Vogue and Allure, and of course, Net-a-Porter,' she lists. 'The Carlyle, where I lived with my late husband, holds a special place in our story. It was in the Gallery Bar that I first pitched beauty brands, investors, potential team members, and Vogue's beauty editor with nothing more than a stapled mood board, a dream, and the kind of ear-to-ear smile that only comes with naivety.' A little over a year ago, a dream location just off the corner of 78th St. and Madison, askance from The Carylye's outdoor café, presented itself. 'It felt so perfectly on-brand, it was almost too good to be true,' she says. 'We knew we had to have it—a place for our community to call home.' Grey and investor Sherif Guirgis found the space before they bought back the company from Farfetch in 2024. 'At the time, we weren't in a financial position to sign a lease, and we nearly lost it,' she says. 'But where there's a will, there's always a way.' The location opens into a garden entrance, that per Grey, is a quiet nod to the alleyway approach of Melrose Place. Bill Sofield, who designed the LA store, played a pivotal role in this one, too; the pair drew upon 'the Dorothy Draper-inspired Deco iconography of the Carlyle with the signature Hollywood Regency of John Elgin Woolf that defined Melrose Place' for something that Grey hopes feels like an extension of that legacy. Complete with a Paul Poiret sofa plucked from Sofield's warehouse, the complete works of Colette from one of the oldest bookstores in Paris, and a collection of polaroids from old cover shoots and Hollywood parties, the space transports you to a glamorous vintage home, without getting lost in time.
Business of Fashion
15-05-2025
- Business
- Business of Fashion
Violet Grey Launches Perfume Label With $1,100 Fragrance
Violet Grey, the Los Angeles-based retailer known for its high-gloss creative, has quietly debuted a fragrance label called Madame Grey, offering a $100 hair perfume and limited-edition $1,100 Extrait de Parfum. The Extrait, nosed by perfumer Jérôme Epinette, is housed in a limited run of 1100 'handcrafted' glass flagons, according to its description on Madame Grey's direct to consumer website, which quietly appeared this month. The scent is advertised as a 'transfixing ode to the one that got away' on Madame Grey's website, where it's available for pre-order, but no scent profile information is provided. The fragrance is also distilled into a hair mist, Pour Cheveux Strip-Tease available now for $100. A hair mist, featuring a less concentrated version of the Extrait scent, is available for $100. (Madame Grey) The website also announced the Madame Grey Estate, a space on New York's Upper East Side described as the 'studio and private art collection of creative director Cassandra Grey.' The space will be open from June 2 through 7, and will culminate in an auction of fine jewelry and objêt from the likes of Cartier and Fabergé, alongside a bottle of the Extrait de Parfum. Violet Grey was founded in 2013 by Cassandra Grey, a stylist and marketer who is credited with helping launch brands like Augustinus Bader on the strength of her network and editorial perspective. Farfetch purchased Violet Grey in 2022 to build its budding beauty division, an aim it later abandoned; Grey purchased the retailer back from Farfetch in fall 2024 with the private equity investor Sherif Guirgis, who became co-owner and chief executive. Since then, Violet Grey has expanded east, opening a shop-in-shop at Long Island department store Hirshleifers, and will open its Madison Avenue boutique in June. Despite only recently appearing, Madame Grey has been in the works for some time. The brand's associated Instagram account, @madamegrey_parfum, has steadily posted moodboard imagery including Guy Bourdin photographs and midcentury interior design objects since 2019. Learn more: Cassandra Grey Buys Back Violet Grey — With Some Help The cult beauty retailer's founder teamed up with investor Sherif Guirgis to acquire the business back from Coupang, the South Korean owner of Farfetch.
