Vanessa Wallace is passionate about inclusivity and working for a brand that supports her values.
Lucky for her, she spent almost two decades at Nike and joined Savage X Fenty, Rihanna’s body positive lingerie brand, as chief marketing officer almost a year ago. “One of the things that really connected me to this brand is being a purpose-driven brand,” says Wallace. “A lot of the work I did at Nike was really core to my soul and who I am as a person. I was really fortunate to find that opportunity within Savage X that let me expand that on a much bigger platform.”
Savage X Fenty was founded by the pop singer in 2018 with the aim to redefine the category. The company makes products that are designed to be both comfortable and attractive and they are made in a wide range of sizes.
“We’re not just marketing lingerie or lifestyle apparel, we really are a movement. How can we connect with individuals around that bold inclusivity, around that confidence and self-expression,” explains Wallace. “How can we be that platform for others and voices that are seen and unheard?”
Wallace is heading to Cannes for the first time ever next week and she couldn’t be more thrilled about the opportunity. “As a lifelong learner and being someone who’s super inquisitive, it is a great opportunity to learn from my colleagues,” says Wallace. “It’s an incredible opportunity to build, to network, but then also to grow. The other thing is to learn more about how AI can be a lever and a tool that enhances our creativity and deepens our storytelling.”
Catch Wallace at the Brand Innovators Culture Shifters event on Wednesday morning at the Rado Beach. Brand Innovators caught up with Wallace from her office in Los Angeles to talk about building a challenger brand with celebrity leadership, championing inclusivity and what she is looking forward to at Cannes. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
How do you lean into being a challenger brand with celebrity leadership to connect with audiences?
When Savage X Fenty was launched in 2018, it disrupted the marketplace. It disrupts the industry by being really bold about what inclusivity looks like. With Rihanna as our brand visionary and chief founder, she really wanted to impress upon the fact that everybody had a place in our brand.
Rihanna, who is a cultural icon, a fashion icon who has an incredible ability as a creative and a business person to understand trends, to help us translate how to connect to consumers and stay at the forefront of cultural conversations. I think the great thing about this brand is that we’ve continued to evolve as Rihanna has evolved. She was just a singer and then a business person, and now she has embraced motherhood.
We’ve been able to attract new consumers as we’ve continued to grow the business and the brand as she has gone through. One of the first forays into the brand doing that was when we launched maternity as she was a first-time mom. It met consumers where they were. Last August, as she then became a mom of two, we launched a product called ‘Soft N’ Savage, and it was all about the sensual ease. It had technology around marshmallow foams. It’s one of my tried and true go-to bras because it is that comfort and support that you need, but everyday sensual sexiness.
Last year, we also embraced Rihanna as a boy mom. She affectionately calls herself a soccer mom of two. So we cast her on our holiday family PJs campaign. We started off really sharp about being that bold disruption and who we are as a brand and what our values are. Rihanna at the helm helps us continue to stay a part of cultural conversations and push the industry forward.
Can you talk about how championing inclusivity helps drive innovation?
It is a cornerstone of our values. We don’t see champion inclusivity as just the right thing to do. It is a catalyst for innovation and how we see and project our long-term growth. The U.S. lingerie marketplace is about $16 billion. What we found is it gives us the opportunity to continue to evolve as a brand. We offer 47 bra sizes.
When we talk about that commitment to bold innovation across every touch point, we’re always obsessing over fit. What fabrications are both comfortable and sexy? We are being really unique about what everyday sensuality and everyday comfort looks like. It pushed the team to figure out how we could make a bra that was both sensual, but then also very comforting.
As we continue to grow as a brand, we definitely had gender neutral styles, but we wanted to make sure that we brought him along for the journey too. As you think about innovation and connecting to consumers and new and different ways, last February, we launched our men’s lifestyle loungewear. We launched with brand ambassador, Marcus Stroman, who is a New York Yankee. It met that loungewear meets sportswear vibe. And so we were able to bring new consumers in. We’re always trying to position ourselves as a brand that is championing diversity and inclusivity. With that as a sharp point, it helps us think about innovation, whether it’s our communication, marketing or product design.
Can you talk about what you learned at Nike that you apply in your current role?
I spent nearly two decades at Nike and there were many lessons. One is the core belief around consumer insights and innovation and how you leverage those insights to drive plans and drop product innovation. That’s one of the things that really connected me to the Savage X Fenty brand.
There’s also something around the art of storytelling and building stories that are emotive.
We want to work for brands that not only offer product solutions, which are really important to consumers, but also appeal to them on a much deeper level. This next generation spends their dollars based on their values and companies that align to those values. At Nike, I was privileged to develop that art and science approach to marketing that is really helpful.
And last but not least, I’m passionate about the intersection of inclusivity and women’s sports and championing these opportunities. As we continue to grow, what I’m excited about is how we connect sports heroes in one light, but then show how they can be bold and confident, both on and off the court, as well as in their everyday style.
We’re going to Cannes, which is the festival of creativity, essentially. Can you tell me how you’re thinking about creativity in 2025?
Valentine’s Day is our Super Bowl and we ran a campaign around that holiday called “Love Your Way.” It celebrated love in all forms – romantic, platonic, familiar and self-love. It was led by Rihanna, who is our modern day Cupid. We were able to bring a diverse cast of individuals to life in this campaign. It starred Kordell Beckman and Serena Page from Love Island, two models and creatives RJ King and his partner and TikTok sensations Hayley and Jules LeBlanc.
Our creativity comes from our community. We really get inspiration there. Not only does Rihanna continue to inspire us from a muse and visionary perspective, but we always want to make sure that we’re at that cross section of celebrating our communities. How do we give them a voice to be bold and disruptive? But then also celebrate with them. There was a designer that we were able to highlight around AAPI Heritage Month. It’s really authentic to who we are in terms of telling those stories. I continue to look forward to tools and ways that make us sharper. Our core values are always to make sure that we put our community at the center of the storytelling and what we do.
As an e-commerce-first business, how are you working with retailers like Galeries Lafayette, Nordstrom and so forth to really get the products in the hands of consumers?
We launched all of those partnerships last August and so they’re still relatively new. We’re getting some learnings of what works in those channels of distribution. How do we communicate our brand value and our brand proposition when it’s not in our own stores or on our own sites? It gives us a great opportunity to scale our brand and be in the path of consumers who aren’t necessarily as familiar with Savage X Fenty.
What’s been really deliberate about us and what we’ve been thinking through is how do we show up consistently no matter where a consumer enters us, whether it’s on their phone, or they’re in one of our doors or our partners doors. We are a brand that wants to meet consumers where they’re at and we’re growing, continuing to grow what we call our micro-influencer. It’s the everyday consumers who love our brand back to that authenticity, who we give them the license to tell our story on their own channels, in their own voice and that helps us to remain authentic.
