In 2015, the beauty retailer Sephora made its brand tagline “Let’s Beauty Together,” switching away from a prior mantra, “The Beauty Authority.” Its senior vice president for marketing and brand, Deborah Yeh, explained the tagline several years later: “Beauty is diverse and has many voices and faces,” she said. “We believe it’s for our clients to define and for us to celebrate.”
In late April, the R&B star SZA, who is black (and has said she worked at Sephora before she made it as a musician), reported that a Sephora employee in Calabasas, California, had “called security to make sure I wasn’t stealing.” The news threatened to upset that carefully honed, diversity-focused image, which has resonated with the brand’s young American customers… The New York Times