4 days ago
Jimmy Fairly co-founder launches cosmetics brand Firn
Firn is a new French cosmetics brand founded by a trio of entrepreneurs that includes Sacha Bostoni, co-founder of successful eyewear retailer Jimmy Fairly. Firn products were introduced a short while ago on the e-shop of Parisian beauty concept store Oh My Cream! Firn wants to combine a science-based approach with a quality, affordable shopping experience, and is set to open its first physical stores in Paris by the end of the year.
Bostoni has stepped away from the operational running of Jimmy Fairly, in which the HLD investment fund acquired a stake two years ago, and bought an agricultural estate in the south of France. A change in outlook that prompted him to seek to replicate the success enjoyed by Jimmy Fairly, this time in the cosmetics sector. The recipe Bostoni chose is to create high-performance products sold directly to consumers in a slick shopping environment, at affordable prices.
Bostoni has launched Firn with Clémence de Stabenrath, formerly with L'Oréal and Typology, and Raphaële Four, founder of lingerie brand Girls in Paris. The trio has tapped the expertise of Dr Fred Zülli, a Swiss expert renowned for his research on plant stem cells, who regularly collaborates with luxury cosmetics brands.
Firn products are based on a patented innovation called STM30 Complex, which combines Alpine plant stem cells with a glacial micro-organism, and whose function is to regenerate skin. The line's first five products include a skin regenerating cream (priced at €55) and four different types of serum (priced between €25 and €29). The range will be soon extended to over 40 items, featuring facial skincare, bodycare and haircare products, and food supplements.
Retail-wise, Firn will be launched online in September, and the plan is to open two physical stores in Paris before the end of the year, one in the Marais district and one on rue Montorgueil.
The stores will offer personalised skin treatments and a premium shopping experience based on Firn's rigorous science-based approach. Habib Menani, who has worked at Jimmy Fairly and was previously at Fusalp, will be in charge of Firn's retail expansion.
'Like Jimmy Fairly, Sézane and Polène, Firn ranks among those brands launched by a generation of entrepreneurs who have managed to cut out the middleman and reduce marketing costs in order to sell at extremely affordable prices,' said Bostoni, emphasising that, for example, there is no marketing manager at Firn.
Firn, a name that in English refers to a glacier's crystalline snow layer not yet compressed into ice, is independently funded and also backed by a few entrepreneurs, and is keen to become a top name in cosmetics in France and elsewhere.
