Last month, Rhode's new "cover girl" elicited a gasp in the Marie Claire office. Forget the women of the moment, Hailey Bieber's beauty brand tapped this year's hottest straight, male actor: Harris Dickinson, of Babygirl fame, to promote her new Glazing Mist. "WHY WOULD A MAN BE THERE! [sic]", wrote one Reddit user in response to the campaign on the forum "LAinfluencersnark", while another added, "What does this have to do with skincare or make-up?"
Initially, yes, it raised an eyebrow coming from Rhode's strain of “clean girl” beauty, which is famed for birthing frivolous foodstuff-related trends, like ‘glazed doughnut nails’, ‘latte make-up’ and ‘strawberry girl blush’. But really, tapping Hollywood in this way makes perfect sense for a brand that has always been ahead of the curve, as their recent $1 billion acquisition from e.l.f. Beauty proves. So, I wondered, was Rhode onto something more? Does Dickinson's appointment signal his demographic's growing interest in the industry?
