On 6 month 2 day, LVMH Group announced the appointment of Sylvia Tournery as president of Sephora's private label Sephora Collection. This is the first time since the private label's launch in 1995 that a position has been created with the title of President.
Tournery will join Sephora's global leadership team, reporting directly to Sephora global president and CEO Guillaume Motte, and will be committed to driving Sephora Collection into its next phase of growth. 2026 marks the 30 anniversary of Sephora Collection's birth, and establishing the president position at this juncture sends an especially clear signal.
▍Sylvia Tournery
In stark contrast to this appointment, the brand's past managers were mostly vice presidents or senior category directors. Public information shows that around 2016 to 2020, Elizabeth Hayes held the position of vice president of Sephora Collection; in 2025, Vogue Business's personnel tracking also mentioned that someone within Sephora was promoted to senior director responsible for the brand's color cosmetics category. From vice president to president is not just a promotion in rank, but also signifies a fundamental shift in Sephora's positioning of its private label.
Sephora Collection is Sephora's private label, covering categories such as color cosmetics, skincare, hair care, fragrance, brushes and accessories, with approximately 700 individual products. In Sephora's product assortment structure, the brand plays a dual role of entry-level prestige beauty and high-value professional products: on one hand, it attracts young consumers and first-time buyers with prices lower than those of major brands such as Lancôme, Dior Beauty, and YSL Beauty; on the other hand, it is sold in the prestige beauty retail environment by leveraging Sephora's in-store displays, beauty advisor recommendations, membership system, and online traffic.
▍Some product images of Sephora Collection
In terms of scale, Sephora Collection is already an indispensable foundation within the Sephora system. As early as 2020, nine of the top ten bestsellers in Sephora's Tmall flagship store were from Sephora Collection. LVMH has not disclosed Sephora Collection's standalone revenue, but third-party data provides some reference. According to statistics from data agency 1010data in 2022, in the year ending 2022 month 6, private label accounted for approximately 6.8% of Sephora's sales. Based on Sephora's global revenue of approximately 2025 hundred million euros in 160, if the share is in the range of 5% to 8%, Sephora Collection's annual sales scale is roughly between 8 hundred million and 12.8 hundred million euros (equivalent to approximately RMB 63 hundred million to 101 hundred million yuan). This is only a rough order-of-magnitude estimate, but it is sufficient to show that the scale of this business is far beyond that of an ordinary retail private label line.
Sylvia Tournery, who has been appointed president of Sephora Collection, was previously global deputy general manager of Lancôme under L'Oréal Group. She has nearly 20 years of experience in the beauty industry and has worked within the L'Oréal system for more than 17 years, holding several senior management positions, including Lancôme global travel retail brand director, Biotherm international brand director, and product manager for Viktor&Rolf and Cacharel in France.
In her most recent two years at Lancôme, she was fully responsible for the brand's global strategy, with her scope extending from product development to 360-degree communications and growth plans, and she was deeply involved in the global launch rhythm and efficacy narrative of Lancôme's premium skincare lines such as Absolue and Triple Serum. The common feature of these product lines is the construction of a complete consumer communication chain from ingredient iteration and formula upgrades to scientific summit launches, in which Tournery undertook systematic product development and brand narrative integration.
Behind this appointment, LVMH's strategic intent can be understood from three levels.
First, upgrading from a channel product line to an independent brand. Over the past thirty years, Sephora Collection's role has been closer to a private label line on Sephora's shelves, serving to supplement value, cover basic categories, and improve gross margin. But as Sephora has grown into LVMH Group's second-largest brand, with annual revenue approaching 160 hundred million euros, its private label still lacks an independent brand narrative and product leadership. Establishing the president position means managing Sephora Collection as an independent business unit, rather than as an auxiliary function of the retail department.
Second, filling the structural shortcoming in branding capability. Sephora has long focused on retail channels and brand curation, not on deep operation of self-created brands. Sephora Collection's shortcoming lies not in channel capability, but in the lack of premium product lines with a sense of series and technological narrative, the lack of a globally unified new product launch rhythm and brand image, and the lack of efficacy endorsement and consumer mindshare like a true beauty brand. Recruiting a senior executive from Lancôme who has been deeply involved in global premium skincare operations is precisely to fill these gaps. What LVMH values is not Tournery's retail experience, but her accumulated capabilities in premium beauty branding.
Third, seeking a second growth curve. As a retailer, Sephora's matrix of resident brands has matured, and the growth space for the assortment of nearly 500 brands is limited. Sephora Collection is Sephora's only fully self-controlled and higher-margin business, and enhancing its brand value will directly boost Sephora's overall profit. Guillaume Motte has clearly stated in media interviews that Sephora Collection occupies a significant and growing share of the business, and if it were removed, store traffic would decline and every brand would be affected. This judgment fundamentally denies the risk of self-cannibalization between the private label and resident brands.
In addition, changes in the Chinese market may also have influenced this decision. Sephora China has faced challenges in recent years, with full-year operating revenue of approximately 2025 hundred million yuan in 65.36, a decrease of about 8.5% from the previous year. At the same time, new beauty retailers such as HARMAY and THE COLORIST are also laying out private label lines, with pricing strategies highly overlapping with Sephora Collection. In this competitive landscape, if Sephora Collection wants to achieve brand elevation in the Chinese market, Tournery's premium brand operation capabilities point precisely to the approach of creating a sense of series and efficacy narrative, which is exactly the capability that Chinese beauty consumers currently value most.
Sephora's move to elevate its private label to president-level independent operation is quite leading in the entire beauty retail industry. By comparing the private label strategies of several major beauty retailers, the industry significance of this appointment can be seen more clearly.
● Ulta Beauty: higher sales share, but not independently branded
In the U.S. market, Ulta Beauty is Sephora's most direct competitor. Ulta Beauty has its own brand, Ulta Beauty Collection, which also covers categories such as color cosmetics, skincare, and haircare, focusing on an affordable and trendy route. According to the first quarter financial report of fiscal year 2025, its own brand market penetration increased by 75 basis points, reaching 17.8%, a proportion even higher than Sephora's.
However, from an organizational structure perspective, Ulta Beauty has not appointed an independent president-level executive for its own brand, but instead advances it as part of the overall retail strategy, managed uniformly by the merchandising department.
● Watsons: Large scale but fragmented brand power
In the Asian market, Watsons' own brand layout has a longer history and larger scale. Watsons' own brand product count has exceeded 2000 types, covering skincare, color cosmetics, body care, beauty tools and other categories, with sales covering more than 3500 outlets, and having more than 2700 own brand consultants, with a sales proportion of approximately 15%. From the perspective of coverage breadth and sales proportion, Watsons' own brand weight in the channel is significantly higher than Sephora's.
▍Watsons official own brand product collection image
But Watsons' own brand emphasizes cost-effectiveness and rapid response, and in organizational structure it belongs to the merchandise procurement system, also never elevating the own brand to a president-level business unit.
● Douglas: Own brand not given an independent strategic positioning
In the European market, German beauty retailer Douglas has its own brand Douglas Collection, focusing on cost-effectiveness and minimalist design. The brand is sold in Douglas stores and e-commerce channels, with a product line mainly consisting of basic skincare and color cosmetics, and also has no independent president position. In recent years, Douglas has placed more emphasis on omnichannel transformation and store expansion, and the own brand has not been given an independent brand-oriented strategic positioning.
In addition, Chinese local beauty collection stores are also laying out own brands. Harmay Concept under Harmay has launched multiple beauty products, and The Colorist also has its own brand line, but these brands are currently small in scale, mainly playing a role in supplementing gross margin and creating exclusivity, and have not yet formed an independent brand operation system.
Overall, the evolution path of global beauty retail own brands can be roughly divided into three levels.
Level one, basic cost-effectiveness driven. The core demand of this type of own brand is to provide low-price alternative choices, replacing national brands in categories with high functional homogeneity. Typical representatives include Balea (dm-drogerie markt) and Isana (Rossmann) of European drugstore chains. This model can achieve a penetration rate of 20% to 40% in personal cleansing and basic skincare, but in emotionally driven fragrance and high-end color cosmetics it is almost unable to compete with professional brands.
Level two, category complementary. This type of own brand serves the function of filling price bands and attracting entry-level consumers, complementing rather than competing with resident major brands. Sephora Collection was at this level in the past. Walmart's various hypermarket beauty own brands also mostly remain at this stage, with the main strategy being to provide own products in basic categories such as hair care, skincare, and color cosmetics, forming price complementarity with other professional brands.
▍Walmart core own brand system
Level three, independent brand. This is the direction retailers are currently striving to climb. Retailers no longer simply regard own brands as channel fillers, but invest in research and development, formulate differentiated positioning, and build a complete brand system, enabling them to compete on the same stage with national professional brands. The UK's Boots No7 is a pioneer of this path. The No7 brand has a history of nearly one hundred years, with independent research and development, product lines, and marketing investment, and has established solid consumer awareness in the UK beauty market.
Sephora is attempting a similar path. Tournery's appointment means LVMH hopes Sephora Collection will benchmark against successful precedents like No7, and even complete the brand transformation in a shorter time.
Taken together, Sephora is the first among global beauty retailers to establish a president position for its own brand, which is a forward-looking strategic attempt. It means that large beauty retailers are redefining the value of own brands: no longer an appendage of the channel, but a core asset that can independently create growth and build brand equity.
Whether Tournery can use the branding capabilities she accumulated over 17 years at L'Oréal to help Sephora Collection transform from a shelf product of Sephora into a truly global beauty brand will be an important topic for the industry to continuously observe in the coming years. 2026 coincides with the 30 anniversary of the birth of Sephora Collection. Whether this new president from Lancôme can open the next chapter of growth may soon be revealed.