an attempt to understand harry styles's brand, Pleasing
a visit to their Venice pop-up and some musing on celebrity brands
When tasked with explaining Pleasing to the uninitiated, I’ve never known where to start. The simple answer is Harry Styles’s brand, but that feels insufficient and also like a conversation killer in a world of celebrity brand fatigue. What neat little category do you give to a brand that sells nail polish, clothes, skincare, perfume, Christmas ornaments, candles, throw blankets, journals, and netted totes large enough to hold a small child? I don’t believe there is one. Of course, there are unifying principles that govern the brand and draw thin threads through the aforementioned products, but even taking a casual scroll through the website is deeply confusing. I didn’t understand what Pleasing could be beyond some strange vanity brand or another blatant cash grab until I visited the Pleasing store in Venice this past weekend.
For some background, I first fell into Styles’s music when I decided to give his debut album a serious listen in 2019. By that fall, I’d become fully invested with a devoted Twitter account and all, just in time for the mystery-filled rollout of Fine Line. I’ve waffled in and out of just how deep my devotion runs in the years since, but on November 15, 2021 I got a Twitter notification from Pleasing about a pop-up, a first glimpse at the brand, at a nail salon in Studio City starting in thirty minutes. I threw on my Harry merch and got in an Uber, frantically texting my friend who was already there for updates.
What I found in Studio City was an ice cream truck full of nail polish, a snaking line of teen and twenty-something girls like myself, and a palpable hope that Styles would strut out of the nail salon to witness the birth of his new brand. The first choke of disappointment came when we all realized that we’d be coughing up $65 for a set of four nail polish colors or walking away empty handed. There were no individual bottles available to purchase, and the cute black crewnecks all the employees wore were not yet for sale. We all paid up to be the first to own this new piece of the Styles universe.
Ultimately, the sun went down and Harry did not appear – though his stylist Harry Lambert, who is also heavily involved in the brand, did. The nail polish was fine. It was nail polish. Some of the colors were disappointingly thin, and none of it seemed all that much better than Essie. Also, I couldn’t get a reasonably priced Uber back to my apartment for hours, which definitely played a role in tainting the experience.
Ever since, I’ve rolled my eyes at most of the random Pleasing announcements I happened to catch. After the excitement of Harry’s House and my tour shows passed, I fell out of the fandom almost entirely. I questioned why I’d trust Harry Styles with something as precious as skincare when the creams and eye rollers dropped. This general skepticism towards Pleasing is still common in the fandom. Certain early products – especially ones that Harry was very publicly seen using like the crewneck and the tote bag – had fans clambering to purchase, while items like the new tank top from the Ribbed collection that dropped on Monday got plenty of disdainful jokes about a $65 solid colored tank top. Pleasing is not an affordable brand, and it has never wanted to be. This, unfortunately, often clashes with its most natural consumer base.
After ignoring Pleasing and being nothing more than a passive member of Harry’s fandom for the last year and a half, this January, a school project sent me back down the One Direction rabbit hole, and I found myself curious about what I missed in Harry’s universe in that time. Since he’s been pretty quiet in the last six months, I ended up at Pleasing fairly quickly discovering that there were now clothes and fragrances and journals in the mix. I clicked on the $135 sweatpants because I’d been in the market for a new perfect pair of forever sweats, curious to see if they could possibly worth that pretty penny. But I was impressed to see that they were made of organic and recycled cotton and produced in Los Angeles in a presumably ethical manner. There are plenty of sweatpants that cost more without that transparency, quality, or alignment with my values (just look at Free People), so I was intrigued.
I sat in my economics lecture and read about their ethics. “Pleasing is committed to operating in an economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable manner,” their FAQ page reads. They further detail how they require complete transparency from supply chain partners. The products are cruelty free and vegan, aside from their “sustainably sourced beeswax” in the lip balm, and the nail polish is free of 12 apparently horrible sciencey sounding things that give me pause about painting my nails with conventional nail polish. They are astute enough to acknowledge that, “We also recognize that perfection is difficult to attain, and we are committed to working towards constant improvement in our day-to-day operations,” as there are always holes to be found even in the best of brands if you want to dig far enough.
Additionally, each collection partners with a different charity roughly correlated with the theme of the drop from nonprofits addressing climate change to homelessness to LGBTQ organizations to food insecurity, similar to how Harry’s tour made donations to local charities at each stop. As someone who tries her best to make conscious choices when shopping, I know that it’s easy for companies to make a lot of lofty pronouncements without much impact, but I also appreciate how much ethical production, climate consciousness, and clean products are emphasized within the product pages and about sections of the Pleasing website. If I’m splurging for something in Pleasing’s price point, these are the efforts I want to see from a brand, efforts I rarely see taken.
That got me curious enough to make a plan with a friend of mine, one who only begrudgingly listens to me talk about Harry Styles, to investigate the Venice pop-up shop. I wanted to feel these ethically, locally made sweatpants for myself. So we braved the rain (a major feat in LA) for a trip to Abbot Kinney.
Immediately, the Pleasing shop was easy to spot. The robin’s egg blue paint on the outside stood out, and the propped open door revealed a colorful world of curiosities. We crossed the street, stepped inside, and were immediately greeted by a cheerful voice asking if we were familiar with Pleasing.
Inside, the blue motif continued with a 50s diner checkered floor with the black tiles replaced with light blue, a style that even continued up an accent wall. The front of the shop was stocked with apparel. The first carousel in the middle of the room held plain hoodies in a variety of colors. The circular rack behind it offered $70, irresistibly soft T-shirts with goofy cartoon characters printed on the front. If money was no object, these would be the perfect sleep shirts, but, alas, $70 even for a really nice T-shirt isn’t justifiable in my world, especially if I just wanted to wear it to bed. Speaking of sleep, the wall racks held flouncy cotton lounge shorts, the new Ribbed tank tops and boxer/sleep shorts, and fluffy, decadent robes. The front wall showcased the various colors of the netted totes. The more you looked around, the more random delightful oddities you found. The cartoon characters from the shirts turned into Christmas ornaments. Thick, deliciously soft scarves. A throw blanket that looked like it was from your grandma’s house in the best way possible. Three different journals tucked away in the back corner. We wandered around running our fingers over the various fabrics and stopping at both of the large glass display desks that showcased the various nail polish collections in their unique boxes.
Then I proceeded to paint on a new color of Pleasing polish to each of my friend’s nails (because mine were already painted) from the adorable try-it display. Her tolerance was already rising from the giggly, joyful feeling of being inside the shop. Arranged around on a tiered platter was every color of the nail polish sold to see which colors struck your fancy. A silver tray held samples of all the beauty and skincare products to play with. Then there were sample perfumes with tester papers as well as the scents held within glass cloches – straight out of Alice in Wonderland – to better take in the scent. Speaking of sampling, there was a curtained off corner of the room complete with a long mirror and cute stool to try on the clothes. I gave the sweatpants a go, dubious about how good these magical, ethical sweatpants could really be. I’ve tried on and rejected a lot of sweats on my princess and the pea hunt for the perfect pair. I put these on, though, and was shocked. They were comfortable and cozy without being sweat-inducing, baggy without awkwardly flouncing out from the hips or swallowing me entirely. Sleek without trying too hard. I was shocked.
There was a new experience in every corner of the store, and even though the shop was quite small, we spent a long time exploring and re-exploring each section because it just felt nice to be there. When I contemplated buying another ridiculously expensive nail polish set as a gift to myself (now more appreciative of its higher safety standards than I was a few years ago), we debated the shades, and one of the Pleasing employees helpfully chimed in with his experiences playing around with the nail polish before it released. Everyone was so friendly and helpful but also real and honest.
I knew that Pleasing as its own world and experience was something special, though, when I found the journals tucked away on a low shelf and pulled one of each out to examine since journals are my kryptonite. My friend leaned over my shoulder and picked up a blue one for herself. “I’m going to get this for my work notes,” she proclaimed, and I grinned. The girl who’d spent years ribbing me for my Harry Styles fandom had fallen for Pleasing too.
We made our purchases, both paying the extra $5 for the canvas shopping bags/totes, thoughtfully complete with a flat bottom so they can actually hold more, and continued down Abbot Kinney to see what else was out there. We waited in a ridiculous line for, what I was assured were, very special Italian sandwiches, and I tried on a lot more clothes, never finding the same instant joy as I did with the Pleasing sweats. As we wandered back up the road towards the car, she turned to me and asked, “Do you want to go back into Pleasing for a moment?”
So we went back to soak up some last drops of that Pleasing energy and inhale the perfume scents until my head couldn’t take it anymore. Unlike my experience with the nail polish ice cream truck, this IRL Pleasing visit made me realize the value of this brand. All the products are wildly all over the place, and besides being united by shared principles in creation, the items themselves are also bonded in that they surprise and delight. They’re simple, every day things that offer small boosts of joy, something that feels special and elevated, in your daily basics. My friend sent me a text a few days later, commenting on how nicely her pen glided over the journal’s smooth pages, and I beamed at myself in the mirror before heading out to my 8:00 AM class in my new sweats.
The shop itself and its careful curation demonstrated this central theme. They’ve built a particular universe, even beyond the products in the in-store experience, that just happens to be highly aligned with my personal aesthetic. Eclectic and a bit chaotic, vintage mixed thoughtfully with new. Pretty blues and gold leaf and mirrors. A bit of a Mad Hatter flair. Everything within the pop-up felt distinct and intentional right down to the antique-looking cut glass candle warmer to showcase the scent of their candle without the hazard of an open flame. The little touches were just exquisite, carefully and specifically designed to someone’s particular taste, made to unite all these surprisingly joyful things.
Harry’s face is not central to the advertising, campaigns, or aesthetic of Pleasing. You could easily wander in off the street and never know there was a connection to a famous pop star facilitating two pop-up stores and a spot at Selfridges. It just seems like another cute, quirky boutique, and I think that plays in the brand’s favor. Celebrity brand disdain and distrust is real, and trying to frame a brand like Pleasing in the universe of celebrity merchandise, where products are usually overpriced and of questionable quality, does it a disservice as a concept and an experience that works far removed from Styles himself.
For fans who live in these major cities and pay the shop a visit, there is the undeniable essence of Harry in the room – a whimsy, a curiosity, a gentleness, an emphasis on kindness, the sheer will to simply curate things that generate happiness – even without the obvious branding, or perhaps, more so, because of it. Being co-directed by Style’s creative director, Molly Hawkins, and his stylist, Harry Lambert, certainly helps carry that consistency of voice through his projects while also making Pleasing an effort beyond only Styles’s point of view. Speaking to Vogue Business, Hawkins furthered this idea saying, “Every great brand has an imaginative founder, great at building teams and making things people want. Ours happens to be a celebrity.” She continued to talk about how Pleasing is rare in not being designed around Styles’s image but rather, “Pleasing is another way to create the world he wants to see.”
Pleasing is hard to frame within the realm of singular celebrity brands that are sometimes a quality extension of a star’s other interests (think something like Halsey’s make-up company About Face) and other times feel like a desperate attempt to diversify income streams away from the struggling music industry. While certainly building a foundation on Styles’s generally younger fanbase who are invested from the start, there’s an eye on creating a luxury brand that can accumulate its own cache with careful choices and enough time.
Like with everything Styles does, there’s a fair bit of nuance here, and even having invested more time understanding the Harry Styles extended universe than most people, Pleasing has taken a long time for me to crack. It certainly operates on a number of fronts, more successful in some than others. But I’m genuinely excited to see where Pleasing and its own unique universe goes. After visiting the shop, it feels like a brand I can trust and turn to when I want something high quality, long lasting, and thoughtfully produced, which is honestly an exhaustingly hard set of qualifications to find from retailers in 2024. And, for that, I’m glad that Harry Styles was able to lead me to it.