Glossy: A Quasi-Review (Among Other Things)

I bought Marisa Meltzer’s Glossy the week it came out, slightly against my better judgment. Having read interviews with Meltzer on both Amy Odell’s Back Row and Jessica DeFino’s The Unpublishable, I suspected that I may already have read the most salacious and fascinating parts of the book, a sort of business book-slash-biography with a hint of fan fiction about it (at least, according to Nick Axelrod-Welk and Annie Krieghbaum, both ex-Weiss employees whose names pop up several times throughout the book, and who discuss it on their podcast, Eye Witness Beauty).

And honestly? I was right.

That’s not to say that I wouldn’t recommend it, just that, as with Game of Thrones, I wouldn’t recommend reading the book and watching the show or, in this case, reading the book and devouring the interviews.

Though it’s being touted as a book that explores the rise “and fall” of Glossier, Glossy is pretty much a straight, documentary-style telling of the establishment of the brand and the day-by-day evolution of the company, in very practical terms: x date, this release happened; x date, this store opened; x date, this person was hired.

That may make it sound as though Glossy is heavy on facts, but to be perfectly frank, I was left with more questions than answers.

Maybe that’s due to the fact that I already knew a fair amount about Glossier, the beauty brand founded by Emily Weiss who, riding high on the success of her editorial website Into the Gloss, was promising to revolutionise beauty by, er, selling us products that make us look like we’re not using any products.

Sure, I didn’t know who exactly was the head of product development, but that’s not the type of information I was hungry for.

What I wanted to know – and still want to know, although I doubt this information will ever be forthcoming – is the nitty-gritty of how it all happened:

• What was Weiss’ pitch to investors? When she got them in the room, how did she sell them on the concept of Glossier? What, exactly, about this fledgling beauty brand, founded by someone who did not have a background in business, marketing or even beauty, really, coming from a more traditional media background, did they see as being worth investing in?

• Though we know how much investment was put into Glossier, and that it gained unicorn status – achieving a $1 billion valuation – in the spring of 2019, I really want to know what the P&L sheets looked like. How much was Glossier actually making? And, after the first round of investment, after which point Glossier had the money to rent offices, hire more staff, launch products with not an inconsiderable amount of fanfare, why did it need all of these further rounds of funding? What, exactly, was being funded? And why?

• Why did Weiss step down as CEO? The book does a good job of giving us the story – the line being fed to the public via the media when Weiss stepped down in the summer of 2022 – but what’s the truth?

Ultimately, despite the fact that Meltzer has spent hours with Weiss, been invited to meetings at Glossier HQ, and arguably had more insider knowledge than anyone else in media, the book just left me feeling a little as though Meltzer simply didn’t have the access required to write a book like this.

It’s the kind of book that, ordinarily, promises to reveal something about its subject. In the case of Glossy, it simply falls short.

⭐️⭐️

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I’ve been thinking a lot, lately, about all of the strangers I’ve offended throughout my career (so far), and I’m not sure why. I’m not having a mid-life crisis (at least, not that I’m aware of) and I’m not having a come-to-Jesus moment where I evaluate and reckon with my sins, but still… they play on my mind.

There’s the Irish television presenter who refused to be styled by me for a magazine shoot because, some years previously, I had dissed her outfit live on TV3, when I took part in a fashion police panel.

The Irish model, whose wedding dress I said had clearly been designed to highlight her thinness – who asked me, honestly? – and who later stated that she would not sit down for an interview with me, going so far as to say she would do it with “anyone else”.

The Irish stylist, whose work I posted on my Irish Times blog alongside a spread from a copy of Spanish Elle, a spread that had clearly been used as “inspiration”. That was as a result of an anonymous letter I received from someone who’d gone to the bother of cutting out photographs from each publication. “You might want to look into this,” they said. I was in my early 20s then and felt as though working at a national broadsheet gave me some kind of responsibility to investigate things, like the Woodward (or Bernstein) of the fashion pages.

And that’s just the women; lest I be accused of letting my internalised misogyny show, I have fallen afoul of many a man, too.

Ray Shah once posted an update to his Facebook page, suggesting that I needed a punch in the face; one of my closest friend’s husbands “liked” the status, and though I can’t be sure that he knew it was about me, I’ve been uncomfortable around him ever since.

When a friend posted something about Ray Foley on her Facebook page – this was when he presented Take Me Out – I made an unkind remark about him, not realising that they, too, were Facebook friends. Later, live on his radio show, he spoke about how his Mum had seen me presenting a fashion segment on television, laughed about how terrible I looked, how ridiculous it was that I had anything to say about fashion, how I shouldn’t ever be on television. I suppose I deserved it.

Comedian PJ Gallagher blocked me on Twitter, as did Joe Duffy (of all people). I’ve no idea what I said about them, but I’m sure there was something.

As someone who is easily offended, someone who cries when I read the insulting things people think about me, or when I hear people criticising my work, or my appearance, or both, I feel a great deal of guilt about having upset these people through my carelessness, or self-righteousness, or sheer disregard for the fact that being kind is more important than being funny.

I’ve contemplated reaching out to them, and apologising for being harsh or unthinking, for hurting their feelings when, in most cases, I didn’t mean to. But it feels a bit like confessing to a partner you’ve cheated on: who would it serve? Who would feel better afterwards? Them, having just been reminded of a cruelty they have – I’m sure – not thought about in years, or me?

The answer seems obvious.

There is nothing that can be done but feel bad, and, I guess, use those experiences to be better, more considerate, less reckless with the people whose names I find in my mouth. Or try, at the very least.

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I’m currently reading…

The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer. I loved The Wife and am enjoying this, too, but a massive event in the middle of the book jolted me out of my enjoyment slightly, so I was forced to take a little break, put the book in the proverbial freezer, so to speak.

I’m trying to get back to it now, so that I can finally make some inroads in my TBR pile, which includes Fourth Wing; Ask Again, Yes; Family Lore; and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, among other titles.