Kat Von D Beauty Gets Rebranded by Showing Kat Von D the Door
Will KVD Vegan Beauty Survive the Reputation of its Notorious Predecessor?
For years, her brand was under fire.
Kat Von D has now officially sold all her personal shares in the once-popular KVD Vegan Beauty.
The purchaser is Kendo, a company that also owns Fenty Beauty, Bite Cosmetics, and Marc Jacobs Beauty.
The takeover isn’t controversial. In fact, many welcomed the change and are contemplating returning to the brand—now that it’s anti-Semitic, anti-vaxxer founder has left the building.
What is controversial here is that Kendo is not renaming and rebranding the company.
Instead, it has kept the name and the KVD initials as the logo.
The announcement, posted on Instagram at the end of January, told followers the initials “stand for our ethos and new manifesto!”
“We believe in Kindness, Vegan Beauty + Discovery (and doing good),” the company said, explaining what the KVD initials now stand for.
According to Von D herself, she was simply too busy with her new child, vegan shoe line, producing a new album, and preparing for a world tour to keep up with the struggling makeup company.
According to both Von D and Kendo, the formulas will remain the same, and the brand—as the name suggests—will remain vegan and cruelty-free.
While it’s great that the company will still be an option for those who love it, I don’t understand why it took so long.
Kat Von D has been problematic for over a decade.
Many recall when she left Miami Ink, allegedly leaving an anti-Semitic note for then-boss Ami James.
Von D also dated white nationalist Jesse James, until she found out he was dating 19 other women.
She named lipsticks after Nazis and employed other derogatory terms, but ended a friendship with fellow beauty guru Jeffree Star over racism, bullying, and promoting drug use.
This is the same woman who married a man with a swastika tattoo, disqualified a contest winner because they’re a Trump supporter, and decided to announce that her (then unborn) child would be raised vegan and without vaccinations.
Like many others, if I don’t like the person behind the brand, I won’t buy from them.
I even went as far as to choose a different free birthday gift from Sephora instead of the KVD minis they were offering.
While I can understand the brand recognition motive behind keeping the name, so people know they’re still around, it’s going to be an uphill battle to get the clientele back after so many years.
With other brands fighting for the spotlight and the money, KVD Vegan Beauty is going to face an uphill battle regaining clientele.
Kat Von D, as far as many people are concerned, is a pretty terrible person or at least someone with terrible views.
I’m not sure how well the brand will fare if Von D gets herself into more hot water.
Not everyone is interested in the brand, as it stands—even with the rebrand—and I worry they may suffer in the future because of her past affiliation with them.
In 2016 KVD was one of the first mainstream brands to be cruelty-free and vegan, getting ahead of the competition and carving out a niche for themselves where demand had been.
Given the infamy of Kat Von D, it would be hard to imagine how KVD would manage, even under new ownership, to survive.
