Ami Colé is set to close in September.
The brand, founded by Diarrha N’Diaye-Mbaye in 2021, will cease operations in September.
The decision comes on the heels of an expansion with Ami Colé’s partnership with Sephora in 2024, and it counted L’Oréal’s BOLD venture capital arm, True Beauty Ventures, Imaginary Ventures, Greycroft and Debut Capital as investors.
“I’m genuinely curious about the fate of this beauty industry — that is so multifaceted and complex, and more complex than the pace of which we’re measuring success,” N’Diaye-Mbaye told WWD of the decision. “Partners like Sephora are really trying their best, but there needs to be a sit-down of all of the minds, the brands, the retailers and the investors in the community to understand if we are going to all hold hands together or say ‘we don’t care’ together. The misalignment is really painful.”
Related Articles
N’Diaye-Mbaye first revealed the decision to shutter the brand in an essay in New York Magazine’s The Cut Thursday.
N’Diaye-Mbaye spent time in media and working at both L’Oréal and Glossier before creating the brand, which was meant to tap into the no-makeup–makeup aesthetic for melanin-rich skin. “It was very clear that Black experiences and Black beauty were very much in the peripheral view and not really celebrated in their true glory,” she said at the time of the brand’s debut.
Ami Colé launched after the murder of George Floyd in 2020 and the ensuing rush of financial and retail support for Black-owned brands. As reported, that landscape has changed considerably, with funding drying up for Black-owned brands and broader DE&I rollbacks under the current presidential administration hindering institutional support.
“I worked really hard as a solo founder, and every single one of my investors can attest that I have turned every rock and stone and pebble to make sure that we were as diligent as possible,” N’Diaye-Mbaye said. “Are we a business? Yes. Do businesses fail? Yes.”
Businesses of all sizes are feeling the heat, with the Estée Lauder Cos., Coty Inc. and most recently, Shiseido Americas reducing their headcounts.
“I came to the table sometimes with a lot of very hard questions that, being a pioneer and the first brand to do a lot of things, especially at this speed, couldn’t be answered,” she said. “I can only say I tried my very, very best; I wish the fate was different. I wish this was a billion-dollar company, and every investor I spoke to in 2019 and 2020 believed it could be. It’s sad that that could not come to fruition.”
