Vendome announced as exclusive Fenty retailer in Trinidad and Tobago

BARBADIAN entrepreneur and international pop star Robyn Rihanna Fenty’s popular Fenty beauty brands will soon be available across nine Caribbean countries, including Trinidad and Tobago.

Rihanna, as she is known worldwide, announced on October 1 that her billion-dollar beauty, skincare and fragrance brands Fenty Beauty, Fenty Skin and Fenty Fragrance will be available across nine Caribbean countries from October 24.

She made the announcement via a 24-second video posted on the official social media platforms of the respective Fenty brands.

“After all these years, I could not be more excited to announce that Fenty Beauty and Fenty Skin are finally going to be available across the Caribbean and in my home country, Barbados.”

Shouting out her Caribbean roots, Rihanna said her brands were inspired by her own beauty needs.

In the past, she has been very vocal about using extracts in her Fenty products from some of the tropical fruits she grew up eating in Barbados. Her recent Fruit Quench'rz lip oil launch contains extracts from Barbados cherry and passionfruit.

“Fenty Beauty and Fenty Skin were inspired by my own beauty needs and of course growing up in the Caribbean. I know you will all find something that works for you.”

The exclusive retailers for each island, among them Antigua, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Grenada, St Maarten and TT, were also announced on social media.

In 2021, Forbes business magazine confirmed Rihanna’s billionaire status, attributing the bulk of her fortune to Fenty Beauty.

Vendome is the exclusive retailer in TT. The store has two locations in Gulf City and Trincity Mall.

Newsday spoke with Vendome’s general manager Raymond Kattoura, who said the launch is very exciting news for the Vendome team and their customers.

“It is pretty exciting. Since the launch I’ve discovered that a lot of people do use Fenty, and I didn’t know that volume of people use Fenty. We do look forward to providing the professional services as well as providing the products that people will be looking forward to purchasing.”

Kattoura remained tight-lipped on how the Vendome-Fenty collaboration happened, but did say the singer wanted to make the brand readily accessible to Caribbean customers.

“She is a Caribbean gyal. For the love of the Caribbean and her people, she wanted to spread her brand so everybody could be a part of it.”

Kattoura invited the public to “come on down” to Vendome stores for their October 24 Fenty launch and assured local Fenty lovers Vendome would have their favourite Fenty products in stock on launch day. He also revealed there would be surprises on offer for customers, and encouraged people to follow Vendome’s social media pages @vendome.tt on Instagram and Vendome TT on Facebook for more information.

“We will have supply of the products that they (customers) use, like and look forward to, so come on down.”

The manager of Vendome’s Gulf City branch, Patricia Kallicharan, said the Fenty brands are well-recognised in TT and she has been receiving an above-average number of calls from customers since news of the launch went viral.

“I am ecstatic because I know the brand recognition in TT is very high. As the manager of the Gulf City branch, I am so excited. It’s a new adventure for us. We have already seen a peak in interest. Customers are calling me for the whole day about this news.”

Kallicharan said customers want genuine products and having Rihanna co-sign Vendome as the official TT store retailing the Fenty line will further serve to assure customers.

“Customers want the line. They want the genuine thing. Because they are seeing the face of Rihanna and we are not just saying something to them, they know that we will have the exclusive line.”

Vendome retails skin, beauty and hair-care lines as well as fragrances.