Vice President Creative Operations

amika presents Crowns in Bloom: Celebrating Hair as art, identity, and culture. Sep 24, 2026, 09:00 ET A new exhibition curated by amika and Auttrianna Ward brings together an intergenerational group of contemporary artists to celebrate the artistry and cultural significance of hair NEW YORK, Sept. 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ - For this year's New York Art Fair Week, amika, the Brooklyn-born, salon-raised professional haircare brand, presents Crowns in Bloom: Celebrating Hair in Contemporary Art, an exhibition curated by Auttrianna Ward. Rooted in amika's "All Hair Is Welcome" philosophy, the exhibition celebrates and explores hair as a powerful form of identity, memory, culture, and self-expression. On view to the public from September 24 through October 9, 2026, the exhibition brings together an intergenerational group of contemporary artists across painting, sculpture, photography, installation, and film. Crowns in Bloom considers hair as material, metaphor, and cultural archive, exploring how it has been cut, braided, wrapped, sculpted, colored, and adorned across cultures and generations. Through four thematic pillars, Hair as Medium, Hair as Play, Hair as Landscape, and Hair as Ritual, the exhibition explores hair as an artistic language and its visual, symbolic, and creative possibilities. Rooted in amika's graphic packaging, fearless relationship with color, and longstanding collaboration with professional hair artists, creativity is central to how the brand sees beauty. With Crowns in Bloom, that philosophy moves into a new space, creating a platform for artists to explore the cultural, personal, and creative possibilities of hair. "At amika, we've always believed that hair is a form of self-expression, and that creativity has no boundaries," said Chelsea Riggs, CEO of amika. "Crowns in Bloom gives us an opportunity to explore that belief from a new perspective, bringing together artists who see hair not just as something we style, but as a material, a memory, a cultural marker, and a way of telling our stories. We're excited to create a space where these different perspectives can come together and celebrate all that hair can represent." Mickalene Thomas, Malick Sidibé, Torkwase Dyson, Deborah Willis, and Akinola Davies Jr are among the artists featured in the exhibition, representing a range of backgrounds, disciplines, and perspectives. Their work demonstrates the many ways hair can function within contemporary art, from artists who engage hair as a physical medium to works that evoke its forms more abstractly. The exhibition also features work by Vernon François, renowned hairstylist and member of amika's Stylist Circle. His participation brings the perspective of professional hair artistry into the broader artistic conversation, reflecting the ways hairstyling itself can be a form of creative expression and connecting the salon artistry at the foundation of amika with the contemporary artists represented throughout Crowns in Bloom. "At amika, All Hair Is Welcome is more than a promise. It's our belief that everyone deserves to feel seen, celebrated, and free to express who they are," said Gianne L. Doherty, Director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion + Impact at amika. "Crowns in Bloom brings that belief to life by giving artists a platform to explore the powerful role hair plays in how we see ourselves and connect with one another." Rather than defining what hair should be, Crowns in Bloom celebrates what it can become. Through the work of artists across generations and disciplines, the exhibition invites audiences to look again at something deeply familiar and discover the stories, traditions, identities, and creative possibilities held within it. Exhibition Details: Crowns in Bloom: Celebrating Hair in Contemporary Art Curator: Auttrianna Ward Dates: September 24-October 9, 2026 Time: 10:00 AM - 6:00 PM Location: 526 West 26th Street, Suite 207, New York, NY 10011 About amika: amika means friend. We're a fearless, Brooklyn-born haircare brand that's loved by stylists, powered by results + built on the belief that haircare should be joyful. Born in 2007, we set out to challenge a category rooted in conformity + create a world that celebrates individuality, creativity + self-expression. Today, our vision remains the same. We're driven by clinically proven performance, responsible ingredients + a mission to give our community the tools they need to feel confident in their hair - and themselves. All hair is welcome(TM). About the curator: Auttrianna Ward is an independent curator, film artist, publisher, and cultural producer, and the founder of Auttrianna Projects. She has spent the last fifteen years working between New York, Baltimore, London, Brazil, and Los Angeles. Her practice uses curatorial, publishing, and film-based methodologies to decenter dominant American narratives and foreground the work of Black, Asian, and Indigenous artists globally, with particular attention to the legacies of colonial violence and the possibilities of collective memory. Ward's writing has been featured by the Museum of Modern Art, Studio Museum Magazine, Saint Heron, Elephant Magazine, and Elle Canada, and her work has been covered by Frieze, Artnet, Vogue México, Rolling Stone Africa, Forbes, Cultured, and the Los Angeles Times, among others. She holds an MFA in Curatorial Practice from the Maryland Institute College of Art and a BA in History from Manhattanville College. SOURCE amika

Amika CMO shares how to keep product launch momentum going For months. Amika launches The Protector with limited distribution for the first six weeks. The hair care brand chose its direct-to-consumer website, where 45% of customers are repeat buyers, and Ulta as its initial distribution channels. Hair care brand Amika recently launched its new color protection product line "The Protector" with the goal of long-term storytelling, said Chief Marketing Officer Nilofer Vahora. The brand personified its product line and is staggering its distribution roll out. The product line is designed to protect color-treated hair from fading or shifting no matter what consumers do, such as spending time in the sun or pool, or using heat products to style their hair. The product is clinically proven to keep color for up to 40 washes and leave hair 14 times stronger, according to Amika. The Protector character. While Amika's goal was to have a specific claim, the brand knows consumers often forget or question claims. That's why the brand chose to personify the product with a "protector" character, who gives "big sister" energy, Vahora said. The character has its own Instagram handle (@TheColorProtector). On that channel, the brand can answer product questions and give tips for color-treated hair. "I wanted The Protector to behave like a media property with her own point of view," Vahora said. "If we were going to personify the product as this big sister figure, she needed to have somewhere where she could actually have opinions, answer questions and participate in culture. A dedicated handle really gave us permission to build a character over time instead of asking the main feed to carry every part of that storytelling." The account received 10,000 followers within the first week of launching. This is a fraction of Amika's main account of 700,000-plus followers, but it shows there was an appetite for the content, Vahora said. The followers likely came from consumers who follow Amika on other social media channels and caught wind of the new product line when the brand started teasing it, Vahora said. The brand plans to build a world for The Protector character to evolve with the seasons. "It's not about launching and leaving this product, but really building on the momentum, and so the content is deliberately shifting," she said. Repeat shoppers are 45% of website sales. Amika sells its products at Ulta, Sephora, Amazon, its own website, at salons and beauty distribution stores. For this product launch, Amika strategically chose to stagger the rollout so it can keep the product marketing momentum going. For the first six weeks, The Protector line is only available at its own direct-to-consumer website, Ulta and professional channels like salons. While the majority of Amika's sales are through retailers, direct-to-consumer sales and stylists are critical to its business, Vahora said. At 45%, nearly half of Amika's direct-to-consumer sales from its U.S. website are from repeat customers. These shoppers drive 58% of the revenue in this channel, which points to a healthy customer life time value, the brand said. They order 2.8-times a year on average, often a bundle a products, which shows that they are buying into the brand as a hair care system and not just a single product, Amika said. Amika strategically chose Ulta because the beauty retailer also has salons within its stores. "It's the one channel where we can also talk about that stylist-to-consumer flywheel that we have, that I call the Amika effect, in a cohesive way," Vahora said. Stylists and their recommendations are a key marketing tool for Amika and help drive sales, she said. Consumers - especially those who color their hair - often turn to their stylist for a recommendation, Vahora said. "It's a consumer take-home product, but we really treat our stylist channel as a way that we are driving that trust loop and credibility," she said. "At a moment when consumers and professional stylists are both incredibly skeptical of traditional beauty influencers and brand-led ads, what still carries weight is that peer-to-peer recommendation." Social listening informed Amika's strategy. The brand conducts social listening on channels to discover the questions and concerns consumers have about their hair. On Reddit, Amika learned that shoppers ask others about spending time in the sun and pool with their color-treated hair. "I would've been an anthropologist if I wasn't a marketer," Vahora said. That listening informed Amika that there was an opportunity to elongate the storytelling for this product because consumers are looking for content around this topic, she said. "We didn't want to just talk about the clinical performance and the stylist," Vahor said. "Yes, we have the stylist validation, but the expression is that character and that character is bringing that effortlessness, that approachability, that closeness, and that friend vibe and our way of talking about those real-life tensions that people have to life." Staggering the roll out. In October, Amika will launch the product at Sephora and Amazon. In January 2027, The Protector will launch internationally. "There is a real momentum that we need to sustain and build with this campaign and The Protector character and leaning into that handle, our influencer and our community strategy to continue to tell that story around those touch points and those cultural moments," Vahora said. Amika developed the product over 28 months, much longer than the 16-20 months that it typically brings a product to market. The brand tested 35 formulas with 99 stylists until it found the winning one. Creative agency Shadow created the launch campaign.