Models Own

Models Own is a British colour-cosmetics brand founded in London in 2008 by the brothers Mark and Steven Rodol, with an early specialism in nail polish [1]. Mark Rodol had previously been chief executive of the music brand Ministry of Sound. The company built its name on fashion-led, affordable shades sold across the UK high street, and since 2014 has been owned by the Saudi retail group Fawaz Alhokair & Co [2]. Its e-commerce site remains operational, though its editorial output has been quiet for several years.

The brand positions itself around speed and trend-chasing rather than heritage. According to Models Own, "fashion moves fast – and so do we," and the company says it aims to react to new catwalk and street colours quickly enough to sell them while they are still current. It has summarised this idea on its corporate profile as "professional makeup formulated with fun and attitude."

Models Own was established in 2008 by Mark Rodol and his brother Steven Rodol. The brand began as a nail-polish specialist before broadening into a wider colour range covering eyes, face, lips, highlighters and glitter. Its tagline, "Own the trend," reflects a positioning built on accessible, of-the-moment shades rather than long-running classics.

The company is headquartered in London, with an address recorded at 35 Percy Street. By its own account on LinkedIn it is a small operation, listing fewer than fifty staff.

An early breakthrough came in November 2011 with the Beetlejuice collection, a set of nine multi-tonal nail shades that drew wide attention among nail bloggers and enthusiasts on release [3].

In April 2012 the brand opened its first Bottleshop at Westfield London, a retail concept housed inside an oversized, tipped-over nail-varnish bottle complete with a moulded "spill" over the entrance. Marie Claire UK, covering the opening, described Models Own as a "cult make-up brand" [4]. The Bottleshop format expanded to a number of UK shopping centres, including Bluewater, Meadowhall and the Bullring.

In 2014 the brand was acquired by Fawaz Alhokair & Co (see Ownership). A later milestone came in August 2018, when Models Own moved its website from a bespoke legacy system to the Magento 2 platform, in a project built by the agency Xigen [5].

Since 2014 Models Own has been owned by Fawaz Alhokair & Co, a Saudi Arabia–based retail conglomerate. Cosmetics Business reported the acquisition as closing on 29 October 2014, valuing the deal at around £20 million, against annual turnover of roughly £8 million at the time [2]. The Rodol brothers retained management roles after the sale, with Mark Rodol continuing as chief executive, a position he still held when the website was relaunched in 2018 [5]. At the time of the deal, the buyer was described as controlling more than 2,000 stores across 18 countries.

The company frames itself as a fashion-driven brand led by colour. "Colour's what we care about," its about page states, describing a focus on the "face, lip, eyes and nail colours that are hot." The stated promise is the "latest looks without the wait" — access to current fashion colours while they remain relevant. Its products sit at an accessible, drugstore price point and are aimed, in the brand's words, at "fashion-conscious customers."

Models Own is best known for nail polish, and several of its collections have leaned on novelty finishes. Beyond the 2011 Beetlejuice shades, the range has included the Holochrome collection, described by the company as kaleidoscopic polish that shifts in different light, and the Hyper Gel line, marketed as a highly pigmented polish giving a gel-like finish [7]. The wider catalogue spans eyeshadow palettes, highlighters, glitter and brushes.

On animal testing, the brand states that "Models Own makeup is not tested on animals"; the ethics tracker Ethical Bunny recorded it as cruelty-free in 2018 while noting no formal third-party certification [8].

The brand has used a multi-channel model. Alongside its own Bottleshops, its products have been sold through UK retailers including Superdrug, Boots and ASOS, and internationally through stockists in markets such as Japan, Thailand, Taiwan, the United Arab Emirates, Switzerland (Manor) and France (Monoprix).

Press coverage has been concentrated in UK fashion and trade titles. Marie Claire UK called the brand a "cult make-up brand" in 2012, and an M&A advisory case study has linked it with celebrities including Pixie Lott, Kylie Minogue and Alexa Chung [1]. Industry outlets Cosmetics Business and The Drum covered the 2014 acquisition and the 2018 website relaunch respectively. No formal awards are recorded in the available sources.

Models Own is classified as active. Its e-commerce site remains live, carrying a current product range with prices in pounds sterling and a stockist network spanning the UK, Europe, the Middle East and East Asia. At the same time, signs of reduced editorial and marketing activity are visible: the on-site blog has not been updated since 2011, and the site copyright reads 2018, the year of the last major relaunch [5]. The brand's content and public-relations activity therefore appears low, even as its retail and online distribution continue.

Two web domains are associated with the brand. The current consumer storefront runs at modelsowned.com, which is the address used here [1]; an older domain, modelsownit.com, persists in the brand's contact email addresses and in an earlier site footer, and is the URL still listed on the company's LinkedIn profile [6].