Studio Beauty, founded by Bex Meredith and Cindy Krupp, has acquired Powers PR for an undisclosed amount.
Through the acquisition, Powers PR will become the Powers Wellness Division, while founder Lana Powers will take on the role of chief growth officer working across categories. Studio Beauty and the Powers Wellness Division will operate as separate entities to ensure expertise in each category.
Powers PR has focused on the wellness category and currently oversees brands like Nutrafol, Chelsea Piers, Ro and Lindsay Arnold’s The Movement Club. Previously, Powers also worked with Lauryn Bosstick’s The Skinny Confidential, P.volve and Arrae. Studio Beauty has focused on beauty clients, working with brands like Dove, Hourglass Cosmetics, Naked Sundays and Jenna Lyons’ Loveseen.
Meredith, Krupp and Powers were connected by a mutual friend and consultant and immediately hit it off.
“Bex and I have often talked about, how do we continue to grow and expand Studio Beauty and keep our eyes open for not necessarily an acquisition, but opportunities,” said Krupp, who maintains Studio Beauty’s sister companies fashion and lifestyle agency Krupp Group and influencer agency 28 Row. “When Lana came into the picture, it was like all the pieces fell together. It felt like a no-brainer.”
According to Meredith, since starting Studio Beauty, she and Krupp homed in on the idea of being specialists and focusing only on the beauty category. By bringing on Powers’ expertise, Meredith said they are able to maintain that same specialist approach across wellness.
“You need to have that nuance of being experts in it, and this acquisition allows us to [do so],” said Krupp.
With Studio Beauty and its Powers Wellness Division, Krupp Group and 28 Row, the collective firm is able to provide expertise across categories including beauty, wellness, fashion, lifestyle and influencer.
This acquisition further reflects the continued blurring of lines between beauty and wellness.
“Beauty and wellness are so beautifully intersected and as the wellness industry evolves, beauty is a part of it. As the beauty industry evolves, wellness has become such a big part of it,” said Powers. “Now we have deep-rooted experts within beauty and wellness that we can seamlessly collaborate with to have stronger impact and stronger expertise across all of our clients.”
Meredith added: “It’s an interesting time for beauty because there is so much oversaturation and so, for Cindy and I, this wellness play is a strategic one. We know that it is beauty-adjacent. It remains in our powerhouse and our expertise, but it is indicative of where the beauty customer is going.”
The trio emphasized that this acquisition is a response to the continued growth of the overall wellness market, which is estimated to reach $9 trillion globally by 2028, according to the Global Wellness Institute.
“When I set out to start Powers and have this niche of wellness, it truly was a niche,” said Powers. “As we’ve evolved over the past handful of years, wellness is no longer a niche. Wellness is reshaping how people live, what they spend on and how they show up in the world.”
Through the acquisition, the team said they are both poised to meet the needs of both clients and their consumers.
Meredith added: “We are now positioned in such a robust way, from a business perspective, of riding the industry waves.…One key thing for us, personally and professionally, is being able to be there at every single touch point of the consumer through her day.”
