Amika

A Brooklyn-based beauty distributor decided in 2007 that hair care packaging could look like contemporary art rather than professional equipment. The brand's bright retro Scandinavian bottle design outsold almost every competing prestige hair care launch of the decade that followed. Chelsea Riggs launched Amica in 2007 through a family distribution business in Brooklyn. The last in commercial asset was the packaging. Bright turquoise, pink and yellow bottles with chunky retro typography looked like 1970s Scandinavian housewares rather than conventional hair care. Every product on shelf functioned as its own billboard because the bottles read as design objects first and hair care second. Category innovation through design is cheap compared to category innovation through formulation.