On Nov. 12, Diane von Furstenberg, which can have a good time its fiftieth anniversary next yr, held its first ever Wellness Day at its Recent York City flagship store within the Meatpacking district.

The Wellness Day was placed on by the brand’s In Charge platform, which goals to empower and connect women through the brand’s podcast, content and community events. The day’s events included a morning meditation, a clean beauty panel and a shopping bazaar featuring clean brands, all drawing in greater than 400 people throughout the day. 

Within the morning, Dr. Jenelle Kim, founding father of JBK Wellness Labs, led a Myung Sung Moving Meditation session. Afterward, Talita von Furstenberg hosted a clean beauty-focused panel with Claudia Verdes, cosmetic chemist and product development executive at Ilia; Karima El-Hakkaoui, founding father of Six Gldn;  beauty author Danielle Cohen, and JuE Wong, chief executive officer of Olaplex. 

Throughout the conversation, the panelists discussed the importance of fresh beauty, the way to find better-for-you products and the history of “clean” throughout the beauty and wellness categories. The essential theme that arose throughout the conversation and audience questions was the importance of education. 

For Cohen, education is vital. Within the midst of greenwashing and types putting a “clean” label on products, it may possibly be hard for people to know what meets certain standards and what’s just marketing, so Cohen recommends doing a little research. “There may be information on the market, and if there’s not, I feel that that’s an even bigger sign that there is likely to be an issue,” Cohen said. Wong of Olaplex recommends finding clinical trials and tests to back up the claims brands are making. If it “is clinically proven, that carries numerous weight since the brand actually spends the time and the investment to essentially qualify what they’re telling me that the products do,” she said. 

As there aren’t guidelines within the U.S. on what defines clean beauty, Cohen and El-Hakkaoui agreed that brands will likely be banding together to take a stance on the topic going forward. “We’re a lot stronger together and stronger as beauty firms come together as one. We’ve just done a National Geographic storytelling grant for this exact reason, to spotlight plastic usage and recycling and the way terribly it’s gone awry worldwide. But on the back end of that, forming a coalition of 30 brands who…plan to cut back plastic footprint,” El-Hakkaoui said. With this brand commitment to investigating what’s clean, Verdes expects to see “more education and more transparency that also drives more demand” in the approaching years because the category continues to expand.

After the panel, the shopping bazaar opened throughout the shop with booths from brands like Chillhouse, Ilia, Olaplex, Six Gldn, Sakara Life, PiperWai and House of Color by Fernanda Vazquez.