UPDATE: Sephora has issued the following statement regarding the store closures: "Sephora is a client-centric company and creating a welcoming space for our all our clients is our top priority. The “We Belong to Something Beautiful” campaign has been in the works for a year, and the plan to close our U.S. stores, distribution centers, call centers and corporate office for a one hour inclusivity workshop with our 16,000 employees has been in development for over six months, timed with our first campaign chapter debuting on June 6th. This store closure is part a long journey in our aspiration to create a more inclusive beauty community and workplace, which has included forming employee resource groups, building Social Impact and philanthropic programs, and hosting inclusive mindset training for all supervisors.
While it is true that SZA’s experience occurred prior to the launch of the “We Belong to Something Beautiful” campaign, the campaign was not the result of this Tweet. However, it does reinforce why belonging is now more important than ever. Our entire organization is excited to set aside this time to re-commit to building an environment of inclusion. We’ll be discussing what it means to belong, across many different lenses that include, but are not limited to, gender identity, race and ethnicity, age, abilities, and more. This week marks the first step in our journey, and with the goal of ensuring everyone feels welcome in the beauty category, we hope that We Belong to Something Beautiful helps further foster that belief, for the benefit of our clients, for the betterment of the industry and our communities at large."
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Sephora is making company-wide changes following the incident which happened at their Calabasas location with TDE songstress SZA. As you may recall, SZA called out "Sandy Sephora" for having her followed through the store and calling the police out of the belief that she was stealing. The racial profiling incident led to much outrage on social media, with users calling for the boycott of Sephora. And since SZA was simply attempting to purchase her Fenty Beauty, Rihanna herself chimed in with a gift card which cited "go buy your Fenty in peace, sis." Ever since the ordeal occurred, Sephora has been doing major damage control.
According to USA Today, Sephora is planning on closing all its stores on June 5th to place workers in a sensitivity and diversity training. The initiative was prompted by SZA's incident and will hopefully serve to prevent any similar incidents from happening in the future. Approximately 16K employees will be trained on the brand's values which includes, based on a released statement, "building a community where diversity is expected" because the makeup supplying company "believes in championing all beauty." Moreover, the training will not only take place in the retail stores but also at the distribution and corporate levels.