Dragons' Den star Touker Suleyman's new beauty brand Lipstick London gets physical at Westfield
Lipstick London, a new beauty brand from Touker Suleyman, Owner and Chairman at Hawes & Curtis and Ghost, has launched a kiosk at Westfield London, White City.
In a LinkedIn post including a photo of himself at the shopping centre, the fashion retail entrepreneur and TV personality, best known for his stint on reality show Dragons’ Den, said: "Here we are this morning (Saturday, 3rd) launching my new brand Lipstick London at Westfield I want to thank everyone queuing up for this new movement. 15 months of hard work has gone into this. Let’s go."
RTS 2026
“Technology is an overhead. It’s expensive if you don’t use it properly,” Suleyman said at Retail Technology Show 2026 in London earlier this year.
In conversation with Kate Hardcastle, Suleyman used his slot at RTS 2026 on 22nd April to encourage the thousands of retailers attending “not to give up” during the present tough times and recommended harnessing technology in the right way, namely, to enable: Manpower reductions and better cost control; Improve decision-making power; Enhance customer insights and service, citing CRM systems as “important in this area”.
In regard to AI, which was inevitably a hot topic at RTS 2026, Suleyman said: “My question is does it help the bottom line? Does it help with staffing costs, marketing, targeting and so on?”
“AI is running too fast,” he added. “If I was an SME I’d sit on the fence and see how it develops. You’ve got to find the bit of AI that actually helps you.” Otherwise, it’s just another overhead without sufficient return on investment. He reminded those in the audience that cashflow should still be king, especially for small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that are facing rising rents, taxes, employment costs and regulation, while their consumers simultaneously suffer a renewed cost of living crisis.
“However, the fundamentals of retail in sales, expense control, and a focus on profit and loss don’t change,” added Suleyman, while stressing nor does the way to success. This is achieved by making sure you focus tightly on: Ongoing excellent service; Value; Awareness of the competition.
“If you can survive in retail, you can survive anywhere. But you must work hard,” said Suleyman, while also bemoaning the planned UK governmental addition of digital passports and ID work validity checks as “a new cost overhead”.
“The price will come down though in my opinion,” he added, “so don’t sign up yet to expensive fancy solutions.”
Also at RTS 2026, Suleyman described Lipstick London as "Charlotte Tilbury at half the price...I’ve duped luxury brands after spending a year researching the marketplace thoroughly, empowering a chemist, and so on. It’s made in China … and will be available in two flagship stores in London’s West End; eight to ten kiosks in shopping centres like Westfield; and online.”
Lipstick London will deploy guerilla marketing tactics for its autumn launch, providing 10,000 online and social media ambassadors with free product that they will help evangelise for. “There are 300,000 pieces of product being offered as well, which is a cheaper way to get customers than giving it to Meta, Google or any of those others.” The cost of acquisition is a live issue in retail at the moment and this is one possible response.
The passion to succeed still burns bright in Suleyman, it seems. But the direct to consumer Beauty Pie rival dupe brand already exists. It may be a tough potential competitor, albeit in the D2C arena without stores, and often with bland packaging.
Regardless, Suleyman has had enough success to think he can make a go of Lipstick and his shirt collar and high end outfitter, Hawes & Curtis. As he himself advised: “Don’t give up!”
