Meet the Duo Behind High Fashion Nail Brand LVX

In quite a saturated beauty and cosmetics market, launching a successful nail polish brand doesn’t come easy. It takes hard work, drive, a little bit of risk, a whole lot of talent, and that special something that makes you instantly recognizable. Enter LVX – the luxury, vegan, high-fashion nail lacquer brand driven by the global runways, and producing colors like no other.  It’s been less than three years since LVX hit the market, and today it’s on the shelves of more than 60 retailers across the US, Europe and Asia, on the nails of supermodels like Molly Simms, has partnered with Mercedes Bentz Swim Week Miami, and is on must-have beauty lists across major fashion glossies, FashionFiles included.

So who is the brain behind our newest beauty obsession?

Meet Branka and Rade Tomic, the dynamic brother and sister duo behind LVX. A combination of his business savvy and her creativity and experience in the fashion industry, come the perfect dream team for a brand that —  we can safely predict —  will hit the stratosphere in the near future. We were curious to find out more about the young entrepreneurs, and caught up with them earlier this month to talk future plans, what makes LVX tick and of course their upcoming Spring 2015 collection.

FashionFiles: How did the idea of LVX come about?

Branka: Nail color has always been an obsession of mine.  I’ve also always wanted to have my own business and express my creativity at the same time, so I decided to create a nail polish company. The idea was born in 2011, and the name comes from the Latin word lux, which means light.

Rade: Back then, I was living in California when [Branka] called me to share her idea with me. At first, it sounded too big for me, but I wasn’t going to shut her down. So after doing quite a bit of research, we saw that there was just nothing like it in the market, we decided to launch.

FF: What’s it like working with your sibling? And rivalry? 

Branka: It’s been great! I take care of the creative side, he takes care of the business side. His background is in business consulting for new developing companies, but even though he has the business side, he’s brought a lot of the creative side as well. He worked with me side-by-side creating the company, launching it, branding it, creating the packaging… he is very meticulous.

Rade: I got my hands in everything, but mostly the strategic planning , marketing and direction of the brand. Basically the operation side. She is the fashion expert I am the business aspect.

FF: Two-and-a-half years after launch, LVX has managed to become quite the destination for nail connoisseurs. Where do you see the brand in 5-10 years?

Branka: In the next five years I definitely want to see the brand at an influential chain retailer, but we still want to be selective. We have had opportunities to partner with chain retailers that we didn’t see quite fit our brand. So ideally, I would love to see the brand at Barneys or Neiman Marcus, retailers that are curated for fashion forward brands.

In ten years, I really see the brand going heavily international. LVX is incredibly sophisticated and clean, and it can translate to every country, every culture. I see us being incredibly influential in Europe as well as Asia. I think the European market would be amazing. Our research so far shows us that Europeans hate glitter, they don’t like metallics, they like creams, which LVX heavily focuses on.

Rade:  International. We want it to be a world wide brand, and we are already on the way.

FF: One of the biggest differences between you and other nail brands is the fact that you are very fashion and runway driven, and create colors according to the runway trends. LVX is super choosy when it comes to shade selection, launching but a few colors per season. Walk us through the process.

Branka: Each season, I watch all runway shows and presentations from Fashion Month  and then I try to depict the most repeating, trending colors. I also incorporate a little of my own opinion as well — maybe I noticed that everyone had a certain color going in their accessories, for example. I also pay attention to what Pantone’s color of the year would be as well,  so our polish coincides with that. At the end, we launch a collection of six colors.

Rade: Yes, Branka is the one who will research the runway primarily. And each season, she’ll have colors chosen and then she’ll run them by me, for my input.

FF: Speaking of  Pantone’s new color of 2015 – how do you feel about marsala?

Branka:  I think this color will do well in fall, which is why we’ll be releasing the coinciding color with our fall 2015 collection. There was a lot of controversy this year over the color, some feel it’s red, others see it as more of a brick tone. Every time we release a color that coincides with Pantone, it gets insanely popular, we always sell out and have to restock. We released a color called Orchid last year, with our spring collection, and it did phenomenally.

FF: Let’s talk about the saturation of beauty brands on the market. How do you feel about your competitors? Do you look up to other brands?

Branka: I am very aware of what all the other brands around us are doing. There are a ton of brands that are incredibly important, but they just spit colors out every season without a reason. We are incredibly different than everybody else on the market. My inspiration purely comes from fashion so there aren’t any other cosmetic brands that I look to. I am always open to learning, but I am always so inspired by the fashion trends because it is a color driven brand.

Rade: I don’t think we have a direct competitor. LVX is an all encompassing, non-toxic brand, and we bring the best quality product to the market.

FF: With color names like Viola, Crimson, Viridian and Oyster, you definitely capture the customer’s imagination. How do you come up with the color names? 

Branka: That is my favorite part. When I research color names I want them to have a meaning. I try — for the most part — to have some sort of a historical meaning, a deeper meaning than “Strawberry Margarita” or “Dark Pink.” So I spend a lot of time on research. I look at when the color first came out in history, what part of the world, what was it used for, if it was used by royalty, or who might have brought that color to life. I just go from there.

Rade: I helped choose the name of one of the colors! [laughs]  It’s called Modena, after the city the owner of Ferrari was born. It’s a classic red.

FF: Each collection you launch has six core colors. Tell us a little bit more about your latest collection, Winter 2015?

Branka: So the new collection just launched, it’s the Winter Resort collection. It is a special collection we do between Fall and Spring, and half the collection is Winter trends and half the collection is Resort. It is a really great collection for that transitional period, where maybe not everyone is wearing glitter anymore, the holidays are wrapping up but they’re still clinging on to those dark colors. On the other hand, some people are traveling or want to start indulging in light colors.

FF: What should we look forward to in Spring 2015?

Branka: Spring 2015 is launching in the beginning of February. We are known for our creams so we have dabbled here and there with metallic and a little bit of glitter, we’ve usually kept that exclusive to our winter collection but I am going to include some metallic colors for Spring. It definitely wont be the classic pastel collection that everyone is used to in Spring.

You can find all LVX collections online at www.shoplvx.com.