In Feature 041 of Conversations Behind The Campaign, we sit down with Dianna Cohen, founder of luxury haircare brand Crown Affair.
Cohen’s path to entrepreneurship was shaped by close working relationships with leading consumer brands including Into The Gloss, Away and Outdoor Voices. Armed with deep industry insight and a clear vision for how she wanted Crown Affair to come to life, she launched the brand in 2020. Since then, Crown Affair has built a considered world around quality-first products and slower, more intentional routines. Now stocked globally at retailers including MECCA and Sephora, the brand has emerged as a cult beauty player, distinguished by a visual language rooted in craft, effortless ease and its signature mint-green aesthetic.
In conversation, Dianna reflects on her intentional approach to brand-building — defined by slower rituals, quality-led products and a distinctive focus on visual storytelling. She emphasises investing strategically in talent she trusts to bring fresh perspective and ensure she never becomes a bottleneck to growth, alongside the importance of clearly defining a brand’s direction and philosophy before taking on external investment.
You worked for some incredible brands early on in your career — Into The Gloss, Outdoor Voices, Away, and Spring. At a time when everyone wants to be a founder, how important do you believe that experience was in preparing you to launch Crown Affair?
Those early experiences were essential for me to learn before launching my own business.
Working alongside visionary founders at formative moments in their brands taught me so much about leadership, hiring, fundraising, storytelling, and the operational discipline required to build something enduring. As much as I learned what to do, I also learned a lot of what not to do.
Being inside those businesses early gave me a front-row seat to how categories are transformed and how community is cultivated with intention. By the time I launched Crown Affair, those experiences gave me confidence not only in my taste and point of view but in my ability to translate that vision into a brand that resonates deeply and sustainably.
You’ve spoken about how expensive it is to build a beauty brand, and that a significant portion of your early capital went into talent. What made you confident that investing in people would bring such a strong competitive advantage for Crown Affair?
The people are everything. Companies and businesses are simply the people behind them.
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Investing in talent over the years wasn’t just a line item — it was a philosophy. We were small, but every person on the team had the ability to elevate the work, to bring new perspectives, and to care about every detail as much as I did.
That commitment to people meant the brand could move with intention, not just speed. It’s the reason why Crown Affair has always felt cohesive, thoughtful, and human—it’s a reflection of the team’s collective care.
Crown Affair arguably has one of the strongest visual identities in beauty — it’s clean, tactile, and creative, without ever feeling overdone. How did you approach building a visual world that feels so distinct?
Crown Affair began with my own visual references and literacy. I used to joke that my personal aesthetic was Star Wars meets Chanel — long before Matthieu Blazy imagined that now-iconic Chanel set — but that duality captures the essence. There’s a sense of whimsy and fantasy paired with the disciplined design codes of the luxury houses I admire.
I studied Art History in college, and those influences are woven throughout the brand — from Ed Ruscha to Botticelli to Brancusi. There are subtle nods to The Thomas Crown Affair (the 1999 film) and René Magritte’s The Son of Man, which is especially meaningful to me because I met my husband at a Magritte exhibition at MoMA in 2013. These references aren’t literal, but they shape the tone: surreal yet grounded, timeless yet modern.
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Since day one, our core pillar has been time. It’s a concept that endlessly fascinates me and fuels my passion for building the Crown Affair universe.
We think about taking your time to create a ritual, but also about designing products that give you time back. Cosmically elegant, high-performance, clean formulations and handcrafted tools should make your life easier over time.
At the end of the day, I’m very clear on who I’m building for and the standards we hold. In a category where messaging and visuals have often felt trend-driven or dated, that clarity of perspective is what makes the world feel distinct.
Community has become one of the largest pillars brands are now looking to foster. As a founder, how do you think brands can cultivate a genuine community while making sure they don’t lose sight of it as they scale?
Community grows when it’s rooted in authenticity.
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At Crown Affair, we’ve been deliberate in creating spaces where people can connect, share knowledge, and feel seen — not just marketed to.
Scaling doesn’t mean losing that intimacy; it means designing systems that allow care to extend further. Our Seedling mentorship programs, thoughtful events, and real conversations are what creates loyalty and longevity over time.
What role does storytelling play in your marketing, and how do you decide which stories to tell?
Storytelling is how we make our work human and bring joy to this experience. Every story we tell is chosen because it illuminates our philosophy, our rituals, or the people we serve. Storytelling isn’t just about selling a product; it can be more about showing a way of moving through the world — slowing down, caring intentionally, and finding joy in small, considered moments.
You’re still very involved in partnerships at Crown Affair. How crucial has working with the ‘right’ influencers been, and how do you avoid overexposing the brand while still gaining visibility?
Partnerships are one of my favorite things to work on — be it with a brand on a product collaboration side (my favorite!) or with influencers and talent. Working with the thoughtful partners is a key part of world-building. Visibility isn’t just only about reach and EMV, it’s about resonance, too. We aim to align with people who genuinely love the products and understand the philosophy. It’s important to me that people authentically love what we’re building and use the product — their audiences know when it shows up both as a partnership and organic over time. That authenticity it makes it more fun when building our worlds it together.
It’s clear that Crown Affair invests heavily in its visual world. Was that a conscious decision from the very beginning, and what made you confident that visuals would play such a pivotal role in defining the brand’s tone and longevity?
Visuals are a form of language — they set the tone, they communicate care, and they invite people into our world before they even touch a product. I was confident that if we were disciplined and intentional about design from day one, it would serve as a foundation for everything else.
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Good design and building a real brand foundation allows you to have longevity; it’s timeless, and it signals the values we hold without needing to spell them out.
Looking back, is there a marketing or branding decision you’re particularly proud of, or one you’d do differently now?
I’m proud that we’ve let our visual identity and community-led philosophy guide our decisions rather than chasing trends. As a marketer, it’s not difficult to see what performs—divisive content, polarizing campaigns, or certain beauty tactics that are almost guaranteed to drive short-term sales. But from the beginning, we’ve been intentional about building an extraordinary, high-performance haircare brand with depth and longevity.
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It takes a real amount of willpower to metaphorically sit on your hands and not replicate what’s working for someone else. But if you have a clear vision and you want to build something meaningful over time, you have to keep your blinders on and stay authentic to that vision.
Because of that, we’ve absolutely passed on some easy, low-hanging-fruit wins. But looking back, I wouldn’t do it differently. Building something enduring requires restraint—and I’m proud of that discipline
Raising venture capital often comes with pressure to favour rapid growth over creative-led decisions. How did you make sure your investors stayed aligned with Crown Affair’s long-term vision of clean luxury rather than short-term scale?
When it comes to investors, it’s all about philosophical alignment on how the business should grow. Those conversations have to happen before you bring on any capital. You and your partners need to understand the long-term vision in the context of the financial opportunity. I’m deeply proud that my cap table reflects that alignment.
I spent a decade before Crown Affair working inside growth-at-all-costs businesses, and it became very clear to me that wasn’t the way I wanted to build. That said, if you’re operating a hyper-growth company, a rapid-growth investor can be an incredible partner. It truly depends on your goals and how you want to spend your days building.
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I believe you need to know where you’re aiming the rocket before you pour in the fuel. There’s a time for rocket fuel — but you need a few years to design, build, and properly aim the rocket first. Otherwise, speed just magnifies misalignment.
You’ve shared how stepping away from the CEO role wasn’t about quitting, but about redefining your impact. What prompted that shift, and how has it reshaped your role and the way you approach the business?
Stepping back wasn’t about stepping away—it was about realizing my impact could be broader than day-to-day operations. It allowed me to focus on culture, philosophy, product innovation, content, and community—the areas where I add the most value and where my creative energy is best spent.
My CEO, Elaine, was my first hire and one of the best decisions I’ve ever made as a leader. She’s been with me for six and a half years, and I trust her completely.
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She knows when to pull me in and when to let the team lead, so I never become a bottleneck to the company’s growth. That level of trust is rare, and I’m incredibly proud of her and excited for what’s ahead for both of us in our evolved roles.
What has been the biggest challenge in your career, and what advice would you share with someone going through something similar?
The biggest challenge you face as a founder—every single day—is resilience. You simply can’t give up.
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You can’t surrender to the “no’s,” the setbacks, or the moments when things don’t go as planned. What matters most is what happens in the space between receiving difficult feedback and deciding to stand back up. That space requires grit.
As founders, we often make it look easy because, in many ways, building something from your vision is one of the greatest gifts of your life. But it’s also incredibly demanding. Building a business isn’t just a professional journey—it’s a personal growth journey. You’re constantly being stretched, challenged, and asked to evolve.
My advice to anyone in the middle of it is simple: keep going. Stay anchored in your why. The growth you experience as a person is just as important as the growth of the company—and that’s a challenge I would choose in every lifetime.
Where can our audience follow and engage with you and Crown Affair on social media?
A. You can find us on Instagram and TikTok:@diannacohen and@crownaffair, where we share product insights, rituals, and glimpses into our community. I’m also active on my Substack,Take Your Time, where I share personal reflections that sit between lifestyle, creative work, and personal growth.
