Be Cool. Or Not

How the creators of one of the most influential brands of the past decade learned that cool is in the eye of the beholder.

I'VE ALWAYS BEEN proud that Harry's, the company I co-founded 11 years ago to rethink the men's shaving market, employs some of the best designers on the planet. Today, we've grown into the parent company for multiple brands that sell razors, body care, and other grooming products online and in stores. That puts us squarely in the industry category known as consumer packaged goods-not exactly a cool-sounding label that evokes great design, but if you saw the exhibit that showcased our razors at the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum in Manhattan, you might think we were a high-end fashion business.

Over the years, our team has poured countless hours into how the Harry's brand has shown up in the world: workshopping every line of copy, every pencil illustration. We've partnered with the likes of furniture designer Tom Dixon and fashion powerhouse Thom Browne to create limited-edition versions of our razors. The partnerships were unusual in a category historically dominated by mass-market conglomerates, but they worked-the products selling out in a matter of days, in some cases, and earning us press coverage in the likes of Vogue. The result has been a cult-like following (at least one loyal customer has a tattoo of one of our mascots, a mammoth).