Yasmin Sewell: Intuition Can be a Superpower in Business

0:04Hi, this is Imran Ahmed, founder and CEO of the Business of Fashion. Welcome to the BOF podcast. It's Friday, June 27th. As a fashion buyer and creative force at retail institutions like Browns and Liberty, Yasmin Sewell has long been tuned into aesthetics and the power of intuition. But it was during a moment of personal reset that her intuition propelled her from fashion into an entirely new world, the business of beauty. Founded in 2021, her fragrance brand Vareo blends traditional perfumery with spiritual practices like Reiki, kinesiology and neuroscience. When I was in fashion what made me successful was tapping into my intuition and tapping into energy and I used that ability to discover the designers at Brown's.

0:57That feeling is what I have lived by my whole life, it's what's led me to where I'm at now And actually what I believe I've done is bottled that into fragrance. At the Business of Beauty Global Forum 2025, I sat down with Yasmin to discuss why she's built a business rooted in energy, how she learned to manufacture fragrance from scratch, and why intuition is an underrated superpower in business. Here's Yasmin Sewell on the BOF podcast.

1:35Okay, so full disclosure, I specifically asked to do this conversation because Yasmin and I have known each other for about 20 years. I think maybe just before BOF even existed. Yeah, when it was in your brain. Yeah, and I've had the pleasure of kind of seeing Yasmin's career trajectory, as Priya was just talking about. You started your journey in fashion in London at the age of 22. Is that right? 19. 19. And you eventually became one of those, when I first entered fashion, you became one of those buyers that, this is before a lot of direct consumer and everyone, you know, big emerging fashion brands, they were all reliant on these like important wholesalers.

2:21And there's this legendary retailer in London called Browns, you know, which is known for discovering a lot of designers. they had a legendary founder named Joan Burstein. Mrs. B. They were credited with putting on the map people like Galliano and McQueen. And when I first entered the fashion world, you were at Browns. And I remember people would speak with your name with this reverence. Like, Yasmin Sewell, you know? You had built already so much respect in the industry. But then one day, after a number of job changes, you went to Liberty and you went to Style.com, which had become a retailer away from that website that all fashion people were addicted to.

3:05And then you were at Farfetch. And at some point you decided, I'm done with fashion. Right. And now I'm like bumping into you here. Now I'm here. In this context. Right. So we're two fashion people in the beauty world. When you're making a change like that in your career, talk to us a little bit about what was going through your head and how you knew and how you were ready to leave behind this incredible track record, that stellar reputation, all the experience, contacts and network you had, and you're really going to say, basta, I'm done. Totally. Well, I do love change. I guess I never realized I was going to move into the beauty industry.

3:44It wasn't like I was like fashion, done, beauty, yes. It wasn't where I was at. When I was in fashion, what made me successful was tapping into my intuition. and tapping into energy, which is everything that I've created now. So I was born quite psychic, always been able to connect with many things. And I use that ability to discover the designers at Brown's. So your psychic power enables you to discover Jonathan Anderson and Christopher Kane and Rick Owens. Yes. Okay. Yes. She said she was going to go woo woo. I didn't know it was going going to go full on this early. I said that we're going to go the most woo woo today.

4:28Yes. The answer is yes. Like for example, Jonathan Anderson. Yeah. One of the greatest designers of our time now. Right. So when I met him, I was at Liberty and he was this kind of mental guy, not making great clothes. And I was seeing all these designers and I'd go and see, I mean, I've seen hundreds and hundreds. Right. And I met Jonathan and he had these menswear and it was kind of weird and interesting, but it was something about him that there was a rush that went through my body that was like, there's something about this guy that's kind of brilliant. And I'm like, he should be doing women's wear, accessories.

5:05Why is he not? There's something really special there. And it wasn't my brain telling me this makes sense. It was something else telling me this feels right. And that feeling is what I have lived by my whole life. It's what's led me to where I'm at now. And actually what I believe I've done is bottled that into fragrance. What we do at Vareo is that we're here to amplify your energetic field, open you up, mindfulness, consciousness. We have fragrances that are neuroscience backed from mindfulness. I can talk about this for hours. But, you know, and I really believe that tuning into that higher self is where everything's at.

5:42The brain will take you so far, but it's our sole purpose that takes you beyond. So Jonathan was an amazing example. he's now the greatest of our time and I said to him you should do women's wear you should do accessories and for the first time ever I was like I'm gonna help you I'm gonna work for free for six months I never did this and I'm gonna help you launch women's wear and now he's one of the greatest now he's the creative director of Dior men's women's and haute couture I should have taken some sort of deal some sort of deal I have a question about intuition because I'm also quite intuitive.

6:18Yeah. But I'm also very analytical. Yes. And you know, I think I sometimes drive my team crazy because if my intuition and my analytical brain align, the decision is made really quickly. But if my analytical side and my creative side or my intuitive side don't align, it's kind of paralysis. Like I can't make the decision until both of those things align. so as someone who's built a career on intuition but is now navigating a world with a lot of left brain people you know you have investors like l catterton you're dealing with like retailers who are considering like sell through and return and you know all that kind of stuff like how are you reconciling and kind of navigating a world staying true to your intuition while also being clear that also like the analytics the numbers all that stuff still matters it's super interesting that I think about it quite often because I do, like I was saying, there's the brain and then there's the gut.

7:16Two different things. And we can use both. I tend to lead with the gut, as I've said. I'm sort of 98 % intuition, 2 % common sense. But when I am in business, and, you know, I've obviously, you know, had a business for four years now. I've raised money. I have Estee Lauder, El Caterton, Manzanita, amazing people. I managed to raise by using my brain. But I also did the woo-woo test on all of them as well. So I made sure that when I was talking about projections and vision and my plans and NPD and all the marketing and everything, which, of course, they bought into and they loved. But I also made sure that I dropped in a bit of woo-woo to see if they wouldn't be freaked out by it.

7:57Because this is really what I'm leading with. This is a business around energetic healing. We're channeling good energy into our products. So I really do use both. I lead with intuition. And I use the brain as a tool. I don't think the brain can take us that far. For me, it doesn't. I think it takes you to a certain point. I mean, I told you I didn't finish school. I left school at 15. I found it really difficult to sit in a class and process information. I found it really frustrating. I learned through doing. I learned through building. I learned through creation. So I lead with one, which is the gut, and then I let the brain follow.

8:33And even if the brain says no, I still do it. Okay. So walk us through a case study of how that worked with the kind of genesis of Vareo, which is a brand, as you mentioned, you've raised money from some of the top institutional and strategic investors. It's a brand on everyone's lips. Everyone's interested in it. It seems to be disruptive in this fragrance world. Walk us through the intuitive process of creating Vareo. So I left my last big job in fashion, which was at Farfetch. And then I was like going through quite a big change in my personal life. I was going through a divorce. I was like, oh, time to have a little breather.

9:14And I do think these times of transition are really powerful. You spoke about it last night in your little journey, which we'll do the interview with Tracy Lee Ross and you. You took that time out. And I took time out. I sat in my house and I thought, okay, I'm going to paint my house. I want to change my house. My life has just changed. Time to have a break. and I heard this voice saying everything needs to be green. I just heard the word green, go green, everything's green. It's all I could hear. It was like a speaker I couldn't turn off. So I painted my house Kermit the Frog green and I sat and I just was sitting in this greenhouse.

9:50Inside and out? Mainly inside. Okay. Kermit the Frog green. Ouch. And yeah, it's really beautiful but anyway. and in the greenhouse I sat there and I stopped and Vareo came to me as an absolute vision from somewhere else I always knew that I would turn I'm trained in many different forms of holistic well-being I'm trained in Reiki integrative quantum medicine kinesiology I'm trained in Ayurveda flower remedies all the fashion career I was off training and studying and learning so I could be more intuitive and better in my job so I could predict the trend and the designer and the and feel. So I did all that training because I knew one day I'd turn it into something.

10:32I was like, am I going to be like in a caftan with a spa? Is that going to be me? It might be me in 10 years. Let's see. But I knew I would turn all of this stuff. Let's call it woo woo stuff. I knew I would turn it into something. I didn't know it would be this. I had no idea it would be fragrance. We're going to go beyond fragrance. But I sat in this greenhouse and it all came to me. Vareo actually is a Latin verb that means I am verdant, I'm vigorous, I sprout green growth. It means green. The packaging is Kermit the Frog green. We are green. And what came to me was if energy is the source of everything, which it is, can I build an entire brand based on energy?

11:13Could energy be the source of the brand? And when I realized that, then it flooded through to me that, okay, so through the senses we can shift and heal. You know, when we smell something, we are transformed. I mean, it's like there's neuroscience. I work with neuroscience now. You know, we smell something, we are transported, we change, we move. That changes our energetic field. It alters us. My take on well-being is our emotional, spiritual, you know, it's our energetic well-being. So I thought, oh, I could make sin. I could make fragrance. I launched Frederick Mahl into Liberty. so I launched eccentric molecules into browns I wasn't unaware of good fragrance I knew that with all my experience in beauty because fashion is beauty if you think about it really it's beautiful things I knew that with my experience I could channel that into incredible fragrance and could I make fragrances that were more than just a fragrance but an energetic source and I want to say also if you don't give a shit about the wellness stuff or the energy they are just exquisite fragrances like they're just beautiful made it the highest level and good for you so so it's a really beautiful story and I can imagine you sitting in front of the L.

12:27Catterton people or the Estee Lauder people telling this story and like you embody it you tell it beautifully but then you actually need to make it happen and you come from a completely different world the way we measure success in fashion is different from beauty you know the way beauty products are created is completely different from the way fashion products are created. Talk to us about what you brought from fashion that's helped you in beauty and what you needed to learn how to do or find people to help you do to actually create a product and take it to market. I mean, I didn't know how to make anything at all.

13:03So I had to really bring in people to tell me how to make anything. I had to learn all of that. I found it super interesting. fashion I think people stay in fashion for so long because it's constantly changing and moving and there's a new energy every few months newness new designers new brands new trends new movement so you can stay in the industry we know all those people they're in there for their whole lives it can keep you there what I liked about beauty or creating a fragrance was I could create this object that could be in existence for 100 years yeah that was extraordinary to me and completely different from fashion where things date so quickly churning through churning through um so that was different i didn't know everything i had to learn i think i understood sensibility i understood quality my vision was sharp and clear and i was fearless in it and i took a huge risk with with this you know i put my life on the line i put me you know i you know i i did this and i remember someone saying to me a fashion designer friend of mine you know i started this in my 40s And he was like, God, look at you.

14:09Yeah, it's good on you. I was like, what does that mean? And I think what he meant was you're not 30 and you're doing this. Wow. And I was thinking, well, come on. Life is long. We can, you know, I think we can reinvent ourselves. I think that we can. I love the fact that I'm in a whole new world. I'm here in the beauty industry with you, although I know you from fashion. But I've learned. And I love learning through doing. Like, again, I left school at 15. I started working. I opened up my first boutique at 22. I didn't know how the hell to do that. I didn't know how to be a buyer. I walked into showrooms.

14:41I saw this guy called Rick Owens, and the jackets look kind of cool. And I was like, oh, that feels right. You know, and I didn't realize I had an eye to pick things. It wasn't like I was trained or I didn't learn anything. I just went in there and did it. But Yasmin, I still don't know how you created a fragrance. You were living in the greenhouse. You had the idea. You understood eccentric molecule. You understood Frederick Mahl. but like how did you make a fragrance? Well, I spoke to a few experts. Okay, so I went to wonderful Lynn Harris first. Of course. I call her the Phoebe Farlow of the fragrance world and she's the person who formulated my first five fragrances with and again, I sat with her.

15:20She's the first person I went to this idea of can I create a fragrance which isn't like a woody, an oriental, a floral. I didn't talk about the notes at all. I talk about the emotions, freedom, liberation, sensuality, empowerment, soft love. These are things that we use. every single plant and flower and every single fragrance is chosen for how it makes you feel everything through the thousands of years of history now we work with neuroscience it's proven to trigger certain emotions in the brain so Lynn was like someone then I worked with Maeve McCurtain phenomenal nose from IFF again learning I brought in a great NPD person who helped me work out how to get the bottle and make a bottle and we got the wrong pumps at the beginning and they broke and then we learn, you know, everyone's, um, it was, it was, um, yeah, I mean, looking back now, it was five years ago that I was doing that, just trusting people and just trying to work it out, Imran, I think, you know, I think the creative part, the vision part, the branding part, that for me was quite easy.

16:18It was the, it was the execution. I mean, I think as entrepreneurs, often that's the least understood or appreciated bit for people who've never built something on their own is like you can have the idea but how do you make it happen yeah so so tell us what's the state of Vareo today I mean you're from the idea from the inception to to now what is the business today where do you where do you want to take it so I never wanted it to be purely a fragrance brand it's definitely more I think we're in this genre of sort of where well I think we're more in the well-being space really although we definitely look like beautiful fragrance We are making that.

16:57But this is really about energy, transforming your energy, energetic field, spirit, mood, emotion. So we'll do that through all sorts of ways, definitely looking at the senses, scent being the first. There'll be things that we taste coming as well. There'll be things we use on the body, touch. Everything is going to be incorporated. We're building it, I don't know, slowly, fast. I'm not totally sure. I have amazing partners, not just the investors, but even in our retail partners. There's Margaret, Space NK. I, you know, have amazing people, Mecca Australia, you know, Liberty have been supportive, Soul Hages we launched with, you know, Gwyneth Goop, she's one of my investors, incredible.

17:36You know, I'm surrounded by people who really believe in what I'm doing. I don't think they presume I'm going to go crazy fast because we're not doing something that's mass and fast, really. But we are building and we're pretty global already. and we're converting customers who try my fragrances now and they say to me, I could never go back to my other one now that I wear yours. There's something about it that just makes me feel different. And I get people messaging me daily saying how the scents make them feel. The feeling is coming through all the time, all the time. Why do you think intuition is so undervalued in the business world?

18:16Well, people can't really make sense of it. I think anything you can't see the unseen is sort of nerve-wracking to people. I mean, I've built a business on something that's quite esoteric, but I think the fact that people have come on board and believed in it is just marvellous. Intuition is like, it's everything. I mean, you know, Taron was talking, I mean, just so incredible, a phenomenal businessman, but you can tell he's working with more than just his brain. There's more going on there. I'm sure he would acknowledge that. I think anybody would know there's something more. I think anyone, I remember when you were speaking as well, you know, like there's more that we tap into, that we feel.

18:55I realized that some people don't use it. That surprised me. I had a friend of mine who came to my house one time and it really blew my mind at how ignorant I was that not everyone understands intuition because I just live by it. And she came over to my house and she was like, yes, I always thought you were really weird. You talked about intuition. I never really got it. And she goes, but you know what? Something happened to me last week that changed my life. I was sitting with my boyfriend, five-year relationship, really happy. And he went out, left his phone behind. And I was sitting there and his phone was right in front of me.

19:26And something told me to check his phone. And she's not the phone checker girl. Like she's not one of those girls. She's a cool girl. Like she's not, she's securing herself. But something that she'd never felt before, she never recognized before, told her to check. and inevitably she checked and she was like i thought about you because you always talked about this i never heard the voice i was like you never heard the voice and it made me realize that not everyone so for people who want to hear that voice but don't know how like for people who haven't managed to trust that instinct yeah what like how can you tap into that well i think that intuition is a bit like training an AI tool.

20:17Because the more you listen, the more you trust, and the better it gets. So at first you might be like, is that my brain? Is that my mind or my intuition? But eventually you start to realize the difference between what's coming from the frontal lobe and what's coming from somewhere else. It's like meditation. But people say, I can't meditate. I don't know how to do that. Meditation is just a separation from the thoughts and the mind and watching them from a distance. That's all it is. It's like at the airport when the planes are going round and round. You know, what's it called? Holding pattern.

20:48When I meditate, I imagine my thoughts are up there just floating around. Hey guys, you're crazy. And underneath that, underneath that is that place. And being able to learn to listen to that other part of you. I always imagine it's here and here, you know. Quite often I'll do this. I won't do it now because the microphone. But, you know, you listen to something else. but the more you listen the more you trust the more you know you more you know the feeling then you start to get the rushes i get the energetic rush sometimes yeah see you got some yeah you know you know you get the little it's like and also everyone knows you know you you meet someone you get the feeling it's energy you meet someone else energy goes down you know what that is um those things that we all know we actually do all know people always ask me this question how do you know and energy I don't really get it if I relate it to fashion when I was working in fashion I remember there would always be a new collection that would come in it's like I was at Liberty you know and new Saint Laurent connection would would come in and it's the same black blazer we've seen it before it's the same black blazer and it would come in new season and it would be on the shelf and everyone would gravitate towards the new season collection but the sales stuff would just sort of sit there a bit stagnant.

22:03And that's because the energy of that collection was stagnant. It wasn't fresh. So even though it was the same black blazer, people didn't go towards that. They went to the new for whatever reason. I also say, you know, when you buy a new dress, you put it on the first time, you go out, your vibration is higher. And people are always like, I love your dress. But five times later, they don't really comment on it because you're not, right? Everyone knows what I'm saying. This is all energy. this is all a feeling so going back to vareo we're enhancing that in the scent you spray our scents they will amplify your vibration like the new dress so i think feeling or i think we all i talk about this and we kind of all know it we do all know it we just forget to kind of use it i just happen to use it 24 7.

22:51okay well it's been amazing to see your reinvention in beauty and Thank you for tuning in. Tuning us into your energy. Thank you.

23:06The BOF podcast is edited and produced by Olivia Davies and Eric Bria.