How Cult Gaia Created a Cult Followers

For fashion brands, reaching the decade mark often means a critical choice: maintaining momentum or constantly looking to the future.

In Cult Gaia, the latter is the case.

Founder and creative director Jasmin Larian said when Hekmat was first launched Gaia Cult When she chose flower crowns as her first product category, she knew she had captured a magical moment that would transcend trends and impact culture.

“The flower crowns had this element of destiny,” says Larian Hekmat. “In a world where we’re all becoming more isolated, the crowns became a conversation starter. If we can provide that experience and evoke that connection through a Cult Gaia piece, then we hold invaluable real estate in people’s minds.”

Cult Gaia, in particular, launched in 2012, when Instagram was acquired by Facebook and became ubiquitous. The visually stunning flower crowns quickly became a trending topic for Instagram users, fueling the brand’s rise and kickstarting a new movement.

“Great brands understand that content is currency. So when you combine great content with great products, you have a winning formula,” says Larian Hekmat.

The DNA of the Gaia Cult is formed by the idea of ​​creation. art objects makes people stop and look twice. Since its founding, the company has grown from accessories to a full-fledged lifestyle brand, offering ready-to-wear, accessories, shoes and swimwear, and now beauty with a fragrance, the first of which launches today.

In short, Cult Gaia is in an era of expansion.

Although the brand has maintained its momentum for 12 years today, it is proving that it is far from a one-hit success.

In fact, the one word that resonates throughout Cult Gaia is ‘amazement’.

The brand followed up the success of its flower crowns with the launch of the Ark Bag, which quickly garnered a waiting list of thousands. The virality of the bag took Cult Gaia to new heights, and Larian Hekmat has leveraged this momentum to build an engaged and loyal Instagram community of 1.7 million followers today.

“When we enter new categories, I often hear people say, ‘Oh, they’re the Ark Bag brand,’ or ‘They’re a one-hit wonder.’ But I’ve been fortunate to have a direct-to-consumer customer base built on the virality of the flower crowns and the Ark Bag. That connection has allowed us to offer more products, and I think that’s been critical to our growth.”

Virality can be a double-edged sword, often leading to a brand being perceived as a one-hit wonder. However, when a brand successfully taps into the essence of what makes a product viral and weaves that into the spirit of their future creations, they create a winning formula for sustained success.

“I don’t believe in trends and gimmicks,” says Larian Hekmat. “I believe in great product sales itself.”

The next chapter in Cult Gaia’s story? Beauty – it begins with the launch of its first perfume.

“Scent is the fifth layer, it enriches every moment,” says Larian Hekmat. “It is the exclamation point of life’s essential memories.”

Scent has the unique power to evoke nostalgia, instantly transporting people to meaningful moments and memories – sometimes even more powerful than photographs.

“If I think of Cult Gaia as a dream world, an escape, there’s no better way to offer that to our customers than through scent. It allows you to step into the store and completely immerse yourself in the experience.”

The Los Angeles-born brand opened its first flagship store on Melrose in December 2022 and currently has eight stores (three of which are in Europe).

The personal shopping experience is essential for the brand; it provides a way to invite customers into its world and fully immerse them in the embrace of Cult Gaia.

The three scent names are Mast, Zan, and Noor. Each scent profile is inspired by a Persian word that connects to Larian Hekmat’s Persian heritage, and the bottles themselves serve as their own works of art.

Larian Hekmat has been conscious and very strategic about launching and promoting Cult Gaia’s scent. To start, it launched a candle infused with the same three scents in May. The signature scents were also introduced in the store’s HVAC for six months so guests could associate the scent with the brand.

“The bottles are inspired by circles representing infinity, the earth and the sun, which are fundamental elements of Cult Gaia’s DNA,” says Larian Hekmat. “The arch shape is important to the brand’s philosophy; the two bottles coming together create a circle with space for light to pass through.”

Larian Hekmat is a big believer in innovation and evolution, two things he learned early in his career. “I’m constantly looking forward to seeing how we can expand.”

“This brand did not exist to follow trends. In fact, I have an aversion to them. Anytime I feel like we are being followed, Okay, next. We need to move on.“

He has managed to skillfully balance timelessness with timeliness, creating pieces that are modern yet “can be archived, retrieved or displayed.”

“In yoga tree pose, if you look to the side, you lose your balance. But if you focus straight ahead, you can hold the pose longer. That’s how I approach it — focusing on forward momentum and not comparing myself to others.”

One of her favorite business analogies is that every great thing should feel like an exhale. “When you walk into a store, you should be able to exhale, and the same goes for when you see our products. Your breath is taken away. If your breath isn’t taken away, it’s not Cult Gaia.”