Aariana Rose Philip x Submission Beauty

Years of friendship leads to a limited-edition collaboration built around deep-space glitter, tenderness, self-expression and a message meant to be worn out into the world.

PHOTOGRAPHY JESPER D. LUND @jesperdlund
STYLING JESPER GUDBERGSEN @yessirjesper using only vintage pieces and Aariana x Submission Beauty Tank Top
TALENT AARIANA ROSE PHILIP @aarianaphilip @suprememgmt
MAKEUP ZENIA JAEGER @makeupbyzeniajaeger @streetersagency using SUBMISSION BEAUTY @submission.beauty
HAIR SKYE MELENA @skyemelena
PRODUCTION FRANCESCA VALENTE @francesca__102 @102nyc
PHOTO ASSISTANT DAVID JAFFE @thedavidjaffe

Aariana Rose Philip has been part of the Submission world since before Submission Beauty even became Submission Beauty. Our first official playdate was when we photographed and interviewed her for these pages back in 2021; in the years since, she has remained one of those people who never really disappears from our orbit. Someone we watch, root for, work beside, text, laugh with and return to.

So, finally, here it is: Aariana x Submission Beauty.

Launching today, the limited-edition collaboration is made up of two pieces created closely with Aariana: Glitter Andromeda, a dark, galactic new blend of Submission Glitter, and The Aariana Tank, printed with the message:

icu i undrstnd u i<3 itl b ok

There is quite a lot packed into that tiny sentence.

There is sweetness, which Aariana possesses in abundance. There is also something more urgent underneath it: a wish to be recognized properly, and to offer that recognition back. The words are directed toward her peers, but they also read like something passed between strangers, a little reassurance worn across the chest.

The phrase came from Aariana thinking about empathy, and about what it means to offer somebody even a small amount of softness when the world feels increasingly unforgiving. The final words, itl b ok, do not promise that everything suddenly gets better. They are closer to a reminder that something comes next. Another breath, another morning, another chance to open your eyes and find yourself somewhere slightly different.

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And then, naturally, Aariana also had a more playful ambition for the person wearing it.

“I want someone to feel like the youngest, littest bitch when they have my tank on, and to enjoy their life and feel fab and cunt.”

That collision feels pretty accurate to Aariana: emotionally open without becoming precious, sincere while keeping a sense of humor about herself. The tank is meant to hold both things at once. A message you might need, printed onto something you wear when you want to feel hot.

Made in Los Angeles from 100% combed cotton, the fitted white tank is printed using water-based, non-toxic ink. There is no polyester in the fabric and no plastic hiding in the print. Each one also comes with a detachable glass charm filled with a party-sized amount of Andromeda.

When we first interviewed Aariana in 2021, she described herself as an unfinished painting, fascinated by the possibility of always changing her appearance and using her body as a canvas. Even then, her relationship with beauty was less about arriving at some perfect version of herself than seeing what else she might become.

Five years later, that instinct is still very much there. She wants to be sexy. She wants to look a bunny and a little alien. She wants the pretty thing to have some dirt underneath its nails.

Or, in Aariana’s own language:

“What feels particularly me about these things we made together is that it’s almost unicorn grunge. It’s like oil-slick grunge. It’s gritty, but it’s pretty.”

Andromeda lives inside that contradiction.

Aariana named the glitter after the Weyes Blood song of the same name, a song she found during a particularly difficult period in her life. It gave her comfort at the time, and she liked the idea of passing some of that feeling forward through this project.

Then there is the other Andromeda: the galaxy, all darkness, color and scattered light.

The resulting blend moves through black, midnight blue, deep purple, silver and holographic flashes. Up close, its finer texture can almost read as pigment rather than sparkle; when the light catches it, the galaxy comes back out. Like all Submission glitters, Andromeda is completely plastic-free and biodegradable, made from plant-derived eucalyptus cellulose rather than the microplastic traditionally used in cosmetic glitter.

“Andromeda literally looks like the galaxy in the sky. It has the little purples and lavenders and deep plums and blacks and silvers and iridescent tones that you see in the galaxy. It honestly looks like we tore it from the sky.”

“Andromeda literally looks like the galaxy in the sky. It has the little purples and lavenders and deep plums and blacks and silvers and iridescent tones that you see in the galaxy. It honestly looks like we tore it from the sky.”

Aariana shaped the collaboration from the inside out, choosing the language, naming the glitter and bringing her own references into the process. It was important to Zenia that none of that got polished away.

“Aariana has been in our orbit for so long that making something together felt almost overdue. She has such an instinctive relationship with beauty — she plays with it, pushes it and never asks permission from it. This collaboration was about sharing creativity and making something that really felt like Aariana, even when that meant it was dark and sweet and sexy and strange all at once. That freedom is very Submission to me.”
 — Zenia Jaeger, founder of Submission Beauty

And there is history behind that freedom.

In our first interview, Aariana spoke about the frustration of being treated as a singular moment of representation: included once, celebrated for the “first,” then quietly moved past. What she wanted instead was repetition, permanence and an actual career rather than being asked to represent an idea for one season. She told us then that fashion needed to see people like her “over and over,” until their presence stopped being exceptional.

That stayed with us.

“What Submission understands about beauty, and what made this feel like the exact right time and place to work together, is that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Beauty is everlasting and shapeshifting, and there’s no one way to be beautiful or to express beauty.

The ideas of beauty being pushed in our society, especially in an ever-growing fascist world, are becoming thinner and narrower — quite literally — by the day. The beauty standard, the weight standard, it’s all getting smaller, and everyone is being encouraged to reduce themselves.

I think Submission does the opposite of submitting. They go against the grain and empower people. I love working with people who empower me, and who I can empower in return. I think that is the strength behind our collaboration.”

Aariana x Submission Beauty is available now at submissionbeauty.com.

We’re celebrating tonight at Rogue, 154 Allen Street, New York, from 6–9 PM, with Aariana, Submission friends and family, music by Dylan Ali & Jooieworld, and Spiked Pop. Andromeda and The Aariana Tank will also be available at Rogue for a limited time.

Come get into it.

@AARIANAPHILIP