A MARQUE & MORTAR OBSERVATION
BRANDS
WORTH
NOTICING.
Emerging founders and businesses demonstrating unusual clarity, momentum or point of view.
Selected by Marque & Mortar. No rankings. No paid placements. Simply the brands making us look twice.
FASHION UTILITY · CHARLESTON
NŌSHŌ BELOW
CORBIN HENDERSON · FOUNDER
A small object built around a much bigger idea: wear what you want, without thinking twice.
NŌSHŌ began with a familiar frustration and turned it into a new kind of wardrobe essential. What looks like a small silicone insert is really a study in freedom: the freedom to get dressed, move through the day and forget about everything happening underneath it. That simplicity is what gives the idea its power. Sitting naturally between fashion, intimates and everyday utility, NŌSHŌ takes an intimate problem and makes the solution feel effortless, approachable and entirely its own. The product is designed to disappear. The idea behind it is not. It gives women one less reason to adjust, hesitate or compromise what they want to wear — and that is where NŌSHŌ becomes bigger than the object itself.
On our radar for the kind of founder instinct we are always drawn to: noticing the thing everyone else has learned to live with, then deciding it deserves a better answer. Corbin noticed. Then she built it.
BEAUTY & WELLNESS · SOUTH AFRICA
GOŌE SOUTH AFRICA
BEAUTY BACKED BY BRAINS
A brighter language for beauty from within, where science meets the pleasure of ritual.
GOOE is turning daily supplementation into something people can genuinely look forward to. Its sugar-conscious Hair, Skin & Nails and marine collagen gummies pair internationally formulated beauty support with vivid packaging, affirmation-led rituals and an optimism that feels distinctly its own.
On our radar for the clarity beneath the colour. The brand understands that efficacy earns trust, but emotion builds recognition. With a sharper editorial world around an already memorable product, GOOE has the ingredients to move beyond supplement and become a modern beauty ritual with real cultural presence.
MEDICAL WELLNESS · CHARLESTON
THE CHARLESTON ATELIER
KENDALL PHELPS-POLIRER, MD
A physician-led house translating clinical authority into a more intimate language of modern wellness.
Kendall Phelps-Polirer is building beyond the familiar medspa model. The Charleston Atelier brings internal medicine, metabolic wellness, regenerative aesthetics and concierge-level care into one distinctly personal world—considered from the patient relationship to the room itself.
On our radar for the restraint of the idea: medicine with atmosphere, authority without distance and a founder presence capable of becoming the institution’s most recognizable signature.
RESEARCH COMPOUNDS · NEWPORT BEACH
CALIBRATED LABS
Precision becoming identity.
In a category where trust is often reduced to claims, Calibrated Labs is building its identity around documentation. Independent verification, published certificates of analysis and a controlled supply chain turn the technical infrastructure of the business into part of the brand itself.
On our radar for something larger than the vial: the opportunity to make rigor recognizable. Calibrated already has the systems, language and visual codes of precision. What interests us is how far that world could expand when science, packaging and culture begin speaking with the same voice.
RESEARCH-USE PRODUCTS. THIS COVERAGE REFERS TO BRAND, PACKAGING, POSITIONING AND LABORATORY STANDARDS.
SOULSTICE
Five products. One hydration territory. A second act built with the clarity of experience.
On our radar for an edited opening assortment that connects hair science with the emotional ritual of shower time.
THAT GOOD HAIR
Practitioner knowledge becoming a larger retail world.
On our radar as founder Paris Reveira moves a curls-and-sensitive-scalp point of view toward a new retail stage.
KEATS
An emerging beauty point of view entering a bigger room.
Early enough that the identity is still becoming recognizable. Far enough along that the next chapter has somewhere to go.
STIL SUNCARE
Suncare with a founder-led point of view.
In a category crowded with function, we’re watching the brands finding a more distinctive reason to belong.
SKINBUNNY
Clinical proof with the beginnings of a larger brand world.
One to watch as efficacy, identity and a new stage of visibility begin meeting in the same place.