You may have seen their viral blush star in countless TikTok makeup tutorials, heard about their recent celebrity-studded benefit to raise money for mental health resources, or know the beauty brand’s founder, actress and singer Selena Gomez. As a social media and content assistant manager, Louise Dechelle, AMD’18, understands the gravity of working at Rare. “The messaging behind the brand…being able to express your individuality and valuing mental health…it’s super empowering to be a part of that revolution and the next generation of beauty lovers because we’re not just posing and being pretty. It’s really about playing with makeup, making it your own, and loving the way you are. Love your rare, as our latest campaign says.”
Growing up in France, Dechelle chose to specialize in language and literature for her international baccalaureate degree, where she studied English, Spanish, and Italian. When she learned about Northeastern at a college fair in Paris, the university’s global emphasis and co-op program immediately appealed to her. “[The co-op program] was super important to me because I know that’s how you build relations.”
Entering Northeastern with dreams of working for National Geographic, Dechelle believed that majoring in journalism would best position her to obtain a co-op at the coveted company. After realizing that many of her journalism courses centered around American sports and politics—which she wasn’t too familiar with—Dechelle praises her advisors for accommodating her evolving interests by allowing her to design her degree. “I knew what kind of companies I wanted to work with, but I didn’t know how to get there. [My advisors] made it easy for me to create my degree…I was able to mix video with communications and digital art—and this whole social media world was still developing…I changed [my major] three times, but I was able to tick the boxes and still finish in five years.”
Despite all the changes to her undergraduate degree, Dechelle remained in the College of Arts, Media and Design. The small class sizes allowed her to take artistic risks with her classmates and have valuable one-on-one time with her professors. She gives kudos to a handful of influential professors—including David Thames, Mira Cantor, Jamal Thorne, and John Kane—for encouraging her to trust her creative abilities and their expertise being constant sources of inspiration for Dechelle.
Moreover, in one of her CAMD classes, Northeastern professor Michelle Carr organized a trip to Toth+Co, an advertising agency in Boston’s South End neighborhood. Dechelle, who recalls being impressed by the agency’s presentation, was ecstatic when her professor informed her that the connections she met at the office admired her inquisitiveness and offered her a co-op position. Looking back at that time, Dechelle says the energy of that environment was perfect for her first co-op experience. She vividly remembers her and the creative team exchanging their most outside-of-the-box ideas with Toth+Co’s CEO in anticipation of pitching to renowned companies like Lululemon or Coca-Cola. When she returned to Northeastern after this exciting experience, she had a newfound clarity to invest her creativity in a social media advertising career.
For her second co-op, Dechelle lived out her dream of working at National Geographic Learning, where she focused on “assets for English second language speakers” while building “digital interfaces for apps” and proofreading content from a collaboration with Ted Talk. Reflecting on her co-op experiences, Dechelle believes that gaining perspective from a startup and a Fortune 500 company equipped her with a strong foundation in her post-graduate career journey, which began with a digital production freelancing position at National Geographic.
Further, Dechelle embraced the chance to study abroad in New Zealand, a program she envisioned taking part in when a representative from Northeastern told her about the university’s global opportunities years prior. Taking courses on art conservation, she is grateful for an eye-opening field trip to an Indigenous town where she witnessed how one community preserves their culture in their everyday lives through their meal preparations and dances. Aside from that, exploring the country’s natural beauty was one of her highlights. “I think that’s why I moved to California. I could experience New Zealand again with the national parks,” Dechelle adds with a laugh.
Her career at Rare is the other reason she planted her roots in California. As a member of the company’s marketing team, Dechelle aims to generate excitement for product reveals with posts on their social channels. Apart from massive launches that require the entire team’s participation, Dechelle shares that her manager “empowers” each team member by delegating different makeup items to them. When this occurs Dechelle’s tasks include “brainstorming the content for the product on all of our social channels, capturing the content, helping the community [in real life] events, gathering all the assets, briefing the creators for [user-generated content] campaigns…[and] just scouring social, finding ideas.” In her day-to-day life, she curates weekly newsletters for her team, a task she carried over from her time at an influencer marketing company, that features a rundown of new products, trends on social media, and an analysis of the creator market.
Another aspect Dechelle loves about her team at Rare is how it resembles her favorite aspect of her time at CAMD. Being in a “women-fueled environment,” reminds her of the intimate “classes where you can share ideas” with your peers and grow from their feedback. Much like the brand’s mission, Dechelle adds that they are all aligned under the company-wide goal of creating content that “reflects the values that are inclusive [and] authentic.”
As she continues to grow in her role, Dechelle hopes to be a leader who motivates others to find inspiration on social media while leading imaginative brainstorms with her co-workers. For now, Dechelle teases that 2025 already looks like an exciting year for Rare. As the lovers of the beauty company impatiently count down the hours until the new year, they can bet that with the creative insights from Dechelle, the social promotion for Rare will be flawless.
“[At Rare], I continue to brainstorm and be creative. That is what I loved about being at Northeastern in those small classes. We would always have showcases of our work, and we were able to critique ourselves and learn from that.
Louise Dechelle, AMD’18