"For the last five years, Tyra Banks has been trying to become the glam Willy Wonka of frozen treats, and her attempts to build her ice-cream empire have come in fits and starts. She launched her first brand, Smize Cream, in 2020, which has had brief pop-up runs in places like L.A., Dubai, and Princess Cruise ships. In 2024, Kamala Harris took her nieces to the now-renamed SMiZE & DREAM pop-up in Washington, D.C., cementing it as a very serious site of national diplomacy."
"She's also been promoting it with increasingly crazed social posts. "I feel like I'm going crazy!" she says at the start of one video; another begins with her saying, "I'm scared, I'm excited, I'm nervous," with wide eyes. Every quote Banks drops about her hot ice cream makes it less comprehensible than before. In late October, for example, she told the New York Times that she was "trying to make sure that the consistency wasn't familiar in the mouth.""
Tyra Banks has spent five years developing SMiZE & DREAM, launching pop-up locations since 2020 and opening a permanent scoop shop in Sydney in 2024. The brand began as Smize Cream with brief pop-ups in L.A., Dubai, and on Princess Cruise ships, later rebranded and visited by public figures at a Washington, D.C. pop-up. Banks has promoted an experimental 'hot ice cream' product and used theatrical marketing, social videos, and an alter ego called 'Santa SMiZE' to create lore around the product. Promotion included a tie-in Christmas song and live performances that mixed food, persona, and spectacle.
Read at Vulture
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