Congratulations to our fabulous clients, SheerLuxe, on their recent acquisition by Future plc, valuing the business at just under £40m.
We’ve worked with the London-based beauty and fashion brand for close to a decade, acting as their web development and technical delivery partner throughout a period of sustained growth.
Their growing army of followers and advocates devour their daily updates to keep on trend. The SheerLuxe team, led by founder Georgie Coleridge Cole, know exactly what their loyal readers demand, and they’ve done an amazing job creating fresh and engaging content every day.
As SheerLuxe’s readership and traffic scaled, the platform needed to evolve alongside it. The site has had to deliver a fast, reliable experience across rich, content-heavy pages, even during peak traffic periods, and we’ve worked closely with the SheerLuxe team to ensure the website could support that growth without becoming a constraint.
We’re proud to have supported SheerLuxe on this journey and to continue our partnership as the business enters its next phase. Congratulations to Georgie and the wider team on a well-deserved milestone.
It has been quite a journey over the last 20 years, and just thrilled for us all to get the recognition we have! We’re not going anywhere, so you’re stuck with us, I’m afraid! Huge thanks again and warm wishes.
Georgie Coleridge Cole, SheerLuxe Founder
How it Started
We began working with SheerLuxe at a point when audience growth was accelerating, and the existing website was beginning to crumble under the strain.
The editorial vision was already established, and the brand had clear and demanding ambitions. They needed Drupal experts who could sustainably support that growth – improving performance, reducing friction for the editorial team, and creating a platform that could scale without compromising reliability.
From the outset, the relationship was built on trust and shared standards. SheerLuxe needed to know their website was in safe hands with a team that would react quickly, not hide behind a ticket system – working collaboratively with an in-house team who knew their audience inside out.
A Decade of Building & Scaling
After initially stabilising and improving the existing platform, eighteen73 was commissioned to deliver a complete rebuild as our understanding of the business and its technical requirements deepened.
That rebuild focused on long-term delivery: performance under load, flexible and consistent page-building tools, and infrastructure capable of supporting a rapidly growing, content-heavy site. Alongside this, we’ve led ongoing optimisation across hosting, caching, and database performance, while working closely with the SheerLuxe digital team on technical SEO.
This all ensures efficient crawling and indexing at scale, robust internal linking and taxonomy, and strong performance signals as content volumes, commercial requirements, and international launches such as SheerLuxe Middle East and SL Man have expanded.
Monthly Page Views
Longer on website vs. competitors
Saved on hosting costs
What Our Role Looks Like Day to Day
Our relationship with SheerLuxe is rooted in long-term collaboration.
We work closely with their internal team through shared issue tracking, regular progress meetings, and ongoing technical discussions. Because we manage development and hosting, we maintain a full view of performance, user behaviour, and search-related signals, allowing us to identify and prioritise improvements across the stack.
This approach enables frequent iteration. Some changes are small, others more substantial, but all are focused on maintaining a fast, reliable, and search-friendly experience on a content-rich site with very high concurrent usage.
Acquisition. And Recognition.
Having worked with SheerLuxe for many years, it’s been rewarding to see the business reach this stage, and we’re excited to continue working together.
Growth at this scale depends on strong technical foundations. The website plays a central role in audience engagement, commercial performance, and brand value, and our focus throughout the partnership has been to ensure it continues to support the business as it grows.
We’re proud to have contributed to that foundation during a long period of sustained expansion. It reflects the way we work: long-term partnerships with ambitious organisations, built on continuity, shared understanding, and technical decisions made with the future in mind.
Our work with SheerLuxe continues as the business enters its next phase. We remain focused on maintaining performance at scale and supporting further growth through ongoing, incremental improvement.
It’s a significant milestone for SheerLuxe – and one we’re delighted to have supported.
