Brooke Shields and Clare V. Team for Limited-Edition Tee to Celebrate 1 Year of Her Haircare Brand Commence (Exclusive)

Brooke Shields has plenty to celebrate this summer.

After entering a new decade at the end of May when she turned 60, her haircare brand for women over 40, Commence, officially celebrated its first birthday in June.

Shields is honoring the milestone by teaming up with a fellow female brand founder and one of her close friends for a special launch to commemorate the occasion. She and Clare Vivier, the founder of fashion brand Clare V., designed a T-shirt that says “Beaux Cheveux,” French for “beautiful hair.”

“It’s more than a collaboration. It’s a celebration of female-founded brands, and a lot of the entrepreneurial relationships that I’ve tapped into have all been started by women in their later years, and they’ve been new endeavors, and I think Clare represents that,” Shields tells PEOPLE exclusively of working with Vivier on this launch. Explaining that they met through a mutual friend, Shields says of Vivier, “the champion that she is for other women is really admirable and invigorating to me.”

The pair designed the soft salmon-pink shirt — which is available exclusively on each of their brands’ websites starting July 17 for $100 while supplies last — to be right in line with the color palette of Shields’ other Commence products.

While the new tee honors Shields’ brand’s first birthday, Vivier says it’s also about their friendship. And as it’s Clare V.’s first collab with a haircare brand, Vivier says she’s thrilled that it’s with one that she’s a fan of.

“The age that I am now — and a lot of my executive team — we’re over 40 and we need [hair products] dedicated to our specific hair and scalp needs, and I don’t think anyone else is doing it [like Commence],” Vivier says.

Both Shields and Vivier trade warm, genial words about each other while discussing hair patterns in women over 40 (like how much more love your scalp needs as you age and how much more prevalent hair loss can be if you’re not careful), and it’s easy to see why they came together for this collaboration.

When they met, Vivier admits that she originally viewed Shields as an “icon” but quickly realized that the actress and author was simply “Brooke” when they hit it off over a four-hour lunch.

“She’s such a funny person and she’s just so easy to get along with,” Vivier says of Shields, who chuckles and adds of the friend who introduced them: “Our mutual friend is kind of a badass. She doesn’t suffer fools.”

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One of the benefits of the friendship is that Vivier, who founded Clare V. in 2008 and has built it into a successful business, has been a positive influence on Shields as she builds her brand.

“Starting a business in this era, in this age, I rely on people and on their knowledge because I didn’t know this world,” Shields says. “I’ve been a model and an actress my whole life. I did go to college, I got a degree, but it wasn’t in business. It wasn’t in finance.”

Shields adds that what she’s learned, most of all, from Vivier — beyond the scope of basic business knowledge — is tenacity and perseverance as a female business owner. She admires her in that sense every day. She says their businesses also have the same goal.

“Our vision has always been very clear about empowering women,” Shields says. “And the mission is to create products that help solve individual issues that a woman experiences, but make you look beautiful.”

Shields initially launched her Commence haircare brand last year after fostering a community of like-minded women over 40 who longed for products to take care of aging hair. She gathered all their insights and built a team that could help her turn that community into potential customers. From there, Commence was born. It started with three hero products, and a few months later, the brand launched three more.

“Women [in this age group] go through a myriad of changes, but there is a white space for problem solving,” Shields told PEOPLE when the brand first launched. “The predominant question that was coming up [within the community] was hair. Quality of hair, hair loss, hair texture, the changes in your hair. So we started to realize, okay, I think we’re going to have to go into this realm to solve these problems.”

From the outset, Shields was eager to learn everything she could about production creation. She dove headfirst into the chemistry of it all and surrounded herself with experts who could teach her the ins and outs about bringing the best possible products to women over 40 — and women under 40, because Shields maintains that these products will work on anyone.

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Fast-forward to today, and she’s more confident than ever in her brand and in herself as a founder.

“We’ve gotten awards, and we’ve sold out. Every product is sold out,” she gushes. “It’s revealed a different part of me — I don’t have to ask for permission anymore. I think when I started the brand, I was asking for permission. I was a bit more timid. Now I know why I’m here. I know why the brand works. I know why it’s registering with people. That’s been a big piece for me as a CEO for the first time in my life and as a founder.”

As for what’s in the future for Commence, Shields has plenty more plans in store. Most of all, she’s sticking with the massive community she’s built and wants to give them more products to keep their hair and scalps healthy.

“I just want to stay connected to the brand and keep growing it, and I don’t ever want to abandon the community,” she says. “I just want to keep growing.”

Shop the limited-edition Beaux Cheveux shirt on Clare V. and Commence now while supplies last.