And the man behind the brand is...
Max Factor
The problem was that faces would show up red or green; they reflected costume colors. The technology for color films was developed in 1937 but the make-up used in Hollywood for black-and-white films simply wasn’t working. It was Max Factor, who was responsible for every other make-up innovation in Hollywood up to that time, who came up with the solution.
Max Factor was born in Russia in 1877. He became an apprentice to a wig-maker when he was fourteen, and by the time he was twenty young Factor was running his own makeup and hair goods shop in his hometown of Lodz. Business was good, good enough that in 1904 Factor brought his wife and three children to St. Louis where, with a partner, he took a booth at the St. Louis World’s Fair.
Within a year his partner had pilfered most of the profits but Factor was able to raise money for another makeup, perfume and hair-products shop in downtown St. Louis. All the while he was hearing tales of the new motion picture industry growing in Los Angeles. At the time no cosmetics manufacturer dominated the film business and in 1908 Max Factor headed to the frontier town of Hollywood, California.
The first Max Factor studio was in the Pantages Theater. At first he served as West Coast agent for other cosmetics firms while formulating and testing his own theatrical make-up. In 1914 he perfected the first make-up designed for movie use and leading actors and actresses began seeking him out for advice on how to avoid looking ghastly white on the silver screen.
Factor’s work with the movie industry led to such innovations as false eyelashes, the eyebrow pencil and a powder brush. In the 1920s Factor introduced “color harmony” in the movies. For the first time make-up items were created to harmonize with hair, eyes and skins of blondes, brownettes (a Max Factor term), brunettes and redheads.
At first used only in the movies actresses soon began to use the make-up off-screen as well. Eventually non-actresses adopted the product and in 1927 “Color Harmony Make-up” was made available to everyday women. That same year talking movies were introduced with highly sensitive film and hot set lighting. A whole new make-up was required and Max Factor’s Panchromatic Make-up earned him a special award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
In 1929, after two decades of work in Hollywood, Factor decided to enter the general cosmetics world. It was the ideal base from which to nurture an international empire. Factor’s clients were the most famous and glamourous people in the world. Jean Harlow, Claudette Colbert, Ginger Rogers and others insisted that they be made up for the camera by Max Factor and no one else.
And Factor made certain the world knew about it.
He staged lavish publicity extravaganzas which were well-reported in newspapers and movie reels around the world. Women everywhere wanted to look like their favorite movie actress. Within twenty years Max Factor would be the leading American cosmetics company in the international market.
With the advent of color films Factor once again needed to develop a suitable theatrical make-up. He formulated “pancake make-up” which restored flesh to actors’ faces and in 1938 the first color movies made their appearance. The new pancake formula was introduced to the public with full-page color advertisements in Vogue. Within months there were sixty-five different imitations of Max Factor Pancake, but Max Factor outsold all sixty-five combined.
It was Max Factor’s final contribution to the movie industry. He died in 1938, having ushered movie stars from wan, chalky black-and-white films through sound and finally into full color.
Showing posts with label Cosmetic Brands. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cosmetic Brands. Show all posts
February 9, 2007
Mary Kay
And the woman behind the brand is...
Mary Kay Ash
Mary Kay Ash was a victim of the worst kind of sexism. She would take men out in the field, train them expertly, and return to the office to find her trainees become her supervisors - at twice the salary. "They have families to support," she was told. But she had a family to support too.
Mary Kay Wagner had married fresh out of a Texas high school when she was 18. Ben Rogers was the "Elvis Presley of Houston" she liked to say. He played guitar and sang for the Hawaiian Strummers. They were married for eight years with three kids when Ben was drafted into the army in World War II. He never came home.
Mary Kay had been alone before. Back in the early 1920s when she was seven her father came down with tuberculosis and could no longer work. Her mother put in long hours in a cafe and instilled self-reliance in little Mary Kay who took care of her father and the family home. Now she filed for divorce and got a job as a part-time secretary.
To get more income she joined Stanley Home Products giving house party demonstrations. She enjoyed the work and talking to the people but nobody seemed to be buying much. What was she doing wrong?
She borrowed $12 for round trip train fare and three days in a hotel for the company's annual sales convention in Dallas. She saw the "Queen of Sales" crowned and accept a lovely alligator bag as a reward. Mary Kay was hooked. She would be "Queen of Sales" next year, she promised herself. And she was. But her gift was an underwater flashlight. She vowed that if she were ever in the same position she would give away prizes that truly motivated. She left Stanley in 1953 for a better job at World Gift Company.
Mary Kay rose rapidly through the company to become national training director. She developed business in 43 states for the Dallas-based firm but chafed at her treatment in the male-dominated company. Still, she was making $25,000 a year, a good living even if it should have been better.
In 1963 an efficiency expert warned World Gift that Mary Kay's power in the hierarchy was too great. This was too much. Rather than accept a re-assignment she retired. Remarried by this time she went home to become a housewife and write a book on selling for women. As she listed her ideas she decided to start her own selling business.
Her product came from a home demonstration for Stanley ten years earlier. She had noticed that all the women at this party had flawless skin. It turned out one of the ladies was a cosmetologist who made skin creams from material similar to that used to tan hides. Mary Kay became a regular customer and when the cosmetologist died in 1961 she bought the formula from her heirs, not as an investment but to assure herself a continued supply of the face cream.
She took $5000 of her own money and made plans to open a small boutique. But just before the opening her husband died of a heart attack. Aside from her personal grief Mary Kay also was left without a business partner. She persuaded her 20-year old son Richard to take a 50% pay cut from selling insurance and manage her business while Mary Kay trained the sales force. Mary Kay Cosmetics formed on September 13, 1963.
She took the home party technique from Stanley and called them "beauty shows." She called her sales people "consultants" and paid the highest commission in the direct sales field - 50%. Most importantly she concentrated her line in skin care products where her major competitor Avon would be weakest.
Mary Kay innovated the concept of no fixed territories; if a woman's husband was transferred she could sell wherever she went. This fostered not competition as would be expected but a co-operative attitude among the consultants. The real competition was for Mary Kay bonuses.
Her revival-meeting-style annual convention in Dallas became legendary. Over four days of product introduction, training and most importantly, recognition, Mary Kay could give away scores of coats, trips, jewelry and, of course, trademark pink Cadillacs. "Women need praise," she said, "and so I praise them. If I criticize I sandwich it between layers of praise."
Her sales force is among the most motivated anywhere although the average consultant makes only about $2000 a year in their part-time work. The company motto remains: "God first, family second, career third."
Mary Kay Ash borrowed ideas from other direct selling companies before her. Her true legacy was in creating a successful company for women, by women.
Mary Kay Ash
Mary Kay Ash was a victim of the worst kind of sexism. She would take men out in the field, train them expertly, and return to the office to find her trainees become her supervisors - at twice the salary. "They have families to support," she was told. But she had a family to support too.
Mary Kay Wagner had married fresh out of a Texas high school when she was 18. Ben Rogers was the "Elvis Presley of Houston" she liked to say. He played guitar and sang for the Hawaiian Strummers. They were married for eight years with three kids when Ben was drafted into the army in World War II. He never came home.
Mary Kay had been alone before. Back in the early 1920s when she was seven her father came down with tuberculosis and could no longer work. Her mother put in long hours in a cafe and instilled self-reliance in little Mary Kay who took care of her father and the family home. Now she filed for divorce and got a job as a part-time secretary.
To get more income she joined Stanley Home Products giving house party demonstrations. She enjoyed the work and talking to the people but nobody seemed to be buying much. What was she doing wrong?
She borrowed $12 for round trip train fare and three days in a hotel for the company's annual sales convention in Dallas. She saw the "Queen of Sales" crowned and accept a lovely alligator bag as a reward. Mary Kay was hooked. She would be "Queen of Sales" next year, she promised herself. And she was. But her gift was an underwater flashlight. She vowed that if she were ever in the same position she would give away prizes that truly motivated. She left Stanley in 1953 for a better job at World Gift Company.
Mary Kay rose rapidly through the company to become national training director. She developed business in 43 states for the Dallas-based firm but chafed at her treatment in the male-dominated company. Still, she was making $25,000 a year, a good living even if it should have been better.
In 1963 an efficiency expert warned World Gift that Mary Kay's power in the hierarchy was too great. This was too much. Rather than accept a re-assignment she retired. Remarried by this time she went home to become a housewife and write a book on selling for women. As she listed her ideas she decided to start her own selling business.
Her product came from a home demonstration for Stanley ten years earlier. She had noticed that all the women at this party had flawless skin. It turned out one of the ladies was a cosmetologist who made skin creams from material similar to that used to tan hides. Mary Kay became a regular customer and when the cosmetologist died in 1961 she bought the formula from her heirs, not as an investment but to assure herself a continued supply of the face cream.
She took $5000 of her own money and made plans to open a small boutique. But just before the opening her husband died of a heart attack. Aside from her personal grief Mary Kay also was left without a business partner. She persuaded her 20-year old son Richard to take a 50% pay cut from selling insurance and manage her business while Mary Kay trained the sales force. Mary Kay Cosmetics formed on September 13, 1963.
She took the home party technique from Stanley and called them "beauty shows." She called her sales people "consultants" and paid the highest commission in the direct sales field - 50%. Most importantly she concentrated her line in skin care products where her major competitor Avon would be weakest.
Mary Kay innovated the concept of no fixed territories; if a woman's husband was transferred she could sell wherever she went. This fostered not competition as would be expected but a co-operative attitude among the consultants. The real competition was for Mary Kay bonuses.
Her revival-meeting-style annual convention in Dallas became legendary. Over four days of product introduction, training and most importantly, recognition, Mary Kay could give away scores of coats, trips, jewelry and, of course, trademark pink Cadillacs. "Women need praise," she said, "and so I praise them. If I criticize I sandwich it between layers of praise."
Her sales force is among the most motivated anywhere although the average consultant makes only about $2000 a year in their part-time work. The company motto remains: "God first, family second, career third."
Mary Kay Ash borrowed ideas from other direct selling companies before her. Her true legacy was in creating a successful company for women, by women.
Helena Rubinstein
And the woman behind the brand is...
Helena Rubinstein
Of all the places to sow the seeds for a cosmetics empire the hardscrabble outback of Australia would seem to be among the least likely. While visiting relatives on the island continent the Polish-born Helena Rubinstein was shocked by the sun-dried rough skins of Australian women. She suggested local women try her homemade family face cream. After her short supply was exhausted she sent back to Poland for more.
The year was 1902; Rubenstein was thirty years old. After a succession of ordinary jobs of no note she decided to open a salon and manufacture her cream in Melbourne. Rubinstein borrowed $1000 from an English friend she had met on the ship going to Australia. She set up in only one room which rapidly became a six-room salon.
The tiny business thrived but Rubinstein knew she was on the wrong side of the world to satisfy her ambitions. In 1908 she sailed back to Europe leaving her Australian salon in the guardianship of two of her sisters. She headed for London where she could seek the counsel of the finest doctors and dermatologists in preparing her facial creams.
Helena Rubinstein knew what she needed to conquer the sophisticated English beauty market. The formula was simple: a prestigious address and splendid decor would attract well-paying customers. She selected a twenty-room English manor and transformed it into a beauty salon, the Maison de Beaute Velaze, with every luxury. It was an immediate smash and by the time she opened her next salon in Paris the Rubinstein name was all she needed to fill her appointment book.
She used the salons to popularize her cosmetic products. Rubinstein was the first to put color into foundation and face powder. She realized before anyone else that not all skins were the same - some were dry, some oily, and others a mixture of both. She pioneered the use of silk in her make-up.
Rubinstein married an American in 1912 and, with the threat of war rumbling through Europe, turned her sights on a safer United States. To Rubinstein, it was not a pretty sight. Arriving in New York in 1914 she expressed horror at the chapped skins and white face powder of the day. She opened her salon at West 49th Street in New York in February 1915.
The American beauty business was no less lucrative than its European predecessors. Within four years of her arrival Rubinstein had christened salons in San Francisco, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Chicago and Atlantic City. Rubinstein, a Jew, was careful to establish salons in cities where Jew were accepted.
Within months of arriving in America, Rubinstein was in fierce, and often acrimonious, competition with beauty pioneer Elizabeth Arden. Throughout the next decade the two women battled for leadership of the exploding American cosmetic market, their rivalry often played out gleefully in the sensationalistic press of the day.
Then, suddenly, Rubinstein sold two-thirds of her business to Lehman Brothers in 1928. She wanted, she said, to slow down and retire to Europe. The banking concern wanted, they said, to mass-market the Rubinstein line through drugstores. Rubinstein received over $7 million.
But bankers knew nothing of cosmetics and Rubinstein knew nothing of idleness. When the stock market crashed in 1929 she bought back a controlling interest in her company, realizing a reported $6 million profit. She raced around the world, tending to her salons, although she never spoke any language properly and never shed her thick Polish accent.
Along the way she collected some of the world’s most spectacular art and married a Russian prince. She never contemplated retirement again, living until the age of 93 and working daily in her office until two days before her death in 1965.
Helena Rubinstein
Of all the places to sow the seeds for a cosmetics empire the hardscrabble outback of Australia would seem to be among the least likely. While visiting relatives on the island continent the Polish-born Helena Rubinstein was shocked by the sun-dried rough skins of Australian women. She suggested local women try her homemade family face cream. After her short supply was exhausted she sent back to Poland for more.
The year was 1902; Rubenstein was thirty years old. After a succession of ordinary jobs of no note she decided to open a salon and manufacture her cream in Melbourne. Rubinstein borrowed $1000 from an English friend she had met on the ship going to Australia. She set up in only one room which rapidly became a six-room salon.
The tiny business thrived but Rubinstein knew she was on the wrong side of the world to satisfy her ambitions. In 1908 she sailed back to Europe leaving her Australian salon in the guardianship of two of her sisters. She headed for London where she could seek the counsel of the finest doctors and dermatologists in preparing her facial creams.
Helena Rubinstein knew what she needed to conquer the sophisticated English beauty market. The formula was simple: a prestigious address and splendid decor would attract well-paying customers. She selected a twenty-room English manor and transformed it into a beauty salon, the Maison de Beaute Velaze, with every luxury. It was an immediate smash and by the time she opened her next salon in Paris the Rubinstein name was all she needed to fill her appointment book.
She used the salons to popularize her cosmetic products. Rubinstein was the first to put color into foundation and face powder. She realized before anyone else that not all skins were the same - some were dry, some oily, and others a mixture of both. She pioneered the use of silk in her make-up.
Rubinstein married an American in 1912 and, with the threat of war rumbling through Europe, turned her sights on a safer United States. To Rubinstein, it was not a pretty sight. Arriving in New York in 1914 she expressed horror at the chapped skins and white face powder of the day. She opened her salon at West 49th Street in New York in February 1915.
The American beauty business was no less lucrative than its European predecessors. Within four years of her arrival Rubinstein had christened salons in San Francisco, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Chicago and Atlantic City. Rubinstein, a Jew, was careful to establish salons in cities where Jew were accepted.
Within months of arriving in America, Rubinstein was in fierce, and often acrimonious, competition with beauty pioneer Elizabeth Arden. Throughout the next decade the two women battled for leadership of the exploding American cosmetic market, their rivalry often played out gleefully in the sensationalistic press of the day.
Then, suddenly, Rubinstein sold two-thirds of her business to Lehman Brothers in 1928. She wanted, she said, to slow down and retire to Europe. The banking concern wanted, they said, to mass-market the Rubinstein line through drugstores. Rubinstein received over $7 million.
But bankers knew nothing of cosmetics and Rubinstein knew nothing of idleness. When the stock market crashed in 1929 she bought back a controlling interest in her company, realizing a reported $6 million profit. She raced around the world, tending to her salons, although she never spoke any language properly and never shed her thick Polish accent.
Along the way she collected some of the world’s most spectacular art and married a Russian prince. She never contemplated retirement again, living until the age of 93 and working daily in her office until two days before her death in 1965.
Estee Lauder
And the woman behind the brand is...
Estee Lauder
Josephine Esther Mentzer was born in Queens, the youngest child of Hungarian immigrants. Her father had led a privileged life in his homeland but possessed few marketable skills in early 20th century America. He opened a small hardware store above which the family lived. At school a teacher decided to "add a little Romantic French" to her harsh-sounding name and called her Estee Mentzer.
One day her Uncle John Schotz came to New York to visit. He was a skin specialist and set up a makeshift lab in the basement. Estee would watch with fascination as he mixed his secret magic cream potions that made her face feel "like spun silk." Soon she was creating her own creams and testing them on high school friends.
Estee Mentzer married Joseph Lauter in her early twenties in 1930. His name had been "Lauder" in Austria but was mangled by immigration officials. The couple changed it back. After her marriage Estee spent every spare moment cooking up "little pots of cream for faces" which she sold to local beauty shops.
She began giving free demonstrations at resort hotels in the summer and wealthy homes in the winter. Soon she was running a beauty concession on the fashionable Upper East Side. As her social contacts expanded so did her business. Estee's single-minded approach to business strained her marriage and the couple divorced in 1939. Estee Lauder went to Miami Beach to sell cream to vacationers.
An illness to their eldest son reunited the Lauders who remarried in 1942 and began selling the creams as a family business. In 1946 Estee Lauder, Inc. was formed with Joseph and Estee Lauder as the only employees and a line of four basic skin care products. Estee finally convinced Saks Fifth Avenue to place a big order. They converted a restaurant into a factory, boiling and sterilizing the creams on the old stoves and managed to fill the orders. The creams sold out in two days.
Other major cosmetic giants sold in drugstores and beauty salons where turnover was high. The Lauders didn't have a sales force so they sold exclusively to department stores, giving the Estee Lauder line a status. She travelled the country in the late 1940s and early 1950s promoting her cosmetics while her husband managed the plant.
At every store she selected and trained the sales staff herself. These were the people who would be walking ads for her products. Customers always received small samples with every Estee Lauder purchase, a trademark that would be widely copied. By 1953 Estee Lauder counters were in prestigious stores across the country.
She now introduced her first fragrance which she named Youth Dew. Up to that time perfume was a classic gift for men to give to women. Lauder called her fragrance Youth Dew so women would buy it themselves. Priced at $8.95 Youth Dew soon accounted for 80% of Lauder's business at Saks and was still selling well 30 years later.
In 1967 Lauder pioneered men's toiletries with Aramis and was quickly the leader in mens' trade. She turned over a great deal of the operations to her son Leonard in 1973 but continued to develop new scents, building on her reputation as "one of the best noses in the business."
Lauder turned to the social whirl with royalty and celebrities as she promoted herself and her products through the society pages. Sales grew to over one billion dollars. Today more than one of every three department store cosmetics and fragrances are Estee Lauder products.
Estee Lauder
Josephine Esther Mentzer was born in Queens, the youngest child of Hungarian immigrants. Her father had led a privileged life in his homeland but possessed few marketable skills in early 20th century America. He opened a small hardware store above which the family lived. At school a teacher decided to "add a little Romantic French" to her harsh-sounding name and called her Estee Mentzer.
One day her Uncle John Schotz came to New York to visit. He was a skin specialist and set up a makeshift lab in the basement. Estee would watch with fascination as he mixed his secret magic cream potions that made her face feel "like spun silk." Soon she was creating her own creams and testing them on high school friends.
Estee Mentzer married Joseph Lauter in her early twenties in 1930. His name had been "Lauder" in Austria but was mangled by immigration officials. The couple changed it back. After her marriage Estee spent every spare moment cooking up "little pots of cream for faces" which she sold to local beauty shops.
She began giving free demonstrations at resort hotels in the summer and wealthy homes in the winter. Soon she was running a beauty concession on the fashionable Upper East Side. As her social contacts expanded so did her business. Estee's single-minded approach to business strained her marriage and the couple divorced in 1939. Estee Lauder went to Miami Beach to sell cream to vacationers.
An illness to their eldest son reunited the Lauders who remarried in 1942 and began selling the creams as a family business. In 1946 Estee Lauder, Inc. was formed with Joseph and Estee Lauder as the only employees and a line of four basic skin care products. Estee finally convinced Saks Fifth Avenue to place a big order. They converted a restaurant into a factory, boiling and sterilizing the creams on the old stoves and managed to fill the orders. The creams sold out in two days.
Other major cosmetic giants sold in drugstores and beauty salons where turnover was high. The Lauders didn't have a sales force so they sold exclusively to department stores, giving the Estee Lauder line a status. She travelled the country in the late 1940s and early 1950s promoting her cosmetics while her husband managed the plant.
At every store she selected and trained the sales staff herself. These were the people who would be walking ads for her products. Customers always received small samples with every Estee Lauder purchase, a trademark that would be widely copied. By 1953 Estee Lauder counters were in prestigious stores across the country.
She now introduced her first fragrance which she named Youth Dew. Up to that time perfume was a classic gift for men to give to women. Lauder called her fragrance Youth Dew so women would buy it themselves. Priced at $8.95 Youth Dew soon accounted for 80% of Lauder's business at Saks and was still selling well 30 years later.
In 1967 Lauder pioneered men's toiletries with Aramis and was quickly the leader in mens' trade. She turned over a great deal of the operations to her son Leonard in 1973 but continued to develop new scents, building on her reputation as "one of the best noses in the business."
Lauder turned to the social whirl with royalty and celebrities as she promoted herself and her products through the society pages. Sales grew to over one billion dollars. Today more than one of every three department store cosmetics and fragrances are Estee Lauder products.
Elizabeth Arden
And the woman behind the brand is...
Elizabeth Arden
When Elizabeth Arden died in 1966 estimates of her age ranged from 81 to 88. She had built an industry based entirely on illusion and the mother of the beauty treatment business never missed an opportunity to create a similar aura around her own life.
Elizabeth Arden was born Florence Nightengale Graham in Ontario, Canada,
the daughter of a Scotch-English teamster. For the first thirty years she toiled in a succession of mundane jobs around Toronto, the last as an office assistant to a dentist. In 1908 she came to New York as a treatment girl in a salon working for tips.
She learned massage and studied elementary formulas for cosmetics. In a few years Graham was ready for her own salon. Searching for a more glamorous name it is said she selected “Arden” from a favorite Victorian novel, although there is nothing in her background to suggest she would have favored such literature.
She surely took “Elizabeth” from a mentor for its mellifluous sound. She was soon to steal more than her name. Headstrong and indulgent of no opinion other than her own Arden resolutely built her business. A second salon quickly opened and others were planned.
When chemists told her that a fluffy face cream - “like whipped cream” - was an impossibility she pressed the subject until Cream Amoretta was ready for market in 1914. It became the basis of her cosmetics fortune. Creating cosmetics was an Arden specialty and she tried them all on herself. Hers was the final decision on every aspect of the business - the color of the package (pink was a trademark), the mood of the advertisement, the naming of the perfume.
Arden entered the treatment business at the ideal time - respectable American women were beginning to use rouge and lipstick, previously only the accoutrements of harlots. She traveled to dozens of salons in Europe to expand her product line. She was a pioneer of advertising beauty products in fashion magazines and newspapers.
Arden at first used sybaritic salons to introduce her beauty products but by 1915 she began to realize that bulk sales were where her future profits lay. She opened a wholesale department to promote her line in department stores and drug stores. More than 300 scented Elizabeth Arden cosmetics were available around the world.
In a highly competitive follow-the-leader industry Arden was an innovator.
In 1934 she transformed her Maine Chance Farm in Mount Vernon, Maine into a beauty retreat for women. At the height of the Depression women doled out $750 a week for exercise, beauty treatments and general pampering. A second Maine Chance Farm opened in Phoenix in 1947.
Mixing with her prominent clientele, Arden was introduced to horse racing.
She developed an intense passion for race horses, which she often selected for their handsome looks alone. She directed her trainers to forego traditional rubbing liniment for Elizabeth Arden skin tonic. Her unconventional methods helped; in 1947 her stable produced the Kentucky Derby winner, Jet Pilot.
There was little time in Elizabeth Arden’s life aside from her rich patrons and fast horses. Two emotionless marriages ended in divorce, although there is little indication that she ever gave it a second thought. Childless, the business she created and controlled with consummate skill, was left in disarray by her passing. After her death her estate was saddled with $37 million in taxes.
Elizabeth Arden
When Elizabeth Arden died in 1966 estimates of her age ranged from 81 to 88. She had built an industry based entirely on illusion and the mother of the beauty treatment business never missed an opportunity to create a similar aura around her own life.
Elizabeth Arden was born Florence Nightengale Graham in Ontario, Canada,
the daughter of a Scotch-English teamster. For the first thirty years she toiled in a succession of mundane jobs around Toronto, the last as an office assistant to a dentist. In 1908 she came to New York as a treatment girl in a salon working for tips.
She learned massage and studied elementary formulas for cosmetics. In a few years Graham was ready for her own salon. Searching for a more glamorous name it is said she selected “Arden” from a favorite Victorian novel, although there is nothing in her background to suggest she would have favored such literature.
She surely took “Elizabeth” from a mentor for its mellifluous sound. She was soon to steal more than her name. Headstrong and indulgent of no opinion other than her own Arden resolutely built her business. A second salon quickly opened and others were planned.
When chemists told her that a fluffy face cream - “like whipped cream” - was an impossibility she pressed the subject until Cream Amoretta was ready for market in 1914. It became the basis of her cosmetics fortune. Creating cosmetics was an Arden specialty and she tried them all on herself. Hers was the final decision on every aspect of the business - the color of the package (pink was a trademark), the mood of the advertisement, the naming of the perfume.
Arden entered the treatment business at the ideal time - respectable American women were beginning to use rouge and lipstick, previously only the accoutrements of harlots. She traveled to dozens of salons in Europe to expand her product line. She was a pioneer of advertising beauty products in fashion magazines and newspapers.
Arden at first used sybaritic salons to introduce her beauty products but by 1915 she began to realize that bulk sales were where her future profits lay. She opened a wholesale department to promote her line in department stores and drug stores. More than 300 scented Elizabeth Arden cosmetics were available around the world.
In a highly competitive follow-the-leader industry Arden was an innovator.
In 1934 she transformed her Maine Chance Farm in Mount Vernon, Maine into a beauty retreat for women. At the height of the Depression women doled out $750 a week for exercise, beauty treatments and general pampering. A second Maine Chance Farm opened in Phoenix in 1947.
Mixing with her prominent clientele, Arden was introduced to horse racing.
She developed an intense passion for race horses, which she often selected for their handsome looks alone. She directed her trainers to forego traditional rubbing liniment for Elizabeth Arden skin tonic. Her unconventional methods helped; in 1947 her stable produced the Kentucky Derby winner, Jet Pilot.
There was little time in Elizabeth Arden’s life aside from her rich patrons and fast horses. Two emotionless marriages ended in divorce, although there is little indication that she ever gave it a second thought. Childless, the business she created and controlled with consummate skill, was left in disarray by her passing. After her death her estate was saddled with $37 million in taxes.
Chanel
And the woman behind the brand is...
Coco Chanel
Coco Chanel was ready to introduce a new perfume, an unorthodox scent created by a chemist on the Riveria. A fortune teller had once told her that five was her lucky number so she called her fragrance simply Chanel No. 5. It made Coco Chanel a millionaire many times over.
But perfume, although it made her famous across the world, was only a sidelight for Chanel. Her influential fashions freed 20th century women from rigid bone corsets with an uncluttered, casual look. Among her innovations were jersey dresses, trenchcoats, turtleneck sweaters, bellbottom trousers, bobbed hair, sailor suits and costume jewelry.
Chanel’s life, much of which couldn’t be distinguished from fact to fiction, was appropriately turned into a Broadway musical in 1969, 13 months before her death. When asked what she thought of Katharine Hepburn, then 60, in the starring role Chanel, who was herself 86, replied scathingly, “She’s too old.”
Chanel was born in a dour mountainous region of southern France in 1883.
She was baptized Gabrielle Bonheur - Gabrielle Happiness. Her mother died of tuberculosis when she was six and her father abandoned his four daughters.
Coco was sent to live with strict aunts where she helped raise horses to sell to the French army.
Before her 16th birthday Coco escaped her aunts by persuading a young cavalry officer to take her away. Chanel became swept up in a world of high society as her French officer turned out to be an heir to an industrial fortune. The two were inseparable for the next ten years.
By 1911 Chanel was ready to make her own mark on society. She started selling hats in a haphazard fashion from a tiny Parisien shop. Over the next few years she became a force in the fashion record by disdaining elaborate and grotesque hats that were in fashion for simple and attractive hats. She began to impress wealthy and influential women with her originality in her shop at 31 rue Cambon.
“Women are not flowers, why should they want to smell like flowers,” she commented when introducing Chanel No. 5. Women responded and she eventually would have 2,400 people in her workrooms. Women around the world knew her name.
It was a toss-up as to what caused more of a sensation in the 1920s: Chanel’s fashion creations or her social life. One winter she came back from Cannes with bronzed skin and other women, who had always considered paleness the mark of a lady, began to seek tans. When Chanel had her expensive jewelry copied so she could wear them without being stared at costume jewelry was born. When Chanel went to Venice she outfitted herself in comfortable slacks that bulged slightly at the bottom and the fashion world went wild for bellbottoms.
She kept a small suite at the swank Ritz hotel and one night some gas in her hot water heater exploded, spraying her with soot. An impatient woman, Chanel cut her long black hair so there would be less to shampoo. Later that night when she appeared at the opera she set off an immediate fashion craze.
In the late thirties, when the fashion world deserted Chanel for other designers and World War II broke out Chanel shut her couture house at 31 rue Cambon. She spent time at the Ritz and in Switzerland as she receded from public view for 15 years. Chanel returned, fiery as ever, on February 5, 1954, showing a heavy navy jersey and a sailor hat. Critics were lukewarm but women bought it and the suit evolved year after year with increasing success.
The suit was a hallmark of Chanel design. Although she dressed the world’s most famous women and revelled in luxury herself she was the constant democratizer of fashion. She claimed that her most important task was to make women look young. “Then,” she said, “their outlook on life changes. They feel more joyous.”
Coco Chanel
Coco Chanel was ready to introduce a new perfume, an unorthodox scent created by a chemist on the Riveria. A fortune teller had once told her that five was her lucky number so she called her fragrance simply Chanel No. 5. It made Coco Chanel a millionaire many times over.
But perfume, although it made her famous across the world, was only a sidelight for Chanel. Her influential fashions freed 20th century women from rigid bone corsets with an uncluttered, casual look. Among her innovations were jersey dresses, trenchcoats, turtleneck sweaters, bellbottom trousers, bobbed hair, sailor suits and costume jewelry.
Chanel’s life, much of which couldn’t be distinguished from fact to fiction, was appropriately turned into a Broadway musical in 1969, 13 months before her death. When asked what she thought of Katharine Hepburn, then 60, in the starring role Chanel, who was herself 86, replied scathingly, “She’s too old.”
Chanel was born in a dour mountainous region of southern France in 1883.
She was baptized Gabrielle Bonheur - Gabrielle Happiness. Her mother died of tuberculosis when she was six and her father abandoned his four daughters.
Coco was sent to live with strict aunts where she helped raise horses to sell to the French army.
Before her 16th birthday Coco escaped her aunts by persuading a young cavalry officer to take her away. Chanel became swept up in a world of high society as her French officer turned out to be an heir to an industrial fortune. The two were inseparable for the next ten years.
By 1911 Chanel was ready to make her own mark on society. She started selling hats in a haphazard fashion from a tiny Parisien shop. Over the next few years she became a force in the fashion record by disdaining elaborate and grotesque hats that were in fashion for simple and attractive hats. She began to impress wealthy and influential women with her originality in her shop at 31 rue Cambon.
“Women are not flowers, why should they want to smell like flowers,” she commented when introducing Chanel No. 5. Women responded and she eventually would have 2,400 people in her workrooms. Women around the world knew her name.
It was a toss-up as to what caused more of a sensation in the 1920s: Chanel’s fashion creations or her social life. One winter she came back from Cannes with bronzed skin and other women, who had always considered paleness the mark of a lady, began to seek tans. When Chanel had her expensive jewelry copied so she could wear them without being stared at costume jewelry was born. When Chanel went to Venice she outfitted herself in comfortable slacks that bulged slightly at the bottom and the fashion world went wild for bellbottoms.
She kept a small suite at the swank Ritz hotel and one night some gas in her hot water heater exploded, spraying her with soot. An impatient woman, Chanel cut her long black hair so there would be less to shampoo. Later that night when she appeared at the opera she set off an immediate fashion craze.
In the late thirties, when the fashion world deserted Chanel for other designers and World War II broke out Chanel shut her couture house at 31 rue Cambon. She spent time at the Ritz and in Switzerland as she receded from public view for 15 years. Chanel returned, fiery as ever, on February 5, 1954, showing a heavy navy jersey and a sailor hat. Critics were lukewarm but women bought it and the suit evolved year after year with increasing success.
The suit was a hallmark of Chanel design. Although she dressed the world’s most famous women and revelled in luxury herself she was the constant democratizer of fashion. She claimed that her most important task was to make women look young. “Then,” she said, “their outlook on life changes. They feel more joyous.”
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