“Oh my gawd she’s beaudiful!” A Saks Fifth Avenue shopper, complete with the
regulation chain-handled bag, American Tan tights, killer heels, red
lipstick and a rigid blow-dry, cranes her neck above the crowd to catch a
glimpse of today’s latest celebrity. Aerin Lauder – daughter of Ronald, and
granddaughter of Estée Lauder – trailing the inevitable camera crew, glides
into place beside a make-up counter not dissimilar to the one her
grandmother would have sold from in this very department store some 40 years
earlier. She’s here to celebrate the launch of her very own fragrance –
Tuberose Gardenia – a tribute to the fragrance Private Collection created by
Estée Lauder in 1973 “for just a few of her personal friends”, who happened
to include Grace Kelly and the Begum Aga Khan.
The occasion is significant for reasons other than the obvious (it’s a
fragrance, stupid) because for the first time in its history the Lauder
family is allowing one of its own to put her face and name to a campaign. In
the heady, hot New York summer of 2007, this idea seemed, well, quaint and
pretty smart, given that Aerin is both beautiful and clever. In the dour,
grey wintry world of the $2 pound, the savings and loan collapse and a
declining US housing market, the concept seems somewhat inspired. Why?
Because a few months ago, Lauder announced that William Lauder, grandson of
Estée and cousin to Aerin, would within two years step down as chief
executive, to be replaced by Procter & Gamble lifer Fabrizio Freda. Freda’s
appointment cannot help but be seen on Wall Street as an indication that
Lauder is at the very least interested in holding its ground against the
ever increasing multinational stranglehold on the beauty business (see P&G
and L’Oréal), but also, potentially in a long-rumoured merger between
itself and P&G. Having a Lauder front a high-profile campaign might just be
the best way to remind those faceless monoliths who is really driving the
business here – on the image front, at least.
The Lauders quite rightly pride themselves on being a “family in business”, as
they put it – although Estée Lauder is a PLC, they still between them
control 46 per cent of Estée Lauder’s common shares and 88 per cent
of the company’s voting shares. This is a company built from nothing by the
daughter of Eastern European immigrants, one Josephine Esther Mentzer, 61
years ago. Company revenue to the end of June 2007 was $7 billion – with P&G
beauty revenue at $22.98 billion and L’Oréal at £12.7 billion ($25.4
billion). Lauder counts Clinique, Prescriptives, Origins, Darphin, MAC,
Bobby Brown and Crème de la Mer among its portfolio. But it’s the Lauder
name that still carries the weight: it has the heritage, though it is no
longer the most successful brand in the portfolio.
The Lauders wield a lot of advertising power in the media world (according to
their fiscal 2006 recorded year-end conference call, they spent $1.5 billion
on advertising, merchandising and promotion and “a couple of hundred million
dollars in gifts”). “You’re writing about Aerin Lauder?” asks the beauty
director of a major American magazine when we meet for lunch. “But what can
you say about her? She is untouchable.” As powerful as they might be, tales
abound of the Lauder family largesse and work ethic. Chairman Leonard –
Aerin’s uncle – still writes his staff notes of praise on blue notepaper and
gives personal tours of his art collection to senior staffers. His
charismatic wife Evelyn works tirelessly and generously on behalf of
breast-cancer research and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. William,
who is still CEO, was no slouch either, instigating the stand-alone Lauder
brand Origins in the early Nineties against family opposition. (Origins’ Dr
Weil range is currently one of the most respected cosmetic brands among
dermatologists.) Most interesting (other than Aerin) is Jane, Aerin’s
younger, publicity-shy sister, who is quietly working on shepherding
Lauder’s lower-market brands, known as the BeautyBank, into a crowded market.
It is, of course, the 37-year-old Aerin who has garnered the column inches
over the past decade, keeping the Lauder name in the news and the Lauder
brand front of mind. “Aerin is the Lauder brand, she’s the all-American
girl, reminding customers that there’s a name and a family behind the
lipstick they are buying,” says a beauty expert. Lauder stormed the New York
social scene as the head girl of the Park Avenue Princess brigade (wealthy,
entitled girls who worked in the early Nineties). It’s a title she rejects
absolutely. “Don’t mention the Park Avenue Princess thing,” cautions a PR
before the interview. “She absolutely hates it.”
Aerin Lauder wants to be taken seriously. And why not? She didn’t sashay her
way into the company with the grand title of senior vice-president, creative
director, which she has now. No. When she left Pennsylvania University, she
came to work directly for Lauder as brand manager on Prescriptives. She has
worked her way to the top. She’s had a lot of advantages, not least the name
and looks. But she has brains, too. It was her idea to bring Tom Ford on
board with Tom Ford Beauty. She has no desire for that proverbial 15 minutes
– “I hate public speaking, I really hate it,” she tells me later.
Lauder is undoubtedly poster-girl material. On the balmy July evening of the
launch, with the rest of her family gathered about her during a drinks party
at the Museum of Modern Art, she is every inch the star, with her swan-like
neck, her graceful composure and her gorgeous designer dress. When Gwyneth
Paltrow makes an entrance in teensy black shorts, sporting heels and a
walking stick as support for her broken knee, Aerin more than holds her own.
As she moves smoothly between the groups of women and men gathered at the
party, she looks like an ambassadorial wife, saying all the right things for
just the right amount of time before moving on.
Aerin Lauder has big shoes to fill. On the day of our interview, those shoes
are green lizard-skin Marc Jacobs flats. “I love them,” she says, “but I’m
not so keen on the round ones.” Her tanned legs are neatly crossed under her
enormous glass desk, behind her a large poster of Carolyn Murphy and
another of her grandmother Estée. The new advertising campaign with Aerin,
shot by übercool photographer Craig McDean, has prompted comment on the
similarities between grandmother and grandchild. When Aerin was little, her
grandmother used to bring her to the legendary toy store FAO Schwartz and
encourage her to choose whatever she wanted. Today Aerin’s office sits 36
floors above that very toy store. To her right the city stretches out,
baking in the noon sun. Later, perhaps, she will climb into her car with her
two children and husband, investment banker Eric Zinterhofer, and head out
to the family compound in Southampton. Right now, though, I’m number five in
a series of interviews she’s giving to launch her new fragrance.
America has already peered into the Lauder closet thanks to a glowing article
dedicated to Aerin’s style in a major women’s glossy. “Check out her
closets,” says the PR director for a large Italian designer. “This woman has
40 pairs of navy pants.” On closer inspection the navy pants turn out to be
garment bags, but still among the Tuleh dresses, the Prada, the Chloé and
the Marc Jacobs, there’s plenty here to be dazzled by. When I ask if she
ever wears sweatpants, she’s so quick to answer that I haven’t finished the
question. “Sure I do. I love that. To hang out with my kids and relax. I’m
actually pretty normal.” (“She is actually [pretty normal],” says a New York
beauty editor. “When I first met her, I thought, ‘Yeah, right. You really
spend time with your kids and you hate going out. Sure.’ But y’know, now
that I’ve seen her operate, it’s true.”)
“We share the childcare and stuff and you worry about the children when you
travel,” acknowledges Aerin of the triple challenges of harmonic matrimony,
motherhood and business. When I ask her if she is or ever has been a
feminist, she looks at the PR and raises her eyebrows. “No,” she says
carefully, “not the kind of feminist who is radical, no. I’m pretty
old-fashioned actually.” She has spoken in interviews before about the fact
that there is no excuse not to keep a nice house, which leads me on to ask
about the responsibility she feels for presenting an image of “perfection”
that women cannot attain. She shoots me a look of pure astonishment. “But
it’s important to look good,” she says. “We don’t all have to look the same,
but we should all make the best of ourselves.” This initially strikes me as
the gift of a quote, but later when I consider it, it seems to be a pretty
good answer from a woman responsible for selling beauty products.
The first time that she realised her gran was a big deal was, she says, when
she witnessed her working the beauty counter in a big department store. “All
these women wanted to talk to her to get her opinion and I just thought,
‘Wow!’” Lauder’s abiding memories of her grandmother are the way she
applied her eyeshadow – “She smoothed it on with her finger” – and her
smell. “She always smelled soooo good,” she says with a smile.
She knew she wanted to go into the business even as a teenager. Her
achievements for the company include using “older” models like Paltrow and
Elizabeth Hurley to appeal to the ageing baby boomer market, and she is
among the rare few to use a black model, Liya Kibede, to front a campaign.
This is the first time, though, that she will emulate her grandmother by
putting her name above a new fragrance. “I’ve resisted doing this for
years,” she says, “but now it just seems right.” (“Don’t think that Aerin
just came in and put her name to this fragrance,” a senior Lauder executive
tells me. “There were so many re-tries on this that I had to ask her,
‘Aerin, what’s with the turnaround?’”)
We talk about the anti-ageing debate. After all, much of Lauder’s success lies
with its ability to innovate in the ceaseless quest for age prevention in a
bottle. As cosmeceuticals are exploited, then the Lauder group must surely
go in this direction? “Absolutely, it is the way forward. We are always
trying new things. We recognise the challenges of ageing, that’s why we are
using older models,” she says, warily glancing at the publicist again.
There are a number of times during the interview when I get the feeling that
Aerin Lauder has much more to say; but she either doesn’t want to or doesn’t
trust herself. Sometimes there are glimmers of the person she might be in
private – a tiny giggle at some offhand comment or a grimace when one pushes
the boundaries. But she soon pulls the shutters back down. It makes her a
frustrating interviewee, but an impressively savvy, polished businesswoman.
This is as it should be for the figurehead of a multi-billion dollar
corporation, poised for dramatic change. In a world where at the click of a
button you can find out how many fillings a celebrity has, Aerin is the
model of restrained intelligence, dignity and decorum. Just the way her
grandmother and her shareholders would want it.
