he’s one link in a very powerful dynasty – the beauty world’s
equivalent of the royal family – but Aerin Lauder is surprisingly
approachable, warm in fact. She’s the kind of woman with whom
you could share a bottle of pinot on a Friday night after a rather
lousy day at work. And although she’d never let on, today might
actually be one of those days: a long afternoon of meetings at
the office, followed by a late PR dinner which, midway through,
is interrupted by a phone call from her teenage son. It’s just after 9pm on a
Monday night, and with a school project due the next day, her son is undecided
on what to write. It would appear it’s going to be a long night ahead.
Quick-witted and sharp, it’s almost easy to forget the naturally pretty 45-year
-old hails from the Estée Lauder coop founded by her famous grandmother. It’s
a family business of epic proportions, and also the parent company of many
other brands you’re likely to hold in your beauty arsenal. Think: Clinique
(where Aerin’s sister Jane is the global brand president), Tom Ford Beauty,
Bobbi Brown, La Mer and now AERIN, which recently launched in Australia.
For a woman who really doesn’t have to work a day in her life (current figures
estimate her worth at more than US$1 billion), on days like these, does she ever
feel like throwing it all in and retreating to her Park Avenue home, or East
Hamptons weekender, or Aspen chalet? “When we look at the motto of the
corporation, ‘bringing the best to everyone we touch’, that implies excellence
and the sign of approval for perfection. I think there’s something very important
about continuing the family tradition of excellence, quality and style,” she says
in an Upper East Side accent when we meet at the AERIN offices in New York.
You could say she had a head start on the whole striving-for-excellence thing,
preferring market research as a five-year-old, to say, hopscotch. “On Saturday
afternoons, I would go to the Plaza Hotel and have éclairs and a delicious lunch
with my grandmother. Then she would take me to Saks Fifth Avenue,
Bloomingdale’s and Bergdorf Goodman, and we’d walk around the beauty
counters and look at all the products,” she adds nostalgically.
The light-bulb moment came eight years later, aged just 13: “I didn’t truly
make the connection until I was in high school and everyone started getting
interested in make-up. I brought in this Estée Lauder Opal lip gloss and to this
day, whenever I see one, it reminds me of being in the bathroom with all my
girlfriends. I think that’s when I realised Estée had truly created her dream.”Aerin Lauder may have one of the most
FA MOUS surnames in the beauty business,
but the launch of AERIN proves she’s a mogul
in her own right, writes Remy Rippon.S
Empire
state
of mind
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