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ELYSIAN Women Inspiring Women

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E L Y S I A N

108

VOLUME 10 • ISSUE 3 THE LEADERSHIP ISSUE / ÉDITION DE LEADERSHIP AUTOMNE 2024

Your Majesty

Inspired by the ultimate symbol of regal elegance, the notorious Queen of France, Marie Antoinette, The ‘Your Majesty’ collection by Kim Kassas is a celebration of opulence, grace, and individuality. BY SAMANTHA PAIGE

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY KIMKASSASCOUTURE.COM

Long Live the

QUEEN

86 Denmark BY LAURIE BOGART WILES

BY MARCY DUBROFF

122 Lady Portrait of A

BY ELAINE BURMEISTER

136

Inspiring Women Jessica Word page 138 Anita Zucker page 150 INTERVIEWS BY KAREN FLOYD

The Women Who Lead Shared Knowledge BY LAURIE BOGART WILES

166

beauty&style The Beauty Queen. BY PEARL LUSTRE

fashion&culture The Woman Behind the Label. BY CORA WALDEN

essentials

Estate Pieces. BY SINDIE FITZGERALD-RANKIN

182

188business&finance philanthropy Guiding Light in Animal Welfare. BY SONIA HENRY

The Keys to Navigating Your Way in Business. BY VERITY GALSWORTHY

200 back story

Team ELYSIAN and the ELYSIAN Circle celebrate an unforgettable Summer magazine launch in Savannah, Georgia.

on the cover

American businesswoman and philanthropist Anita Zucker photographed by Michael Paniccia .

architecture&interiors Up Stairs & Down. BY CHRISTY NIELSON

PHOTOGRAPH BY INDIRA’S WORK / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

publisher

Karen Floyd

c r e at o r - i n - c h i e f

Ryan Stalvey

c h i e f o f s ta f f

marketing design

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senior editor

Paula Hutto

Amber Edwards

Anna Christian

Laurie Bogart Wiles

newsletter

film

& video

Amber Edwards

Garrick Lane

legal

p u b l i c a f fa i r s

Eric Nodine

Boone Peeler

d i g i ta l i n n o vat i o r

philanthropy

Joey Iannetta

& i m pa c t

web design

& development

Kimberli Scott Still

Elliot Derhay

d i g i ta l p r o j e c t s

events

c o m m u n i t y a f fa i r s

Celia Wise Cooksey

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Ann Bible

lead photographer

photographer

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Michael Paniccia

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Joy Smallwood

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writer

office manager

liaison

p r o d u c t i o n a s s i s ta n t

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Becky Kerr

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contributing writers

Elaine Burmeister, Marcy Dubroff, Sindie Fitzgerald-Rankin, Verity Galsworthy, Sonia Henry, Pearl Lustre, Christy Nielson, Samantha Paige, Cora Walden, Laurie Bogart Wiles copy editors

Nancy Brady, Monya Havekost, Diane High, Hadley Inabinet d ata b a s e

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Carmel Fauci

w w w . r e a d e ly s i a n . c o m ELYSIAN Magazine is published four times per year by Palladian Publications LLC., 113 W. Main St., Spartanburg, SC 29306. For subscription information, call 864-342-6500. All rights reserved. Printed in the USA.

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ALMA COMPARTIDA -

SHARED SOUL, 2019

Acrylic & charcoal on canvas

63 x 54 in

by RUBEN RODRIGUEZ MARTINEZ

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AT THE END OF THE DAY, DON’T FORGET THAT YOU ARE A PERSON, DON’T FORGET YOU ARE A MOTHER, DON’T FORGET YOU ARE A WIFE, DON’T FORGET YOU ARE A DAUGHTER.” —INDRA NOOYI

FORMER CHAIR, PEPSICO

ncharacteristically, I was late in submitting my publisher’s letter for ELYSIAN’s Women CEO and Leadership issue. I struggled writing the quarterly column, overwhelmed with the data that showed obstacles women leaders face, which are significantly disproportionate to men. Noticing my malaise, one of my teammates, tongue in cheek, asked, “Do you ever wish you were a male CEO . . . even if it was just for a day?” We laughed, and I brushed the question off to continue with my writing. But the thought caused me to pause, and I could not erase the idea from my mind. What would my life have been as a male? So, I decided to put the question on our social media channels and see what others had to say. They answered. From the scrutiny of women’s appearance to our deep-rooted commitment to caregiving and the gender disparity in self-confidence . . . They felt that women almost always start from behind. As mothers, wives, and daughters, our paths differ greatly from our male counterparts.

APPEARANCE

Can you imagine how much time would be saved if you did not have to worry about how you looked? Imagine being a man and getting ready in about 15 minutes... shaving, jumping in the shower, brushing your teeth, putting deodorant on, grabbing a suit, and walking out the door. It takes most women a minimum of 45 minutes to get ready for the day. (This does not take into account showering and other basic hygiene.) Therefore, men statistically have a net 30-minute “time win” every day . . . multiplied by seven days and again multiplied by 52 weeks. If women spent equal time as men readying themselves, we would literally have an additional 182 hours each year to dedicate to something other than appearance. In simple terms, women could free up one full week to focus on empowerment, knowledge, travel, self-improvement, and more.

CAREGIVING

CONFIDENCE

Among the S&P 500, more women are attaining the top jobs, but their numbers remain insignificant compared to men. I asked many of my contemporaries, “Why?” The response was fascinating. While most women learn the value of failure over time, of the hundreds of women I have interviewed (many of whom are CEOs and thought leaders), one of the most common pieces of advice that they would give their younger self is that they wished they had been told: “failure is nothing more than success turned inside out.” The shared conclusion is that women are hard on themselves and view failure differently than men. Men are born, raised, and told that they can do and be anything. In Corporate America, this confidence is borne out in the data that shows men in leadership roles are five times more likely to be optimistic and confident that they will beat the previous year’s performance than women. Confidence in women is earned over the years, while with men, it is a societal gift.

nitially, we laughed at the idea of being a man for a day, then the idea became intriguing . . . but finally, reality set in. Though it made us chuckle, imagine a world without a woman’s gentle hands, compassionate heart, and selfless love. My message in this Women CEO and Leadership issue is . . . “Do not forget that you are a mother, do not forget you are a wife, do not forget you are a daughter.” This is what matters the most. Thank you for believing in the journey and remembering your strength. With much love,

Karen Floyd Publisher

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PHOTOGRAPH BY MICHAEL PANICCIA

Women are the hub of the “caregiving wheel,” with the two widest “spokes” being motherhood and eldercare. Women bring life into this world and bring comfort to loved ones who are departing. Imagine a woman in leadership, a CEO’s enhanced “lift,” and the responsibilities she carries in her private life, with the carry-forward implications of those duties. Her unique perspective on balance, compromise, and peace is heralded by these life experiences. Consequentially, women spend energy and thought focused more on others’ well-being than on themselves. This, in turn, translates to reduced sleep. Statistically, men sleep 12% more than women. Empirical data shows the importance of sleep, which is essential to every process of the body, including immune response, brain health, and physical well-being. As the “cultural caretaker,” women quantifiably, whether inside the workplace or at home, sleep less because they are the predominant informal care providers and therefore experience “caregiving stressors” disproportionately from their male counterparts, according to the World Journal of Psychiatry.

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beauty&style

Estée Lauder (1906-2004), co-founder of the Estée Lauder cosmetics company.

PHOTOGRAPH BY EVENING STANDARD/HULTON ARCHIVE / GETTY IMAGES

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The Beauty Queen BY PEAR LUSTRE

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American beauty magnate Estée Lauder taking care of household business with the servants in her Upper East Side townhouse. PHOTOGRAPH BY FAIRCHILD ARCHIVE/PENSKE MEDIA VIA GETTY IMAGES

never saw anyone love to make women beautiful like her. It was in her blood,” reflected Leonard Lauder, 91, billionaire, philanthropist, art collector, and chairman emeritus of The Estée Lauder Companies, Inc., who, with his brother, Ronald, are the sole heirs of the $90 billion-dollar international beauty empire. “I tell people I’m a lipstick salesman,” he grins.

ounded in 1946 by their parents, Estée and Joseph Lauder in their kitchen, Leonard “remembered sitting in my high chair in the kitchen and I would see my mother mix her ‘jars of hope’ face cremes on the stove.” She sold them in New York, tempting women with free samples and a three-minute makeover. It became a family business. Her husband, Joseph, kept the books, and a young Leonard packed boxes of powder and cleansing oils. “We had a tiny little factory, and I would go there after school for 25 cents an hour.” In preparation for joining the family business, Leonard received his business degree at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, then studied at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business before enlisting in the U.S. Navy, serving as a lieutenant until 1958, when he received an honorable discharge and began working for the family company, sharing an office with his mother at the Estée Lauder’s first location, at 501 Madison Avenue in Manhattan. “I would listen to her on the phone, and boy, would I learn. Being in the same office as my mother was extraordinary because I wasn’t her assistant, I wasn’t her little boy, I was a witness. And what lessons I learned just by hearing her talk and getting an insight into her soul.” Added his brother, Ronald, a former United States Ambassador to Austria, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, president of the World Jewish Congress, civic activist, and philanthropist, who worked at the family company from 1964 to 1984 as the head of the International Department: “When I think of my mother, I think of a force of nature . . . and a lot of fun.” Years later, in his 2020 memoir, The Company I Keep, as much about his life growing the Estée Lauder brand as it is a tribute to his mother, Leonard would tell his employees, “I want to have the best company in the world. Nothing less than that.” It worked. Today, the company owns more than 26 brands, including Aramis, Aveda, Donna Karan, AERIN Beauty, Bobby Brown, Clinique, La Mer, MCA Cosmetics, Origins, and Tom Ford Beauty, which are sold in 150 countries and territories, and in 2023 amounted to $15.91 billion in sales.

osephine Esther “Eszti” Mentzer, nicknamed Estée, was born an 11-minute subway ride from Midtown Manhattan, in Corona, Queens, Long Island, on July 1, 1908, to Hungarian Jewish immigrants Rose and Max Mentzer. Her childhood dream was to become an actress with her “name in lights, flowers, and handsome men,” but that was not to be her life. That did not stifle her imagination, though. She would claim that she was descended from blueblood European aristocracy. “She was a New Yorker and not an aristocrat at all,” wrote Lee Israel in his 1985 biography of the extraordinary American businesswoman, Estée Lauder: Beyond the Magic. Her “favorite story was that she had been brought up by her Viennese mother in fashionable Flushing, Long Island, in a sumptuous home with stables, a chauffeured car, and an Italian nurse.”

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PHOTOGRAPH BY FAIRCHILD ARCHIVE/PENSKE MEDIA VIA GETTY IMAGES

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Nothing could be further from the truth. Growing up, Estée, along with her brothers and sisters, worked at the family’s retail hardware store to help make ends meet for the family of ten, five children by her mother’s first husband, Abraham Rosenthal, and three with her second husband, Estée’s father, Max. In her teens, Estée seized the opportunity to work instead for her uncle, Dr. John Schotz, a chemist whose company, New Way Laboratories, formulated facial cremes, lotions, rouge, and fragrances. She was fascinated by the method involved in creating cremes and lotions formulated to improve women’s skin. He taught her how to wash your face and give facials properly. She began assisting in the lab and selling New Way products door-to-door until 1930, when she was 21. She married Joseph Lauter, a businessman working in the garment industry on Seventh Avenue in midtown Manhattan, and moved to Manhattan. Their first child, Leonard, was born in 1933, but in 1939, the couple divorced, and Estée moved to Florida. Realizing they were better together than apart, they remarried in 1942, and in 1944, their second son, Ronald, was born. Their second marriage lasted 40 years until Joseph died in 1983. “My parents had a wonderful partnership. She was the one who came up with creative ideas, all the ideas. My father’s role was the business part,” Ronald said. “He had an extraordinary sense of humor that could disarm Estée and make her laugh,” said her grandson, William Lauder, CEO of the Estée Lauder Companies. “We wouldn’t be in business today if it weren’t for him. But on top of that, he was the person who she most listened to. He truly was my grandmother’s partner.” Joseph sold his interest in another business to finance the creation of his wife’s company. They changed their surname to Lauder. From the beginning, her vision was to become a skincare specialist. “I didn’t get here by dreaming or thinking about it. I got here by doing it,” Estée said. In 1946, she and Joseph officially launched the company. “We did everything ourselves,” she said of the early days. “We stayed up nights for nights on end, snatching sleep in fits and starts.” She developed her own beauty line, introducing four products, and Joseph managed operations. Determined to have her products available in only the best luxury stores, the Lauders targeted the top market. At first, everyone turned her away, but that didn’t stop her; she wouldn’t give up. She’d wait in buyers’ offices, sometimes day after day. If her calls weren’t returned, she kept calling until she reached them. She wouldn’t quit until she could convince someone to place an order—and when finally, she did, her very first order came from Saks Fifth Avenue in New York. Any doubts Saks—one of America’s most prestigious retailers—may have had were almost instantly quashed: the first order of Estée Lauder sold out in two days. Her products not only worked, but the results were amazing. Satisfied customers told their friends. Friends told friends. Women began asking for Estée Lauder. Dallas-based

Neiman Marcus placed an order, followed by Lord & Taylor and other high-end department stores nationwide. On Saturdays, she personally worked the Estée Lauder counter at Bonwit Teller’s on Fifth Avenue, New York. In the day, she would sell. She would make her cremes on a restaurant stove in their tiny factory at night. She told her customers, “Your face should look as if you cared, and your best friend is your mirror.”

sales grew, so did their manufacturing facilities. Now Estée and Joseph competed against leading, established brands like Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden. However, Estée had a unique way of doing business. She offered free makeovers at salons and hotels and the subway. Her unique approach to showing the customer herself, as she wrote in her autobiography: Every day I touched 50 faces. And women lined up, thrilled at the transition it took to go from mundane to magnificent with Estée Lauder cosmetics and skincare. “I’d make up every woman who stopped to look. I would show her that a three-minute makeup could change her life,” Estée said. Packaging was extremely important to Estée. “I knew women would not buy cosmetics in garish containers that offended their bathroom décor. I wanted them to be proud to display my products.” But that wasn’t enough. If the couple were to gain the exposure they needed to support sales, they had to advertise. However, again and again, agencies turned them down because no matter how large they saw their prospects and how certain they were of their future, the advertising agencies deemed them too small an account even to bother taking on. Estée and Joseph had no alternative but to make their own way—and in doing so, they invented a new type of marketing that would become their signature way of selling and redefine how cosmetics worldwide would be sold. They took the $50,000 they had saved for advertising and instead produced free samples they would distribute through point-of-purchase at the sales counters that sold their products, through direct mail, charity giveaways, and as incentive gifts with purchases. The famous Estée Lauder gift bags were so successful that there is a story that Saks Fifth Avenue was mobbed by wealthy ladies who wanted to buy her lipsticks after gift bags containing lipsticks were given away at a charity ball the evening before at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on Park Avenue in New York. Marvin Taub, the former CEO of Bloomingdale’s, once called her “the world’s finest salesperson.” Estée’s address book—today, we would call it a database—contained the names and phone numbers of every fashion editor in the city. She phoned for appointments to demonstrate the company’s line of cremes and lipsticks to them in person. This small, chic, beautifully groomed woman who personified chic

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and elegance in her fine suits, beautifully coiffed hair, and perfect makeup was a dynamo personality and unstoppable saleswoman who never took ‘no’ for an answer. The thing was, she never had to. The editors were so smitten with the quality of the Estée Lauder line that they needed little convincing to give them free editorial press. “Our company has developed a life and momentum all its own—a dedication to the dream,” Estée said, looking back upon those early days.

In 1953,

the company launched its first fragrance, Youth-Dew. It was a unique concept: an affordable bath oil that also was a perfume. The notion took off immediately and soon accounted for more than 80 percent of Estée Lauder’s sales. Now, no door was closed to Estée and Joseph. They expanded abroad to the most famous department store in the world, Harrods of London. Sales were so enormous that Estée Lauder was given prime “real estate”—the front counter in the first-floor cosmetics department. The company’s reception was not nearly as easy in Paris when Estée went to the famed French department store, Galleries Lafayette. When it was clear the store had no interest in selling her products, as she was leaving the store, she cleverly spilled a bottle of Youth-Dew on the sales floor. Customers flocked like geese around the fabulous scent—and Galleries Lafayette changed their mind. The line was also given prime exposure at the very forefront of the cosmetics department and proved to outsell every other brand. Estée herself was a tough taskmaster. She has been called a “pioneer in presentation” in the way she displayed her products and, as importantly, the precise way the sales team was trained to present the product and apply the product to customers. Each salesperson was trained how to do their makeup and hair, dress, and even hold themselves to achieve the best posture. They were taught how to present and apply the products and establish a relationship with their customers so that they would return often to replenish their cremes and lipsticks and try out more Estée Lauder products. To this end, Estée told her sales force, “If you don’t sell, it’s not the product…it’s you.” Likewise, her saleswomen were taught not to oversell. The ‘hard sell’ proved damaging. “No customer should go home wondering, ‘Why did I buy this,’” Estée said. After World War II, women’s roles were being redefined. Now, the middle class owned their own two-up and twodown homes. Like their mothers, a wife’s job was being a housewife, staying at home, raising the kids, preparing three square meals daily, and driving the family station wagon to get groceries and shuttle their children to sports, doctors, and play dates. But there was something new

in the American household—the television. And when women watched The Donna Reed Show, Ozzie and Harriet, I Love Lucy, and Father Knows Best, homemakers wanted to look just like the women on these shows. “There are no homely women, just lazy ones,” she preached. And women around the country listened—and changed their appearance. That meant going to the beauty parlor weekly, wearing a shirtwaist dress and low heels, watching their weight (Weight Watchers was founded in 1963), and putting on makeup daily. Women were beginning to want more, and indeed, those who joined the workforce in support of the war were already conditioned to work and did. Many housewives got part-time jobs at department stores as saleswomen while their children were in school— and the most ambitious wanted to work at an Estée Lauder department store cosmetics counter. Estée knew this. Her sales force was enormously important to her. She knew if she didn’t keep up the enthusiasm for the company’s products, she wouldn’t keep up a strong, equally enthusiastic sales team. Upon these women, the financial well-being of Estée Lauder depended. Estée never missed the opening of a new counter in a store. She knew the importance of word-ofmouth and was constantly expanding her social network. She made it a point to be photographed as often as possible with the rich and famous and numbered among their acquaintances the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Princess Grace of Monaco, movie stars, and U.S. Presidents and their First Ladies. Now, the Lauders had every P.R. agency in New York begging to take them on. They advertised in every fashion magazine with two-page spreads. They signed on supermodels such as Paulina Porizkova and Stephanie Seymour, as well as actresses Gwyneth Paltrow and Elizabeth Hurley, the latter of whom has represented the brand for almost 30 years. And yet, in the 45-year history of the company, only fifteen women have been selected as “the face of Estée Lauder.” As the business grew into a multimillion-dollar industry, so did the holdings of the Lauder’s. They bought the Lehmann mansion in the heart of New York City. They bought homes in Palm Beach and the south of France. They lived and entertained elegantly.

ne day, their competitors approached Joseph Lauder with an offer of $1 billion to buy out the company. His response was, “Why don’t we buy you out.” And he did. Since the 1960s, the company has expanded to include 25 brands in its global beauty empire. They founded Aramis for men; Clinique, founded in 1968, the first best-selling dermatology line of skincare and cosmetics, which has expanded to include skincare for

Estée Lauder advertisement from 2000s. GRZEGORZ CZAPSKI / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

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David Jones Estée Lauder cosmetic consultant Sonja Addison tends to the cosmetic needs of Kylie Ruth, 1992. PHOTOGRAPH BY STEVEN SIEWERT/FAIRFAX MEDIA VIA GETTY IMAGES

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GRZEGORZ CZAPSKI / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Estée Lauder advertisement from 1980s.

BE CONFIDENT. BE THE STAR OF YOUR OWN LIFE. BEAUTY IS AN ATTITUDE, THERE’S NO SECRET. SERENITY IS PLEASANT, BUT IT LACKS THE ECSTASY OF ACHIEVEMENT.” —ESTÉE LAUDER

men; Bobbi Brown, MAC, Jo Malone London, La Mer, Smashbox, Tom Ford Beauty, Glossier, Le Lago, Aveda, Origins, among others. “I was a woman with a mission and single-minded in pursuing my dream,” Estée reflected as she saw her dream become a reality beyond her dreams. Estée had cultivated the image of a refined and elegant aristocrat for herself, and as she aged, she used it to shield from the world her private struggle with Alzheimer’s disease. There came a time when, after a vigorous routine of working for more than 80 years, she could no longer go to the office. “It was very hard,” her son, Leonard, recalled. “I remember being with her, and my wife Evelyn came into the room and said, ‘Estee, we miss you in the office.’ She looked at Evelyn and said, ‘I miss me, too.’”

stée Lauder died at home on April 24, 2004, from cardiopulmonary arrest. She was 95. Along with Helena Rubenstein, Elizabeth Arden, and African American beauty entrepreneur Madam C. J. Walker, Estée Lauder was one of the four “beauty queens” of the

twentieth century whose vision defined beauty for all women from all walks of life, everywhere in the world, pushing the boundaries of the cosmetics industry to become a global giant projected at grossing $393.75 billion in 2024—and projected to soar to $785 billion by 2032— proving Estée’s belief that anything is possible if you dare to dream—and have the tenacity to achieve your dream. Her legacy continues. Her son, Leonard, manages the company’s philanthropic interests. “I rarely simply give money to people and say, ‘Well, you do it.’ I want to make our philanthropy transform something. He has given millions of dollars on behalf of the Estée Lauder Companies to fight Alzheimer’s, to the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation, The Lauder Institute, and Breast Cancer Research Foundation, just a few of his many causes. Personally, the lifelong art collector made headlines when he pledged a gift of one billion dollars to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Queens-born daughter of Hungarian Jews who started her career selling four skincare products made in her uncle’s tiny laboratory created a billion-dollar brand. “Risk-taking,” she said, “is the cornerstone of empires.” In that context, Estée Lauder most assuredly built an empire. ■

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The Private Collection fragrance is shown on display during a visit by Aerin Lauder at Saks Fifth Avenue Chevy Chase, Maryland.

PHOTOGRAPH BY BY STEPHEN J BOITANO/GETTY IMAGES FOR ESTÉE LAUDER

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