Her grandmother founded one of the world’s biggest beauty companies, but AERIN LAUDER refuses to rest on her laurels.
By Jennifer Dickinson
Photographs by Chris Colls
Styling by Sofia Catania
Multitasking seems inadequate to describe the behavior of Aerin Lauder. Mass-tasking gets us a little closer to the mark. The only time the 44-year-old is still is during lunch, and even then there is a slight undercurrent of impatience at this period of relative inactivity.
Lauder has a lot to do. And much that she has already accomplished. Two years ago, she cut back on her full-time role as Creative Director of Estée Lauder, the flagship brand of the $11billion company founded by her grandmother, to launch her own brand, AERIN. It wasn’t a long-cherished dream or desire for independence from the family firm that motivated her; after more than two decades in the beauty business, she had identified a gap in the market for a “chic, modern, effortless lifestyle brand” and knew just how to fill it: with herself.
It must be said that Aerin Lauder has much-admired, well-honed taste. Schooled in the importance of aesthetics by her pioneering grandmother, who wore heels from dawn to dusk even when at home with her family, and would rest between the office and a night out on one of her many chaises longues “so that her hair stayed in place”, beauty is in Lauder’s DNA. “I was in diapers and putting on my grandmother’s gloves, her makeup, her jewelry, her fragrance... Experiencing beauty in all different ways,” she says. “Beauty is very much my heritage.”
The beauty business itself is her home-away-from-homes (of which she has four); Estée would send packages of product for Aerin and her younger sister Jane (who now heads up Clinique) to test when they were children. Her first real appreciation of makeup’s power, though, came as a teenager, when she introduced her classmates to lip gloss. “I was in an all-girls’ school where the uniform was very straight; no-one could wear makeup,” she recalls. “I brought this Estée Lauder lip gloss into school and [my friends and I] snuck into the bathroom. It was this incredible sheer color, with a pink pearl to it, and we took it in turns putting it on. That was my first experience of seeing how makeup transformed you and made you feel beautiful, and it made me realize who my grandmother was and what she had created.”
As heiress to an empire, it is surprising to anyone who doesn’t know her that, growing up, Lauder worked throughout her school breaks for various brands within Estée Lauder Companies, soaking up as much knowledge as she could. She studied Art History at college in Pennsylvania, deviating into Visual Communications and unexpectedly finding her métier. “Branding is storytelling,” explains Lauder, “like scent – people say they can smell a fragrance with their mind. You see an advertisement and you want to be part of that world or that life. You might not know what [the fragrance] Estée Lauder Beautiful smells like, but you look at the bride and her happiness and even though you don’t smell it, you want to be that woman and you want that fragrance.”
After graduating, Lauder put her skills to use first at Prescriptives, where she worked in marketing, before then moving to the original Estée Lauder brand, taking on product development. “I worked primarily in color, and that’s when I first started going to fashion shows,” she says. “We work on beauty probably a year and a half in advance, so when I would go to the shows it was to confirm the colors that we were doing were on-trend. You’re developing the products simultaneously [to designers’ collections], but how you take those products and create a trend, that can happen backstage.”
The businesswoman’s own style meanwhile, was also getting her noticed. Known for her put-together, all-American look, designers such as Michael Kors and Oscar de la Renta became Lauder’s close friends. When she married private-equity entrepreneur Eric Zinterhofer in 1996, de la Renta created a gown especially for her, and during both her pregnancies (the couple have two teenage sons) Lauder was known for her refusal to ditch her high heels. (These days, she has relaxed the rules. “My life is different now, so I do wear flats all the time,” she admits. “My grandmother would be horrified.”)
After product development, Lauder moved into advertising, and then became Creative Director of Estée Lauder. “Everything you see as a consumer, whether it’s the store experience, the packaging, the advertising... It was all those different elements.” A challenging role then, and one Lauder excelled at. Tasked with creating freshness within the company portfolio, she brought in collaborations with brands such as Tom Ford and Michael Kors, and led Estée Lauder’s impactful advertising strategy, casting distinctive global faces in the now-instantly recognizable campaigns. But for her, it wasn’t challenging enough.
“I would do interviews and people were always saying: ‘What products can’t you live without? What is your beauty routine?’” says Lauder. “I realized there was something in the story of my relationship with Estée, and the history and heritage of the beauty life I had lived... The combination of working with the best makeup artists and having this incredible beauty icon as my grandmother and teacher – it was a great opportunity. So I came up with this concept of an effortless-style brand based on beauty essentials – based on me, my aesthetic and my life.”
She pitched the idea to Estée Lauder’s President, its CEO, then to the board. “It probably took two years from the beginning to end, from the time I worked the business plan, to actually creating the logo, packaging, and then the launch.” So why name the line after herself? “I think it’s important that the person behind it is real, and I think I’m at an interesting age because I’m 44, not 20. The brand is such a reflection of me – it’s everything I love, it’s everything I think is important to a consumer, and it has my name on it, so it has to be absolutely the best it can be.”
In the two years since the launch, AERIN has gone from a tightly edited collection of beauty essentials to a multi-category business, encompassing home furnishings, accessories and even lighting. “Effortless style – that’s our point of view in everything, whether it’s beauty, home or accessories,” says Lauder. “It’s the idea that we’ve picked these pieces just for you to make your life more beautiful and simple.”
Simple is not a word that describes Lauder’s own life, as she juggles her burgeoning brand with continued involvement in the family business, home renovations, two sons and three dogs. But her philosophy is straightforward enough: “Whatever you do, do it well and do it with passion.” Where did that advice come from? “My grandmother,” she smiles.
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