3/9/20

Day 16 Class Notes

I. Mental warmup: Meet me in St. Louis “The Trolley Song”
A. The greatest of all time
1. She was a triple threat
2. Called “one take Judy” supposedly she could watch a whole choreography
once and then perform it perfectly
B. Performance notes
1. Great acting while also dealing with a moving set, lots, of people, and
choreography
2. She has great expressions is a great actress
3. An impressive mix of singing and acting and transitioning from talking to
singing
4. Her gesticulations are a great part of her acting
5. A great demonstration of her as a triple threat, her singing, dancing, and
acting were all exceptional
C. Movie making background notes
1. In making movies the artist would record the song and then lip-sync while
acting
2. Judy Garland actually sang over her recorded vocals
3. The trolley was being jostled around and she was singing during the
jostling
II. The Czarena of Beauty- Estée Lauder (1908-2004)
A. Cosmetics company founder- founder of a global cosmetics company
1. Started her eponymous business with her husband in 1946
2. Built cosmetics empire on the motto “There are no homely women, only
careless women”
B. By convincing those “careless women” they could become beautiful- with a little
help from her products
1. She took on the giants of the cosmetics world and won
2. Created the beauty empire starting brands like Bobbi Brown and Clinique
3. Eventually became one of the richest self-made women
C. Background
1. What is in a name- Josephine Esther Mentzer
a) Comes from a family of Jewish Immigrants (Czech father and
Hungarian mother)
b) Picked on in school for her heritage
c) Called Esty at home and changed to Estée when enrolling in school
2. The youngest child who grew up Jewish in a mostly Italian neighborhood
 a) Two children died by the time she was born
b) Sister grace was called Renee and was two years older
3. “Glow” after all-not the number- was the real essence of beauty
a) She would not share her birthday
4. Rose (mother) lived to be 88 warned her that the sun would damage her
skin
a) Wore gloves and carried a parasol
b) She remembered this but was also embarrassed by this
(1) Embarrassed of her parents’ immigrant culture/status
c) Wanted to become 100% American
5. Father is a custom tailor and ran a hardware store
a) Her father’s store gave her the experience with merchandising
b) Her uncle John Shotz influenced her future business
(1) Helps her across the river
c) Shotz was a chemist who created face creams in a makeshift
laboratory, set up behind the family house
(1) Uncle taught her to cleanse her skin with oils instead of
harsh detergents
(2) Showed her how to make the cream that made for good
all-around skin
(3) “It was a preciously velvety cream, this potion, one that
magically made you sweetly scented, made your face feel
like spun silk, made any passing imperfections be gone by
evening”
(4) Uncle had a business called New Way Laboratories, where
he created beauty products including lotions, creams, and
fragrances
d) Went to work for her uncle when she graduated from high school
(1) Started selling her products as a teenager at local hair
salons
(2) She called them “jars of hope”
(3) Gave out free samples
(a) First-person to give out free samples
6. “The first beauty I ever recognized was my mother”
a) Some of her earliest memories were of her mother’s grooming
ritual
b) Revolved around applying rich creams to her face and hands to
keep her skin soft and smooth
7. Soon dubbed it the super-rich all-purpose creme
 a) The first glimpse at something that provided “the power to create
beauty”
8. Years later she would improve upon and market this creme under her own
name and launched her cosmetics business during the depression in NY
and FL
9. Toyed with becoming an actress as she believed they were the epitome of
beauty
a) She even appeared on stage at NY Cherry Lane theater a few years
after she had her first son, Leonard would sit in the back of the
theater and watch her rehearse
10. Acting did not satisfy her the way making skincare solutions did
a) “I wanted to see my name in lights, but I was willing to settle for
my name on a jar”
b) Sometimes stars we are trying to catch change and that is okay
(1) Follow the star that you love
11. Remembered an influential experience that had occurred years earlier at a
salon in NYC where she sold products
a) She liked a woman’s blouse and wanted to know where it was
from and the woman responded “what difference could it possibly
make?... You could never afford it”
b) Never forgot this experience
c) Vowed that no one would say something like that to her again, she
would have so much money that she could buy anything she
wanted
12. 1930 she married a man named Joseph H. Lauder
a) Businessman in the garment industry
b) Carried pure white calla lilies and wore a sating gown with an
impressive train
(1) First but not the last time she works lipstick
c) The couple had a child in 1933
(1) Got divorced in 1939
(a) Thought she had gotten married too young and had
missed out on life, but found out that she had the
“sweetest husband in the world”
(2) They then got remarried later on
13. Estée Lauder Cosmetics Inc.
a) After years of operating her cosmetics business, Estée made it
official in 1946 by forming the corporation that still bears her
name today
 b) She and her husband were the entirety of the company
c) Made the products in their kitchen
d) Following year, Estée had a career breakthrough
(1) Landed her first department store order for cosmetics
(2) Saks fifth avenue ordered $800 in her products which sold
out in two days
(3) Originated the practice of giving a free gift with purchase
marketing strategy around this time
e) 1953 launched her Youth Dew product
(1) Bath oil doubled as a perfume and it quickly became a big
hit
f) Over the next decade, her business expanded overseas into new
markets
(1) Launched men’s product lines Aramis and the Clinique
Brand
g) Exceptionally talented successful promoter
(1) Pioneering giveaway promotions
(2) Women who tried her products and liked them would tell
other women about it
(3) She called her strategy “Tell-a-woman” marketing
h) Invested in larger marketing concepts, using beautiful models to
sell her products
i) Carefully chose the models for advertising her products selecting
the Estée Lauder “kind of woman” rather than a movie star
(1) Wanted to sell to the everyday woman, not to the movie
stars
(2) Currently still working to market to all women through
diversity in ad campaigns
14. Estée Lauder believed in selling her cosmetics at the best department
stores
a) Ignoring the advice of her accountant and lawyer, who urged her to
get out of this particular business
b) Started at Saks fifth avenue in NY
(1) Upscale store where women could charge their purchases
c) She expanded to Neiman Marcus in Dallas and several department
stores around the country
(1) Opened each store herself and trained the saleswomen who
were demonstrating her products
 (2) In business be there on the ground floor with the people
you are working with
D. History of makeup/lipstick
1. Cleopatra made her own line of cosmetics and wore red lipstick
(potentially one of the first women to wear red lipstick)
2. The 1600s Queen Elizabeth wore red lipstick
a) In the middle ages, women who would wear that makeup were
seen as prostitutes
b) Her wearing it was very shocking
3. By 1770 cosmetics of any kind were banned in England and the law
claimed that “women found guilty of seducing men into matrimony by a
cosmetic means could be tried for witchcraft”
a) Sounds similar today with the allegations of makeup being
catfishing
b) That law made its way to Pennsylvania (though Martha
Washington had her own favorite recipe for red lipstick
4. Red lipstick became a feminist symbol for the suffragette movement
a) Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Charlotte Perkins Gilman marched at
the 1912 NYC Suffragette March, they wore red lipstick
b) A way of claiming and being empowered by their femininity
c) Soon began to be regarded as a look that represented female
liberation
5. Flapper began favoring dark red lipstick
a) Legitimate symbol of power and source of fear for men
6. NY in the 1920s all lipstick almost got banned again because of fear that
women might use it to poison men
a) Reflection of men’s fear of women claiming their rights
7. ​Hitler hated red lipstick and forbade it in Germany
a) During The war years it was a patriotic duty to wear red lipstick
b) Women looked beautiful for the men fighting to dream of
8. By 1950s red lipstick became the standard
a) 98% of American women wore lipstick
b) 96% brushed their teeth
9. Only the names for lipstick changed
a) Became the ultimate emblem of not rebellion but of femininity
b) Ads showing women applying their red lipstick encouraged
women to “take time out for beauty”
10. Women’s advertisements heavily marketed their products with American
women and patriotism