A fascinating read for anyone with interests in fashion and beauty, the lives of leading businesswomen, history, advertising, art and publishing. Lindy Woodhead's dual biography of Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden was clearly exhaustively researched and is thoroughly documented. It presents the facts of their lives, insights into their personalities, but most importantly, in my opinion, a remarkable look into consumer culture and the changing scene in the United States and throughout the world, from the very last of the 19th century, into the Edwardian Age, through World I, the Great Depression, World War II and onward into the 60s, when the book wraps up with the deaths of its subjects and their legacies.
Rubinstein and Arden were intense rivals, each attempting to capture the luxury cosmetic market for her own. They spent decades one-upping each other with their spas, new products, their personal acquisitions and, at times, the poaching of their staff members. I have to say I found myself rooting for Madame Rubinstein more often than not, but oddly enough, I don't recall ever using any of her products or seeing them among my mother's things. Long after Ms. Arden's death, I purchased some hand and body lotions from one of the successor companies that had control of her label and I became something of a devotee. I still have just a little of one of those lotions, and looking at the bottle, and knowing what I know now about her and her much earlier cosmetic and beauty lines, the item is very far from what Arden once represented. She would have been quite shocked at the plastic bottle, and what I recall as its moderate price, but I think she might have liked the scent...
Like many successful businesspeople, both Rubinstein and Arden came from humble backgrounds and embroidered some details of their pasts to their advantage – to further their success, and to bring them the lives they desired. Rubinstein became a renowned art collector, and Arden purchased racing horses and stables.
Their styles and personalities were completely different, and they moved in different circles. They both survived the devastation of two world wars and a worldwide depression, and thrived. They shared one trait – ambition, and the desire to be the best in their area of commerce.
They also had a common enemy – Charles Revson, the founder of Revlon, or as Madame Rubinstein referred to him, the "nail man". Revson emerged as a formidable competitor, though his fortune was made in a different setting, the mass-market world of drugstores and and mid-market retailers. Their next biggest competition followed in the person of Esteé Lauder, who achieved her own success in the luxury markets Rubinstein and Arden had once led.
The Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden brands survive today as subsidiaries of large multinational corporations, but their namesakes are legends only, and not top of mind to today's consumers. War Paint, however, will inform readers of the influence their founders once had, and provide insights into the relatively recent history of their heyday.
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