Beauty Editor Shirley Lord Reflects on 60 Years of Friendship with Leonard Lauder

Vogue Contributing Editor Shirley Lord has been a beauty editor and author for almost eight decades, beginning her career on Fleet Street at 17 years old. She was the Beauty Director of American Vogue for 16 years and was close with Leonard Lauder for over half a century. Following his death on June 15th, she wrote a reminiscence for Vogue.

I first met Leonard Lauder and his vivacious, adorable wife, Evelyn, in my London home—was it fifty, sixty years ago? Not sure of the date, but certain, as Beauty Director of British Harper’s Bazaar and a columnist for London’s newspaper, The Evening Standard, none of us dreamed I would cross the pond and eventually become Beauty Director of American Vogue and an American citizen!

That evening, so long ago, my two sons were young, and Leonard especially was thrilled they bounced into the sitting room, upsetting the hors d’oeuvres and having a mock (or was it so mock) fight together. “Just like our kids back home,” he said warmly, relaxing even more into the sofa.

Leonard was very much a family man, and that very much included being a model son to his parents, Joe and Estée Lauder. In fact, at the time Joe and Estée had separated, but Joe having heard that little Leonard was battling an infection, had dropped by to visit—and never went home!

I didn’t comprehend, along with the majority of Lauder fans, that right from the beginning of the Lauder empire, the decision was made between mother and son, that Leonard would run the company completely, building the Estée Lauder name while his mother would represent it. He told me once that he had to make it clear to his mother that all business decisions had to be his and there could never be any discussion or certainly any disagreement about it.

Leonard introduced brilliant marketing ideas that we take for granted today: “gift with purchase,” special packaging for Christmas, Easter, spring and summer, seasonal makeup. I remember a cross phone call from Leonard after l’d had lunch with his mother: “Please don’t give my mother any ideas for products! That can throw our year’s budget totally in turmoil.” I didn’t realize then that for every product, the budget included the cost of the electric light used in the factory to make it. Estée and I became very close, but I never dared to come close to any product suggestions again.

Over the years, Leonard came into the Vogue office a few times to talk about the business of cosmetics—not just to the beauty department, but to the whole staff and he asked as many questions as he answered—about how we operated and gathered information. As the Vogue staff concurred, he was so approachable, warm and witty, we all wished he could be our boss or at least one of them!