Company Profile
Elizabeth Arden
Company Overview
Through the “Red Door” a legacy of innovation has passed. Elizabeth Arden, the first name in prestige cosmetics and fragrances worldwide.
Company History
THE STORY OF ELIZABETH ARDEN
When young Florence Nightingale Graham left Toronto in 1908 for New York City, she came seeking her fortune. What she found was a career that would change the course of beauty history. And what she founded was a company that personified her lifelong commitment to the concept of Total Beauty. That woman and that company became known throughout the world as Elizabeth Arden.
Just two years after her arrival, having steeped herself in the art of beauty treatments and the science of laboratory research, the newly re-named Elizabeth Arden was ready to open her first Salon on Fifth Avenue with a $6,000 loan. Designed to attract women of wealth and position, the modest three-room salon managed to create an environment of total luxury.
In keeping with her fundamental belief that beauty should not be a veneer of makeup, but an intelligent cooperation with nature and science to develop a woman’s finest natural assets, her salon offered an all-encompassing array of services. Clients could book an appointment for face treatments, beauty makeovers, massages, as well as exercise and dance classes. All this – decades before today’s emphasis on fitness.
In her small salon laboratory, Miss Arden concocted the first of her treatment products “muscle-strapping skin tight treatment,” Venetian Orange Skin Food, muscle oil, hair and skin products. Within five years she had moved her flagship salon into the prestigious building which still bears her name. Soon her signature Red Door Salons were appearing throughout the United States and around the world – meccas for the fashion and beauty-conscious, and outposts from which the Elizabeth Arden word could be spread to women everywhere.
As her business expanded beyond her original Fifth Avenue Salon, Miss Arden maintained her company’s prestigious image by making her products available in only the most exclusive stores around the world.
At a time when only stage actresses wore makeup, Elizabeth Arden recognized the desire of American women to break out of the Victorian mold. She not only developed rouge and tinted powder and introduced the concept of eye makeup, but also offered the first makeovers.
By the 1930s it was said there were only three American names known in every corner of the globe: Singer Sewing Machines, Coca-Cola and Elizabeth Arden.
Following Miss Arden’s death in 1966, her company was acquired in 1971 by Eli Lilly and Company, then by Faberge in late 1987, and by UNILEVER PLC in 1989. Acquired by FFI in 2001, the new Elizabeth Arden is uniquely poised and proud to continue its role as a leader of the beauty industry in a new century.
CHRONOLOGY
Enter Elizabeth Arden
1910 Miss Elizabeth Arden opens the first Elizabeth Arden Salon on Fifth Avenue, the smartest street in New York, offering skin treatments and massages for the face and body with "a total dedication to vanity."
Elizabeth Arden was the first to envision the total body concept of beauty.
1912 Elizabeth Arden defines innovation. Vogue magazine declares, "A discreet application of paint might enhance a lady's appearance." Miss Arden develops rouge and tinted powder, forerunners of today's blush.
Elizabeth Arden believed that enhancing a woman's appearance offered empowerment. She became active in the women's suffrage movement and joined forces with prominent society women to further the cause. Her motivation was not purely political, it was also an astute way to promote her business to the prestige customer of the day.
"The desires of the customer come first."
1914 Elizabeth Arden opens her first branch salon in Washington, D.C.
Elizabeth Arden sails for Europe on the Lusitania. Globalization of the company begins.
Elizabeth Arden is the first to introduce eye makeup to America.
1915-1920 Elizabeth Arden Company takes the lead by offering the greatest number and variety of skin treatment products in the world:
108 products in 595 shapes and sizes.
1915 Miss Arden introduces a light fluffy cream for the face, Venetian Cream Amoretta, the first treatment cream that is not heavy or greasy.
1915 Elizabeth Arden's Ardena Skin Tonic was the first product to incorporate the founder and company name into a product name.
1916 First in prestige sales for skincare nationwide.
First to introduce a full line of skincare and color.
Miss Arden was the first to have distinctive, elegant packaging, each piece a work of art and a portable advertisement. It became the trademark style for the Elizabeth Arden Company.
"To be beautiful and natural is the birthright of every woman." Miss Elizabeth Arden, 1916
1917 First to introduce travel sizes.
Palm Beach salon opens.
1918 Wholesale orders at $20,000 to $30,000 per year.
Realizing there are still stores that have never heard of her company, Miss Arden's sister Gladys becomes the first Elizabeth Arden sales representative.
Miss Arden becomes the first in the cosmetics business to personally train and send out a team of travelling demonstrators and saleswomen.
Thomas Jenkins Lewis, Miss Arden's husband and a former banker, joins the company.
Gladys opens the first major department store account in Paris at Galleries Lafayette.
In Paris, Gladys establishes a strict return policy by refusing to accept returns on merchandise with store labels on the boxes, which would require costly repackaging. Galleries Lafayette complies.
1919 Gladys opens the first factory in France.
In London, Harrod's places their first Elizabeth Arden order for $50.00.
The Roaring Twenties
1920 Thomas Jenkins Lewis takes over the retail and wholesale divisions. Strict policy is set regarding distribution.
Elizabeth Arden is the first beauty company to have retail accounts nationwide. The one criterion for all: the preparations would only be sold in prestigious stores. In San Francisco: I. Magnin. In Chicago: Marshall Field's. In Dallas: Neiman Marcus. In New York, only stores on Fifth Avenue could stock Elizabeth Arden preparations.
Miss Arden is the first to use a personal publicist. Realizing the importance of the real person behind the name on the product she hires Hedda Hopper, the Hollywood columnist.
Elizabeth Arden advertising was legendary for its effectiveness.
"It is my firm belief that the chief essential in selling beauty, just as it is in any business, is the repetition of certain essentials. Repetition makes reputation and reputation makes customers." Miss Elizabeth Arden, 1920
Orders outpace limited facilities in New York. First factory opens in New York on East 52nd Street.
Mr. Lewis proposes a worldwide network of factories. Elizabeth responds: "First there must be Salons. And more Salons. Everywhere."
1921 Elizabeth Arden builds the first Salon in London. Her husband builds the first Elizabeth Arden Company factory in England.
First Salon in Paris opens. Immediately followed by a second in Nice, France.
1925 Department store cosmetic sales expand dramatically for Elizabeth Arden Company.
The company grosses domestically over $2,000,000 per year, representing 3% of the total population who purchase beauty products. This figure does not include foreign sales, or the Salons, where clients spend $150+ per client per week.
Salons open in Philadelphia, Detroit and San Francisco.
1926 Bar Harbor and Palm Springs Salons open.
1927 Southampton, Long Island Salon opens.
The Elizabeth Arden Company is the first in salary compensation.
"Get your facts right. Keep it short, keep it sweet and keep it to the point. You can write a whole book about what you don't know, but you've really got to know your subject to put it in one sentence." Miss Elizabeth Arden, 1927
1928 Salons open in Madrid, Rome and Berlin.
Elizabeth Arden introduces the first home spa kit complete with a record and short film entitled, "The Sound of Beauty with Elizabeth Arden."
1929 Elizabeth Arden opens the first exercise room in a Salon. Exercises were incorporated into the famous Elizabeth Arden system, the forerunner of aerobics.
The Great Depression
1929 Elizabeth Arden Company wholesale division grosses about $4,000,000 per year. Since 1925 the gross sales figures have doubled.
Elizabeth Arden moves the New York Salon further uptown to its current location at 691 Fifth Avenue. The new Salon includes treatment rooms, exercise rooms, massage rooms, a room devoted to tap dancing and fencing, along with a floor for haute couture and accessories.
The first Elizabeth Arden Salon opens at the Robert Simpson Company in Toronto, Canada.
1930 Miss Arden proclaims, "There are only three American names known in every corner of the globe: Singer Sewing Machines, Coca-Cola and Elizabeth Arden."
Miss Arden is introduced to the sport of horse racing. In time, the Maine Chance stable becomes the most profitable stable in America and Elizabeth Arden the first woman to own a horse that wins the Kentucky Derby.
Her thoroughbred horses are rubbed down with the Ardena Skin Tonic and their hooves are massaged with Eight Hour Cream, which proves to be so effective that it becomes the standard treatment in premier racing circles.
Blue Grass, one of the most successful Elizabeth Arden fragrances, was so named because her horses were stabled in the bluegrass country of Lexington, Kentucky. The package design includes beautiful horses emblazoned across the front of the box.
1932 Elizabeth Arden opens Salons in Berlin, Cannes, Rome, Miami, Los Angeles and Palm Springs.
Miss Elizabeth Arden introduces paraffin baths in the Salons to help promote weight loss, purge the body of "poisons" and leave a fresh glow on the skin.
Elizabeth Arden introduces the Viennese Youth Mask.
Clients pay $200.00 for a course of treatments.
Elizabeth Arden introduces color choices in mascara, rouge, lipstick and powder. This was one of the most revolutionary ideas introduced to the beauty business. Prior to this introduction, colors were available in only three shades: light, medium and dark.
1933 Miss Arden is the first to have her own weekly radio program, aired on NBC, to teach the Elizabeth Arden Way to Beauty.
1934 Elizabeth Arden opens the first American spa, Maine Chance in Maine. Clients pay $250 to $500 per week to be pampered from head-to-toe.
Elizabeth Arden expands her organization to South America, opening stores and Salons in Brazil and Argentina. This venture carries the company through World War II when the European business is at a near standstill.
1935 Mrs. Averill Harriman observes that, "Arden's program of expansion has not abated perceptibly during the Depression. Ever since she found out that the cosmetics business was going to be one of the few industries to weather hard times with any profit, she has followed her own inclination to treat the general financial disaster with what amounts to unconcern." It should be noted that throughout the Depression, the Elizabeth Arden Company employed over 1000 people and grossed $4,000,000 per year.
1936 The Elizabeth Arden Company expansion continues. Salons open in Milan, Montreal and Honolulu.
1938 There are now 29 Salons worldwide along with the Elizabeth Arden Sales Corporation for the US and West Indies, Elizabeth Arden Ltd., in Canada and the UK.
Miss Elizabeth Arden is the sole proprietor of all but two Salons in Paris, which are owned by her sister.
In New York, retail accounts include: Best and Co., Saks Fifth Avenue, Bonwit Teller, and Macy's. Other accounts: I. Magnin stores in San Francisco, Marshall Field's in Chicago, J.W. Robinson in Los Angeles, Neiman Marcus in Dallas, J.L. Hudson in Detroit, and Halle Bros in Cleveland.
"She has probably earned more money than any other business woman in history by commanding the sun to stand still until she got the proper shade of pink in a bottle, the right texture of cream in a jar." Fortune Magazine, 1938.
By 1938, the Elizabeth Arden Company had 10 sales representatives whose main function was to build a following of buyers and keep the Arden name in front of retail executives. They are supported by a team of 10 to 15 of Miss Arden's personal representatives.
"These high-priced, high-powered, trained-to-perfection ladies leave behind them a newly quickened demand for Miss Arden's products. One week of work equaled six weeks of sales, along with the demonstrators or Arden Girls who are expert in the Arden Way to Beauty and how to sell it." Fortune Magazine, 1938
Miss Arden believed in salon training and was personally involved in the training of each person who went out into the stores.
In describing the sales force, the magazine said, "It's hard to pick between the Arden girls and the personal representatives if you're trying to choose the most important Arden sales employees. They're all part of the Arden method."
The magazine goes on to say, "There was one overriding principle: Arden must stand for quality. Let the big drug and toiletry firms go after the mass market ... Elizabeth Arden would settle for smaller production and larger profits. They would become a status line by concentrating only on prestigious outlets. This goal was accomplished through advertising and selective marketing."
Profit margins on the preparations were over 25%.
1939 New Salon opens in Copenhagen, Denmark.
"There is only one Mademoiselle in the world, and that is I; one Madame and that is Rubinstein; and one Miss that is Arden." Coco Chanel, 1937
World War II and Beyond
1939 First to make a cosmetics commercial featuring Constance Bennett that is shown in movie houses.
1940 In anticipation of WW II and the growing demand for women entering business, Miss Arden introduces a career course with topics on proper business attire, career orientation, along with diet, exercise, complexion care, hair, makeup and grooming.
First to introduce the Salon in a Box concept: an at-home treatment box complete with products and a record entitled "The Sound of Beauty" explaining the Elizabeth Arden system for a lifetime of beauty.
Falmouth, Cape Cod Salon opens.
1944 Elizabeth Arden has fully evolved her idea of the total concept of beauty. She begins her custom clothing design division for the Salons.
1945 Elizabeth Arden opens a Salon in Chile, South America.
1946 Elizabeth Arden opens a second, even more luxurious, Maine Chance Spa in Arizona. The Elizabeth Arden Way to Beauty is now available year-round in Maine and Arizona.
Elizabeth Arden Salons open in Peru and Mexico City.
1950-1955 Elizabeth Arden Salons open in Austria, South Africa, Australia, Finland and Miami Beach, Florida.
1959 A marketing first: tying in the luxury of the Elizabeth Arden Way to Beauty with the luxury of owning a 1960 Chrysler Imperial. Each special designer edition automobile comes equipped with a treatment and makeup train case filled with Elizabeth Arden products.
1964 Salons open in Portugal.
1965 Elizabeth Arden models include Jean Shrimpton, Veronica Hamel, Sunny Griffin, Lauren Hutton, Veruschka and Candace Bergen.
1966 Salon opens in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Miss Elizabeth Arden dies in October 1966 and is buried in Sleepy Hollow, New York. At the time of her death, the Elizabeth Arden Company was grossing an estimated $60,000,000 per year. In her lifetime, she built an empire of 17 different Elizabeth Arden corporations and 40 salons worldwide. Miss Elizabeth Arden had invented the American beauty industry.
An Eye to the Future
2001 With the acquisition by FFI, the new Elizabeth Arden looks to the future. With a portfolio of flagship brands that includes Ceramides, Visible Difference, Millenium, Flawless Finish, Red Door, Fifth Avenue and Green Tea. With brilliant best-selling Elizabeth Taylor White Diamonds. And with legendary fine fragrances like Halston, Geoffrey Beene, PS and Wings.
“Go out and make your mark.” Miss Elizabeth Arden, 1935
ELIZABETH ARDEN: INNOVATOR
Throughout her long career, Elizabeth Arden was a pioneer. There is good evidence that Miss Arden was the first to achieve the following breakthroughs:
· Products developed for individual skin types
· Full-service Salons
· A light fluffy face cream, Venetian Cream Amoretta, the first treatment cream that was not heavy or greasy
· Cosmetics for sale at retail
· Elizabeth Arden’s Ardena Tonic incorporates founder and company name into product name
· Retail cosmetic advertising and public relations
· A company newsletter to clients
· Specialized body care products
· Travel kits and travel sizes of products
· Beauty spa (Maine Chance, Maine)
· Exercise classes and records, in 1921
· Hires Hedda Hopper, the Hollywood columnist as her personal publicist
· Matching nail lacquer and lipstick
· Eye makeup in the United States
· Makeup to match skin tone
· Travel sizes
· Home spa kit complete with record and short film, “The Sound of Beauty with Elizabeth Arden”
· Exercise room in a Salon
· “Total look” -- complementary eyes, lips, cheeks, and nails
· Her own weekly radio program, aired on NBC, to teach the Elizabeth Arden Way to Beauty
· Trained retail sales consultants
· Beauty clinics at retail (these had all the drama of live theater, with actors and plots and thrilling climaxes)
· “Beauty Ambassador-esses” from Salons to retail stores
· Cosmetics commercial featuring Constance Bennett shown in movie houses
· Marketing tie-in: the luxury of the Elizabeth Arden Way to Beauty with the luxury of owning a 1960 Chrysler Imperial. Each special designer edition comes equipped with a treatment and makeup train case filled with Elizabeth Arden products
· First woman to own a Kentucky Derby-winning horse
· First woman to be voted into the Business Hall of Fame
· First American to be awarded the Grande Coupe d’Or, the most prestigious fragrance honor in the world
Notable Accomplishments / Recognition
Catherine Zeta Jones, Elizabeth Arden's spokesperson.
Britney Spears and Elizabeth Taylor brands.
Jeff Gordon, representing Halston Z-14.
New projects: Hilary Duff and Danielle Steele.
Benefits
Flexible Spending Accounts for Medical and Dependent Care, Long-Term Care, Tuition Reimbursement Program, an Employee Assistance 24/7 Hotline Program, 30% Discount on services at the Red Door Salons and Spas, monthly Employee Product Purchase Program that gives you additional savings on distributed and owned brand products, and many more ammenities depending on location.