Helena Rubinstein

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Helena Rubinstein (b. Chaja Rubinstein, December 25, 1871 or 1872, Krakau, Austria-Hungary (now Poland)—d. April 1, 1965, New York, USA), Polish-American cosmetics industrialist, founder and eponym of Helena Rubinstein, Incorporated, which made her one of the world's richest women.

Rubinstein, the eldest of eight children, was born of Augusta Gitte (Gitel) Scheindel Silberfeld Rubinstein and Naftali Herz Horace Rubinstein; he was a shopkeeper in Krakau. For a short time, she studied medicine in Switzerland. In 1902, she moved to Australia, opened a shop there a year later, and changed her forename to Helena. She mixed so-called medical formulas and ointments that she claimed were imported from the Carpathian Mountains. They were, in truth, concocted from sheep oil whose odor was disguised with scents of lavender, pine bark and water lilies.

Diminutive at 4 ft. 10 in. (147 cm), she rapidly expanded her operation. In 1908, her sister Ceska assumed the Melbourne shop's operation, when, with $100,000, Helena moved to London and began what was to become an international enterprise. (Women at this time could not obtain bank loans, so the money was her own.)

In 1908 in London, she married American journalist Edward William Titus. They had two sons, Roy Valentine Titus (London, December 12, 1909–New York, June 18, 1989) and Horace Titus (London, April 23, 1912–New York, May 18, 1958). Eventually, they lived in Paris, where she opened a salon in 1912. Her husband helped with writing the publicity and set up a small publishing house, published Lady Chatterley's Lover and hired Samuel Putnam to translate Kiki's memoirs. She threw lavish dinner parties and became known for apocraphal quips, such as when an intoxicated French ambassador expressed vitriol toward Edith Sitwell and her brother Sacheverell: “Vos ancêtres ont brûlée Jeanne d’Arc!” “What did he say?," Rubinstein, who knew little French, asked a guest. “He said, ‘Your ancestors burned Joan of Arc.’ ” Rubinstein replied, "Well, someone had to do it."

At another fête, Marcel Proust asked her what makeup a duchess might wear. She summarily dismissed him because "he smelled of mothballs," recollecting later, "How was I to know he was going to be famous?"

At the outbreak of World War I, she and Titus moved to New York City, where she opened a salon in 1915, the forerunner of a chain throughout the country. This was the beginning of her vicious rivalry with the other great lady of the cosmetics industry, Elizabeth Arden, who was born Florence Nightingale Graham (1881–1966). (Arden, who had a predilection for everything pink, was the daughter of an extremely poor small farmer near Toronto.) Both Rubinstein and Arden, who died within 18 months of each other, were social climbers. And they were both keenly aware of effective marketing and luxurious packaging, the attraction of beauticians in neat uniforms, the value of celebrity endorsements, the perceived value of overpricing and the promotion of the pseudo-science of skincare.

From 1917, Rubinstein took on the manufacturing and wholesale distribution of her products. The "Day of Beauty" in the various salons became a great success. The purported portrait of Rubinstein in her advertising was of a middle-age mannequin with a gentile appearance.

Also in 1917, she divorced Titus after a contentious marriage encouraged by his infidelities and, in 1928, sold the American business to Lehman Brothers for $7.3 million, a enormous sum at the time when income taxes were nonexistent. After the arrival of the Great Depression, she bought back the nearly worthless stock for less than $1 million and eventually turned the shares into values of multimillion dollars, establishing salons and outlets in almost a dozen U.S. cities. Her subsequent spa at 715 Fifth Avenue (Escada today) included a restaurant, a gymnasium, and rugs by Joan Miró. She commissioned Salvador Dalí to design a powder compact as well a portrait of herself.

In 1938, she married Prince Artchil Gourielli-Tchkonia (d. 1956), who claimed to be of Georgian royalty. He was 23 years her junior. She named a male cosmetics line after the "prince," whose royal roots may have been bogus. Some have claimed that the marriage was a marketing ploy, including Rubinstein's being able to pass herself off as Princess Gourielli.

A multimillionaire of contrasts, Rubinstein took a bag lunch to work and was very frugal in many matters but bought top-fashion clothing and valuable fine art and furniture. Concerning art, she founded the respectable Helena Rubinstein Pavilion of Contemporary Art in Tel Aviv. In 1953, she established the philanthropic Helena Rubinstein Foundation to provide funds to organizations specializing in health, medical research and rehabilitation as well as to the America-Israel Cultural Foundation and scholarships to Israelis.

In 1959, Rubenstein represented the U.S. cosmetics industry at the American National Exhibition in Moscow.

Called "Madame" by her employees, she eschewed idle chatter, continued to be active in the corporation throughout her life, even from her sick bed, and staffed the company with her relatives.

Some of her estate including African and fine art, Lucite furniture, and overwrought Victorian furniture upholstered in purple was auctioned in 1966 at the Park-Bernet Galleries in New York.

One of Rubinstein's numerous mantras is, "There are no ugly women, only lazy ones." A scholarly study of her exclusive beauty salons and how they blurred and influenced the conceptual boundaries at the time among fashion, art galleries, the domestic interior, and versions of modernism has been explored by Marie J. Clifford (Winterthur Portfolio, vol. 38).

Bibliography

Seymour Brody (author), Art Seiden (illustrator) (1956). Jewish Heroes & Heroines of America: 150 True Stories of American Jewish Heroism. Hollywood, Florida: Lifetime Books, 1996 | ISBN 0811908232

Marie J. Clifford (2003). "Helena Rubinstein's Beauty Salons, Fashion, and Modernist Display," Winterthur Portfolio, vol. 38, pp. 83–108

Lindy Woodhead (2004). War Paint. London: Virago Press | ISBN 1844080498

Stefan Kanfer (Summer 2004). "The Czarinas of Beauty," City Journal (U.S.)

External links

• Helena Rubinstein cosmetics
• Helena Rubinstein Foundation
• Jewish Virtual Library | Helena Rubinstein biography