May 29, 2024 • 48 mins
This week, Martha turns her attention to the business of beauty in a conversation with industry veteran John Demsey. Demsey, who spent 30 years leading brands at Estée Lauder, developed MAC Cosmetics into a global powerhouse and was the force behind Tom Ford’s expansion into fragrance and cosmetics. He loves the legacy brands, he supports the newcomers, and he understands why we can’t get enough of the products. Listen here as he shares his insights about the multi-billion beauty industry and talks about his book, Behind the Blue Door, about the extraordinary home he created in Manhattan.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The idea is that people have many personalities and many personas,
and that beauty is the ultimate expression of oneself. And
the reason why beauty companies will never go out of
business is that beauty is the one thing that is
a universal aspiration. The definition of it may change from
country to country, or culture to culture, or generation to generation.
(00:24):
But I don't know anyone who thinks they look too good.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
John Dempsey's life is full of color in every way.
During three decades in the beauty business, he helped turn
mac Cosmetics into a global brand and launched the enormously
successful tom Board Fragrance line. He is a passionate collector
of art, furniture, objects, pets and friends. In fact, he
told me he now has how many pets?
Speaker 1 (00:53):
I have nine dogs and two cats.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Congratulations, Thank you. You're a man after my own heart.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
A lot of emotional support, unconditional, exactly or conditional, you
might say.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
He designed a wildly eclectic, five story townhouse on the
Upper east Side that is so full of the things
he loves that he published a book showing them all
behind the blue door. He joins me here today at
Rockefeller Center to talk about that book and what it
takes to build a business in multi billion dollar beauty industry.
(01:25):
Welcome to my podcast, John Martha.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Thank you so much for inviting me.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
You are looking extremely dapper today. He is dressed in
a double breasted navy blue beautiful suit. What's the wool.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
It's a I think it's a light worsted role. It's
from Trifonili in Paris.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Oh, it's very beautiful. And he has a said this
is a navy blue suit. Yes, a little bright navy.
And then he has a brighter navy pocket handkerchief in
his breast pocket on the left side, and he has
a beautifully tailored pale blue button down shirt which is
made by whom.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
This is made by?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Oh, it is Sharve. I used to wear Sharvey's shirts.
And what kind of watch did you wear?
Speaker 1 (02:05):
I'm wearing an automar royal oak that my father gave
to me on my sixteenth birthday. I found that it
was I wasn't really wearing them the way I used
to wear them.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Yeah, I think we've all come to that point now
with our thought ubiquitous phone, right.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
I know. So it's just more of an ornament than
it is anything.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
And also the reason we're talking is silly talk is
because you know, John comes out of the high high
high fashion world, the world of skincare and makeup and
dealing with the finest designers and the most popular of brands.
So thank you for coming here today and taking time.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
I'm prilled to be here.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
So I love your book on my friend and your friend.
Of course, Douglas Friedman took all the pictures. This is
a tome. This is a big, heavy book. It's a
fifty oh wow. And it comes in a slipcase of leopard.
Now what's the saying about leopard? When the going gets tough,
the tough goal leopard. See, okay, that's it. And there
(03:03):
is a lion of no leverriy you should have a
leopard there?
Speaker 1 (03:07):
No, Well, that's the door knocker on the I know
it's the front cover.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Is the door with the door knocker of a beautiful,
really mean looking lion with a big ring in his mouth.
Is that a ruby there or an emerald?
Speaker 1 (03:19):
It's a fake one.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
It's fake, of of course.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
It's in New York City.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
And it was published by Von Dome Press, which makes
very beautiful art books, and it is treated like an
art book. Only I've never seen acid yellow and papers
in my life before this book.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Have you No, I've never seen it. Never it Steve Spress,
it is, it is. And the bright red, well, there's
end papers of bright red. And when you see the
house that John built, which is really what year was
that house built?
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Well, the house was built in eighteen ninety five, okay,
and it was under many renovations. When I got it,
it was in an eighties kIPS Bay innovation.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Oh, so you bought a Kipps Bay house?
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Was a Kipps Bay house that needed to be purged
of the nineteen eighties. Yes, there was a lot of
nineteen eighties stuff elements, but it was the plumbing good
or did you have to redo that too?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Or suit to redo everything everything?
Speaker 1 (04:16):
When they did the eighties renovation, they never really went
into the pipes.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
This is an East side of Manhattan townhouse, which looks
like all the other townhouses on the street until you
walk in the door and wow, you are absolutely shocked
at the volume of stuff in the house. You are
a real collector, John, I'm a collector. Yeah, you are
a college.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Some people call me a luxury order.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Oh is that that is so great. But you, I mean,
you grew up kind of in a normal home, normal
and not normal.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
I guess you know that you never know I've learned
anything in life. You don't judge a book by its coming.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Describe your Describe your growing up.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
I grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio, preppy town.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
My there wasn't there was no house that looked like
this Shaker Heights, Ohio.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
No, no, no, it looked very It looked very much
like the Rady bunch. And my father was in the
steel business. And love is he still He's no longer
with us. He passed away this past year.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Oh, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
And my mother, who's still with us, was a painter.
And I was lucky that growing up in this Midwestern city,
I had very glamorous parents. And my mother's father was
in the yarn business. And actually who was the father
was the supplier of Harmon knitwear and I'll actually help
launch Rudy Greenwright. So my mother and I had Rudy
(05:37):
Garnrake knitted dresses. My mother, my mother would she didn't
wear a mono bathing suit topless, but she would walk
around in hot pants and these Rudy green right numbers
in Prepstown and it was like the Harper Valley PTA.
So it's great.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
But you like you like Bold, I would say, you
like Bold, and you like lichten Scene, and you like Warhol,
and you like what are some who are some of
your other favorite artists?
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Well, I love pop culture. I'm inspired by every decade.
If I'm inspired by music, fashion, photography, celebrities, design objects,
I'm inspired by you.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Actually, I remember hunting down and two homes ago the
special color gray paint that you had done. So I
thought the gray color paint that you had done was
the best tope gray at it I had ever seen.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Somebody just asked me the other day for a can
of my paint. Isn't that great? That's a big compliment
because he wants to paint his houses that color. And
when I moved to Bedford, there were so many outbuildings
that I thought, gosh, if I don't use a cohesive color.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
That's where I saw it everywhere, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
And everywhere it all has to be cohesive. And it worked.
It worked. And I got that color from a piece
of Italian stationery. I had gotten a little box of
stationary in Florence it's one of those beautiful, old, old
stationary stores, and that color gray just spoke to me,
and I had it matched to paint and it worked.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
I left that well. Actually, that that sort of dovetails
into the inspiration of my color palette in my book,
because if you actually go to not this page, not
this page. So on this double spread on the left
hand side of the page is a photograph of Bridget Bardeaux,
a publicity still that I bought when I was eighteen
(07:28):
years old in the flea market in Paris, and.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
All men were madly in love with Bridget Bardeux.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Yes, and that was the first thing I ever bought.
And on the right side of the page is a
pair of Christian Lubhutan boots that my friend, model suzannevon Ashinger,
who is John Galliano's muse, was wearing. And I was
out to dinner with her in Paris, and when I
(07:53):
saw her boots, I was trying to determine, like what
I was going to do with the house. I said,
you have to give me your shoes. She said what
I said, No, you have to give me your shoes.
Idea is beautiful boots. This color combination of the navy
and the Evecline blue and the baby blue and the gold,
the pink and the red. And I went to start
carpets into the archives of David Hicks, and all the
(08:14):
carpets that we've throughout the house carried the.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Colors they were in that color. Isn't that crazy? It's
a crazy story. Well, you are unique and the house
is such a unique place. And the trouble with seeing
the house is that John is a very amazing party thrower,
and every time you go to his house it is
so packed that I don't think I've gotten past got
the first floor, second floor. I tried to get up
(08:38):
to the next floor, and I never got up there yet,
so I have to come back. Imitation's always open, Okay,
But the whole book is so who designed the book.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
The book was designed by Elisee Sozan, who's an art
director who works with Von Doom Press. She's based in
Los Angeles. But as you said, it really was the
collaboration with our dear friend Douglas Friedman. The house had
been photographed in a couple of interior design magazines and
he said to me, this doesn't capture what you're about
(09:06):
or what this house is about because I want to
do it my way and I believe I was.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
And he talked about it quite a bit while he
was doing.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
It, and I told him you could do whatever he
wanted to do and I would give no direction. And
we hired Mika Tanhae who is an amazing young stylist
from Amsterdam, and Alina Cho, our close friend, wrote the
book and it became sort of a project of introspection
and at the same time diving deep into where I
(09:37):
came from.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Whose eye is this ie that I is from? Rankin
the photographer. I mean, really and truly, when you get
your hands on a copy of this book, and it's
available at Amazon.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Amazon dot Com, art bookstores, art bookstores, find and Noble
find bookstores everywhere, yeap, when you get.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Your hands on this book, you will be incredibly amazed
at the the volume of things that John has collected
and the crazy artistry with which you display it. I mean,
it really is. It is hard to find a seat
in your house. I know, it's very hard. Where do
the cats? Where do those cats live?
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Two cats live on the fifth floor because they hate
the golden doodles, Oh golden doodles. Keep trying to eat
the cats. So it's a it's a it's actually.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
And they're not allowed up there. They're both.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
You would think in a home with so much stuff,
having a teenage daughter and nine dogs and two cats,
that nothing ever gets broken.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Does your daughter live in this house half the time?
Yet she does? A lucky girl, she must love it.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
The book was really a personal expression on my philosophy,
on what I've learned in life and the experiences I've had,
the people I've met, the things that I've seen. And
the overarching theme is that you should be you, and
you should live your life with empathy and kindness, but
(11:01):
boldly and expressively. It doesn't matter how much money you have,
it doesn't matter where you're from. Anybody can be their
authentic self and put themselves out there in a unique way.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
The book is called Behind the Blue Door, and that's
the color, a bright, bright, beautiful blue. That is the
color that he has painted his front door with the
lion knocker. And he's joining me today to talk about
the book, about what it takes to build this business
and live in New York City in a very personal way. Yes,
(11:45):
so there's been a big explosion. John in the beauty
space for sure, more companies, more product categories, more celebrity
entrance into the world of skincare and makeup, more SKUs altogether.
What do you attribute to this growth?
Speaker 1 (12:01):
To many things. Actually, this wave is enabled by the
new communication platforms. So when you think about the evolution
of beauty post war after World War Two, in the fifties,
you had the opening up of malls, You had the
transition from radio which was sponsored by Pond's Cold Cream
(12:23):
or whatever the case may be. To you arrived at
the game shows and Revlon was the sponsor of the
sixty four thousand dollars question which when did you work
for Revlin? I worked for Revlin in the early eighties.
But I'm just from an historical perspective.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
I missed you, y, I just made I was on
the board.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
I did not know that.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Oh. I was on the board in the nineties and
that was the most fun board I have ever sat on.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Lower fun people.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
But what happened with Revlin? Because I knew Revlon in
the seventies.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Revlon was a great company, and Charles Revson was a
visionary and he was passionate. And I still think it's
a great brand name. I still think they have great
products with great performance. I think somehow it got lost
chang It didn't understand the change in the demographics, and
it didn't understand the change in the way that media
(13:14):
and aspiration works. So in my little story that I
started from the fifties with the shopping malls and game shows,
in the sixties with broadcast television and the importance of
glossy magazines and beauty editors and fashion editors and television
and people talking on the Today Show like Bobby Brown,
and so you had all these experts that built their
(13:36):
business up through the local newspaper and market town market marketing.
But every every town in America or in the world
had a local specialty store, a local magazine, a local
beauty editor, a local TV station, a local radio station,
and the business was built.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Bit by bit, community by community.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
The revolution that came first was cable, where you could
start to narrowcast and target an audience. And when MTV
came on, the infomercials, Yes, infomercials and new ways of
and home shopping, and MTV came on board, and all
of a sudden, music was about the video and how
you told the story about the video, and if you
(14:18):
didn't have the video on MTV, you didn't sell the music.
So all of a sudden, the media started mattering more,
and the content started mattering more, not just the paid
promotional element. And during the nineties with HSN and QVC,
there was this boom that took place with people actually
taking the show on the airwaves and going direct to
(14:40):
people's homes. And at the same time, the most important
change in our lifetime is the year of nineteen ninety eight,
because pre nineteen ninety eight, there was no Internet.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
It was accessible to everybody's home very well. There was
no Google, there was no sarch Board, there was no search.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
There there was no Amazon, there was no there were
no blogs, there was no Wikipedia.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
I mean, so the early does it seemed like yesterday?
Speaker 1 (15:08):
It seems like yesterday, yes, And you used to dial
it up on your phone and have that funny noise
no going. But that was the first or the beginning
of the democratization of access to content and information and
search and understanding about brands and going places that you
never had to leave your house. The first seismic change
(15:31):
came with Facebook. First of all, First was MySpace, then Facebook,
and then.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
My space was Rupert Murdock race then came Mark Zuckerberg,
and with Facebook.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
And then Instagram and YouTube, with Google and Google Search
and Yahoo and all these platforms. And what started happening
was the creators or the users actually became the media channels,
and people that had up per sana or could make
a connection with an audience all of a sudden became
(16:03):
stars and they started doing how to videos and tutorials
and doing crazy stories and crazy content. And that coupled
with the emergence of Alta and Sophara in the United
States and these sort of you know, category killer beauty
outlets all of a sudden cause gave an opportunity for
(16:25):
generations of brands to be Some brands that had been
around for a long time. Anastasia became an overnight success
story after many years in the business because of Instagram,
and then that evolution got turbo charged with the arrival
of TikTok and Snapchat. And the thing is that the
beauty business, like the film business or the music business,
(16:48):
had a lot of gatekeepers. So unless you could get
the right slotting in terms of presentation in the store
or the right counter.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
You're talking about the companies, the manufacturers themselves, the.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Manufacturers themselves, and the retailers and the publishers. There was
a system that was an ecosystem of mutual admiration and
economics that created the aspiration and the outlets to buy
brands and create products. And when you think back of
the great beauty entrepreneurs of the fifties, sixties, and seventies,
(17:19):
whether it was Lena Rubenstein, Elizabeth Arden, Charles Revson, Este Laud,
I mean, these women and men in today's world would
have been considered to be influencers. They had social media,
yet their social media was on television or in glossy
magazines or in a lifestyle dimension. So they were the
first first evolution of social media or social beings, but
(17:45):
bringing together a heritage or a lifestyle or a story.
The thing about Instagram and more so TikTok was that
anyone with a good idea can sell it, can sell something,
or become a star over an So there no longer
was a studio system. There no longer was a gatekeeper.
Now there's an algorithm that actually forces you actually to
(18:07):
play ball with the platforms exactly.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
But you set up an iPhone on a little stand
in your bathroom and you put on a pretty circle
light around your face, you put on mascara, you can
sell it.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
A young girl from Tampa, Florida can go from being
a beauty advisor in a department store to having twenty
five million followers and having our own brand or being
a channel to sell products. So this democratization of content
and the ability of people to connect with content that
they relate to opened up huge opportunities for people to
(18:42):
express themselves and to actually start to create products and
to create brands. And so you have the success of
Chris Jenner's entire ecosystem of children.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
You know there, You imagine having five daughters like that
that create the product that we all devour.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
It's a pretty amazing when you think that there are
probably more eyeballs on those social media channels of her
family than in the three legacy television networks of this country.
But that could not have happened. So the change in
media and the change in people's expectations about beauty and
(19:23):
self expression opened up a much wider canvas to pain
because in the earlier years, there was sort of a
standardized way that you were supposed to look. There was
a universal code or standard of beauty that was imposed
on men and women, and the opportunity to be whoever
you wanted to be was less free, And also the
(19:47):
concept that being whoever you wanted to be might depend
on the hour of the day. And the fact of
the matter is you may be glamorous one moment and
effortless the next, and bare face the next and hampering
yourself in the with Martha Stewart products. But the idea
is that there are people have many personalities and many personas,
and that beauty is the ultimate expression of oneself. And
(20:12):
the reason why beauty companies will never go out of
business is that beauty is the one thing that is
a universal aspiration. The definition of it may change from
country to country, or culture to culture, or generation to generation.
But I don't know anyone who thinks they look too good.
I don't know anybody who doesn't want to feel good
in their skin and look better and look better or
(20:33):
feel better about themselves or project a better self. And
that eternal quest to do better and be better fears fees.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Is fed by the beauty industry.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
It's fed by the beauty industry and the media empire
and everything else. That goes behind it because it's a
universal quest.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
So the celebrity beauty brands that have evolved over just
the last few years, it's not a long time that
except for the great econs like Helena Rubinstein and Essay Laughter,
who were the most successful of these new celebrity start to.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Put it in perspective, the celebrity beauty phenomenon. After it
went from the founders or the creators of these brands
who were beauty experts, you had the celebrity action actually
in the nineteen seventies and eighties in Fragrance.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Remember Ralph l my brother in law, did Ralph Lauren Perfume,
I remember? Or George Friedman, George Friedman, goodness, yeah, he
did Poloma Picasso.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
I did.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
I did the opening night party, the big party at
the UH At that party, oh you were, yes. And
it was up on Fifth Avenue in that beautiful mansion
across from the Cooper Hewitt.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
And I did all the food, and I did all
those red table claws and it was fabulous, and Paloma
was there.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
But the idea of a celebrity that was Elizabeth Taylor
White Diamonds, which this to this very day still ranks
in the top twenty five to thirty frames in this country.
Nice So celebrity became very, very important in the fragrance business,
and it was one of the main drivers of QVC
and HSN, which created new celebrities and new celebrities finding
(22:12):
a new life on TV. Right. Ernest Borgnine's wife Tova
created a fragrance that sold hundreds of millions of dollars.
Fred Hayman and Gail created Georgia of Beverly Hills in
the Scruple.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Years, So I remember when that was launched.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
So these were like bigger than life ideas. Today we
have a lot of celebrities in life. Go back to Georgio.
What made that so popular? It was that pretty woman period.
It was rodeo drive, It was over the top Beverly Hills,
It was unabashed glamour. It was access into a club
that maybe you couldn't go into, but you could buy
(22:51):
a piece of the fragrance.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Who did the advertising for that, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Who did the advertising, but it was it was a
firminiche fragrance and it was the bright yellow and white
awning and it had the crest and they were the
first people to use the scent strip.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
It was the first time in magazines.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
In magazines and that fragrance was during a period in
the eighties where the fragrance arrived before you did. So
it was about loud, unabashed, old, bold, fragrant expressions. And
today now you have a lot of celebrity brands. There
are some that carry a celebrity's name and others that
(23:28):
are backed by celebrities with varying degrees of success, but
ones that I would say have hit it out of
the ballpark Rihanna Infenti, which has been an extraordinary success
and changed the whole framing of what diversity represents. Selena
Gomez right now with Rare beauty.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Oh yeah, and she's coming out with uh I just
read something today she's doing not makeup, but is it
her fragrance.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
She has Fragrance makeup skincare. She is one of the
fastest growing brands.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
And she's such a cute girl. She's an amazing she's
so cute, she's so great in her TV with Steve Martin.
I love that show. The Building.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Yes, you have Hailey Beaver as a great brand called Road.
Right now, you have designers have become celebrities, and celebrities
have become designers. Mary Kate and Ashley to the row,
I mean, so you have a lot Actually, Lady Gaga,
she has a scent, but she actually is a beauty line.
(24:25):
And the first iteration was less successful, but the second
iteration of house Labs h A U S Labs, which
is all based on complexion with a bold sort of eye,
is incredibly successful. So you so celebrities who know a
lot about what it takes to look good and the
(24:45):
effort that goes into it and the professional glam squad
or beauty to Tom Ford was an amazing example of
a man who was a designer, a man who had
a vision and ideal, who also was so good looking,
(25:06):
so appealing, and had such star power himself that he
was a celebrity and he ticked all the boxes.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
And his and his makeup was beautiful.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Makeup spectacular of the spectacular, and he is listen. He
was the first successful designer brand of the two thousands
of the millennium. Before that, there were a lot of
designers that tried to do beauty brands, including Ralpha ren
the Outside of Fragrance that failed, but it was and now.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
I cannot see Ralph and makeup. But Tom there makeup,
I know, but I can't see him in it. But
you can see Tom Ford in it, Yes, and he
wore it, and he advertised himself in it for sure,
and he advertises fragrances on him.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
He was unbelievable star power there. You know, you can't
take away the effect of Kim and Kylie. They they've
done extraordinary things. And to look at the influence of
a Sofia Richie right now, or to look at the
younger generation. So these this younger generation of pop stars
and of designers and influencers are creative, and there's been
(26:15):
a mashup of creative product developers, suppliers and great merchants
in the stores that are discovering new ways of reaching
new customers with new ideas. Some of them may not
be new to you and I, but there are generations
that have never seen it before.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Now, of all the celebrity brands, I hate to pinpoint,
but I love to know of all the celebrity brands
that and the icons that you've worked with, who stands
out as like the most iconic to you?
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Well, I've worked with a lot of celebrities in brands.
I came from a school of thought that what was
most important was that the brand be the star, and
that the celebrity be in the context of the persona
or the values of what the brand was about. Sometimes
I think it gets a bit murky when you have
a very a very strong celebrity and a very strong brand,
(27:09):
and there's a bit of a confusion of where does
one start and what is one one end. But I
will tell you that in my work at MAC and
my Viva Glam campaigns over the years that I did
with James gajor I work I worked with every pop
star from Rue Paul and Katie Lang to Rihanna to
(27:30):
Fergie to Elton John to Ariana Grande to Mary J.
Brige and Little Kim and the list goes on and
on and on and on and on and on and
on and Lady Gaga and and I got to meet
a lot of these people before they were famous, and
I understood the power of community and what celebrity is
(27:52):
really about, which is a testament of the power of
Martha Stewart. Is the community that you activate connect with
is your power and the ability to connect to an audience,
and even if the audience is relatively small for some people,
connecting with a small audience in a big way is
sometimes more powerful than trying to connect with a big
(28:14):
audience in a small way. And that's the change. That's
the change that we're seeing in the world right now.
So I love I've loved working with all those celebrities.
I loved working with with with Tom Ford. I had
a great time at es Day Lauder, working with Aaron
at the same time working with Gwyneth Paltrow.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
I mean, so those were fun times. What's the biggest
makeup brand right now in terms of volume? Because it
is kind of confusing, there's there's so many, I think,
you know, you know the numbers.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
It depends how you measure the market. I would say
that between.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
Mac which is owned by sta Laughder, and Charlotte Tilbury,
which is owned by Pooche.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Charlotte Tilbury is actually become in under fifteen years one
of the top three beauty brands.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
What's the what's the third one?
Speaker 1 (29:03):
I would say that it's an ever changing universe, right
it was fenty at one point, whereas is up there
right now. And then of course you have the Diors,
the Chanel's, the Saint Laurents, the Georgia Armani's, you have
the Amazing. You know, you have these these incredible, great
low cost brands like Elf and you know, Nicks and
(29:23):
things that are very price point accessible. You have category killers.
So people who do like one thing really will like
people who get Elephant the Trunk, Elephant who did amazing.
You know, anti aging products that somehow teenagers are obsessed
with right now, you know, smash Box.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Day, like they're getting old fast whatever.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Everybody. To be successful, you need to have a product
that people love, that's good, that people come back and
buy over and over and over again.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Charlotte Tilbury, for example, it's not to me, it's not
a terribly well known brand, and yet you say it's
number two. It is very good product.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
She's probably not as well known because she's under distributed.
She basically has been in Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's and Sophara. She
just entered into alt in a big way. But I
will tell you I.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Don't even know who she is, but I like her stuff.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
You will love her. She is a over the top,
glamorous redhead. She's a professional makeup artist that I worked
with when I was working on Mac. We sponsor Charlotte
as backstage and.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Does anybody own her? Knowroach? What you said?
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Barcelona? And she actually worked with Tom Ford in the
origination of the original Tom Ford makeup brand and started
her own brand and she is She's a media star.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
So what happened to Laura Mercier?
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Laura Mercy still matters. Bobby Brown, her legacy brand still matters.
Yet Jones Road, Bobby's new brand matters a lot because
she's speaking to an audience over fifty five years old
that people forgot and the fact that she speaks to
them with great products in a straight up fashion is
very much well appreciated.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
So and she has some new stuff is actually very interesting.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
Very very very interesting. But but but what's what's interesting
is there's root. There's a seat at the table for
everyone now because the market has become it's not too crowded.
Some of this, some of the tables have gotten a
bit crowded, and some of the tables will probably thin
out a bit. But cream rises to the top, and
great products and great brands and great ideas stand the
(31:30):
test of time. Some things may be a fad or
maybe fleeting. How big is the beauty industry. Oh my goodness,
it's tens of billions of dollars.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
I mean, it's bigger than the automotive industry.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
I don't know on a unit basis, yes, but after all,
twenty one dollars lipstick and I thought eighty five thousand
dollars tesla. There's a lot of lipsticks that go in
between that. But I would I will say that consumption
of lipstick, mascara, eyeshadow, and facial moisturizers and cleansers are
(32:03):
the most commonly used products for women around the world.
And it's and it's never ending. And as each society
becomes more sophisticated and you have emerging middle classes, there
are billions of people ready to consume products and wanting
to improve their status in life.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
And I have a twelve well she's now thirteen year
old granddaughter who did beauty videos that were very professional
and very beautiful starting at age ten.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
I know my daughter does the same.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Yeah, And they filmed themselves doing all kinds of extraordinary
eye makeups and things. And it's not like she's spending
all her time. She's a straight A student. It's not
like she's wasting her time. You know my mother would
have said, put the makeup away, dear, and study, but
she does. She manages to find time to do it all.
But they are fascinated. But if she ever read a magazine,
read a magazine, she reads books.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
I think what you and I have in common being
north of thirty, how about that, yees nor to thirty
years old, is having young people in our lives.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Oh, it's so important.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
It's so important because in judge it keeps you current
because the framing of the culture and the framing of
how people consume and aspire and want, so it's curious.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
It's very curious. And you, you in business and I
in business, have to know who is the consumer who
is going to buy the products that you are working on?
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Right, It's so important, I mean, and ultimately we've gone
from a dictated media, brand dictated marketplace to a consumer
powered marketplace. The consumer actually votes. It's like being on
the voice every minute.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
I always quote Stu Leonard, you know his quote rule
number one. The customer is always right. Rule number two.
If the customer is wrong, see rule number one. Absolutely
and they're and they do. They set the tone. They
set the tone there, it's their want and their need
that you have to fill right, absolutely, and I applaud
(34:09):
you because you you have kept on top of that
your entire career, providing us with really spectacular products. I've tried.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
I mean, I have to tell you it's hard to
keep up and everything that goes around.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
How important is science in skincare? Yeah? Very important, all important.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Actually, you have so many different trends going on in
the beauty business right now. You have the whole clean, beauty, vegan, natural,
cruelty free zone. You have people who.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
A Anderson not wearing makeup ever again, ever again. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Well, actually I saw her some makeup on the other day.
But but good, she's being hypocritical. No, no, she's being
Pamela Anderson. Okay, she's being surprising and unexpected, which but
she looks good, she looks fantastic.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
We live in a world that is also powered by
the ability to use experts dermatologists, estheticians.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Yeah, how important doctors? How important are the dermatologists now?
Very beauty.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Well, they're very important in terms of people's personal maintenance
and how they project themselves. Going to a plastic surgeon
or going to a dermatologist was in the purview of
only the very privileged and the very rich. Now it's
available to everyone and at all levels of society, and
(35:28):
people use beauty services is part of their health and
beauty routine. There are customers that want medical grade products.
They want products that they want science and ingredients that
are going to give them dramatic effect.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Some of those products have sort of disappeared from the marketplace,
so I don't see them as often. Maybe I'm just
not aware, but there were a couple of dermatologists who
had a lot of products out a few years ago,
selling them very well on QVC. And now you see
less of that and more celebrity you do.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
But you see a re emergence of doctors again. So
it's actually.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
Who are the best best, who has the best products
right now?
Speaker 1 (36:10):
And it's so hard to say. I mean, there's so
many and there's so many great products. I mean, I
myself it's not a medical just an aestheticians brand called
the Algers. I mean I like that. I'm obsessed by it.
I love MBR. I think that Lamaire makes great products.
I think Barbara Sturm makes great products. The original formulations
of Clinique designed by doctor orange Shrike.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Still he was my original dermatolog I love Doctor orange Shrike.
But you know, do they still get a royalty? Does
the family get a royalty?
Speaker 1 (36:41):
And there's some sort of financial project?
Speaker 2 (36:43):
I hope, so I hate he was so good, but he.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
Understood the power of exfiliation. And there are so many
brands and so many interesting brands. And by the way,
as you travel around the world, because I'm traveling a
lot around the world these days and spending a lot
of time in Europe and a lot of time in
India and Korea, uh, and you see the most unbelievable
formulas and the most unbelievable packaging and the most unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Coatia India more than others.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Korea is one of the epicenters of creativity right now.
You see an incredible innovation in complexion and wait, like Tatcha.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Do you know Tacha? Tacha is a great brand. I
love some of those products, the great products.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
You see amazing products coming out of Japan, you see
products coming out of China. I think it's one of
the most beautiful brands on the market. I think their
their formulations are second to none. So I respect any
brand that ethically brings product to market that connects with
a consumer, that makes people feel good, and we all
make our own personal choices.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
Does it have to cost so much?
Speaker 1 (37:48):
No, there are amazing products that you can buy at
CVS Dwayne Reid really between sarah v or the Derma
brands like laroche Pose or Rock or Nutrient Gena. There
there are fabulous, fabulous options and access points.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
So you have to sort of experiment and try what
you think works the best on your own skin.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
That's basically there's a bit of do you.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Have to read the fine print?
Speaker 1 (38:14):
I can't read the fight print anymore, you see, I don't.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
But it's but it's crazy the amount of fine print
and every single product is so extensive.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
It's hard. The regulatory environment requires a lot of transparency
relative ingredients and what's actually in the products, and what
they say and what they say today it's a little
bit more restrictive than what they used to say before
because these things are regulated quite stringently.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
What are people tired of in the beauty space.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
We've been living in a period of time were effortless,
no makeup. Makeup was the standard of beauty around the world.
It will always be there. And it takes a lot
of makeup to look like you're not wearing any makeup indeed.
But the whole notion of the Mafia wife look, the
fact that people want to look like Dynasty with you know,
(39:14):
you know, it looked like John Collins.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
So everybody wants eyelashes.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
So you have this, this this trend culture that all
of a sudden, people want to be glamorous again. People
want to have gorgeous makeup looks, people want to wear
eyelash extensions. I mean, the eyelash extension thing is insane.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
It is, it really is. I mean, my favorite line,
eyebrows shapers get like three hundred dollars.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
Now, my favorite line was when I was working in
the industry, we were talking about my friend Anastasia's success
and someone in the room said, well, you know, Anastasia
is the girl next door and I looked at them,
I said, I said, well, who do.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
You live next door to?
Speaker 1 (39:52):
And then I went back to Cleveland and I went
to the grocery store and I saw the girl at
the register was or contoured cheeks like Kim Cart and
her eyelash extensions, and.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
There did Brown.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
I thought like, oh my god, Metastasia is the girl
next door. He is, Yeah, we live in trends, trends
coming to go. We were in a huge eyeshadow palette
cycle about four or five years ago. The user rate
of an eyeshadow palate palette is about ten years. They've
re emerged again, but you know, it's it's a bit cyclical.
I mean, there is a skinnification taking place with people
(40:26):
wanting more hybrids. So makeup that does things that are
good for you and things that do good for you
that give you makeup effect. Because everybody wants instantaneous results
and sometimes it takes a lot of care to get
long term results, but they want they want to see
the money right away.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
What advice do you have for aspiring beauty founders.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
My advice is Gypsy rose Lea said it best. They
have to have a gimmick, and I'd say it in
a very uplifting, nice way, not in a way that
people would take a look at it as being tricky.
You need to have an angle, you have a strong
point of view. You have to stand for something. You'd
have a product that stands and performs at some level
(41:11):
that speaks to an audience that you actually have permission
or the authenticity to speak to because people today can
sniff out when something's not real, and that's why things
some things fade so fast, they're fads.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
Yeah, and you've seen that in the last ten years.
I've seen a lot of makeup. The lines come and go.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
There are a lot of ones that should have gone,
and some that are quite sad to see go. Every
single time I see a great brand that was created
by an entrepreneur or somebody who had great passion go away,
it's like a little bit of myself dies. I mean,
I understand how much people put themselves forward. They mortgage
(41:57):
their homes, they take their life savings. I mean so
much respect for the hard working entrepreneurs. And honestly, the
celebrities didn't just become celebrities without working hard either. Oh no,
they were so so people, you know, don't give the respect.
What does the celebrity know about makeup and skincare? I
(42:17):
hell of a lot.
Speaker 2 (42:18):
They wear it every day and they.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
Do their own makeup, and they know more about light
than maybe the best makeup artists in the world. So
it depends what your angle is.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
Well, you've always been known for having the your finger
on the pulse of where people are, of pop culture.
Your book shows that of music, of fashion trends. How
has it changed as you get older? Not that he's
very old. I don't know. I have no idea. I
have no idea. How old you are? How old are you?
Speaker 1 (42:48):
I am sixty eight years old.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
Oh you're young, okay, but old enough, old enough to
have an AARP card. So that's which I know's But
that's such a great organization.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
It is a great organization.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
That is an organizations get your medical that's right, and
you have to also pay attention to them because they
have a lot of money.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
I believe that everybody should live their best life and
their best age every day, every day the way they
want to and not being judged for it. And so
I think the ability to be more expansive and inclusive
and diverse and a motive. Actually the trend is to
(43:29):
be more individualistic and less conformist, and I think that
that's exciting. It's incredibly creative. It's a great period of
time to be alive.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
Let's talk about some things we have in common. You
have the abundant Pitt family, as I do.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
I have a very big takes.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
Care of your dogs in the daytime when you're at work.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
I have a I have a housekeeper, and I have
somebody that comes in and watch the dogs in a pack.
They go in groups. Okay, they go in groups. Sounds
like I'm I should become the global spokesperson for Nature's miracle. Actually,
I think I was inspired by your French bulldogs to
get a French bulldog.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
Originally, there's so I think I am one of I
think I'm one of the.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
You're one of the first. You were the first mover
of the French.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
Ship with no with a pair. We had a brindle
and a cream and that they became the paars walking
around the city. And now I still have the pair,
but with the additional additional brindle, the new one Luna Muna.
He's adorable. And you have cats and no that's it.
But you don't have chickens and peacocks and turkeys like
I have.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
No the New York City. I think that's against the law. Actually,
I think having eleven animals in the house is borderline
being a kennel. So I'm not exactly sure.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
We both wear the hats a business executive and creators
to which is which role is more important to you.
It's hard.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
They always say that I'm a creative that's perceived as
a suit to other creatives and as a suit that's
perceived as a suit of to creative.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
So that's a good place to be. I think I.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
Like to be in the middle. Actually, I like to
have a head for business. I like to understand what
it is that I'm doing and not doing at the
same time. I like if I can to push boundaries
and to explore what's possible. The worst thing in the
world to deal with is can't, no, never will happen.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
And yet you had how many years at estay Order?
Speaker 1 (45:30):
I was an stay order for thirty two beautiful.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
So like like your career, your big career is a staylader.
Now you are with Catterson, I'm with all.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
Cattered in Partners, and I'm a senior advisor working in
the beauty space and traveling a lot, traveling all over
the world and.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
Doing what what are you doing?
Speaker 1 (45:45):
Looking at businesses to buy, so you know, meeting new
beauty entrepreneurs, looking at new distribution channels. And I'm doing
some brand consulting work with some leading beauty brands now
as well.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
So it's that's fun.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
It's fun, but it's a private relationship between myself and
those individuals. I still need the ability to work with
creative people and to see and do things that.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
Are But you're doing it, You're thriving. You look great,
by the way, Thank you, and I just want to
mention we're almost out of time and we've been chatting
it for a long time. You talk beautifully and you
really are expressive about your interests. I love it so much.
Your book Behind the Blue Door is a maximalist mantra, yes,
and it describes beautifully the home you have created. In
(46:32):
a couple of sentences, just tell our listeners a little
bit more about the book.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
Well, the core philosophy, it's about creativity without boundaries and
you BEU and to have the courage to follow your
dreams and your passions and that anything is possible. From
growing up in a suburb in Ohio to having met
(46:59):
and done the thing things that I've been able to
do over the course of my career and the opportunities
that have been given to me is a blessing. It
was not an overnight sensation. It was years and years
and years and years of not being visible and hard work.
Yet and the same person I was when I was
sixteen years old. I am now you think so I do.
(47:21):
Actually I never lost I never lost that part.
Speaker 2 (47:24):
So nice.
Speaker 1 (47:25):
I think that's why I understand the business so well,
because I understand the real world and I understand what
the real wood looks too.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
Well, it's nice to meet someone who thinks more is more.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
More is more, and less is born. Unless my friend
Donald Robertson would say yes.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
And well, please all of you look up the book,
go to Amazon right now behind the blue door. Well
you are fantastic. Thank you so much for spending time
with me and our listeners a glimpse into the world
of John Devc. This is amazing, John.
Speaker 1 (47:58):
Thanks you, Martha. You're an icon and someone that I've
looked up to my entire career, and it's an honor
to be asked by you even to have a fireside chat.
Thank you. M
The idea is that people have many personalities and many personas,
and that beauty is the ultimate expression of oneself. And
the reason why beauty companies will never go out of
business is that beauty is the one thing that is
a universal aspiration. The definition of it may change from
country to country, or culture to culture, or generation to generation.
(00:24):
But I don't know anyone who thinks they look too good.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
John Dempsey's life is full of color in every way.
During three decades in the beauty business, he helped turn
mac Cosmetics into a global brand and launched the enormously
successful tom Board Fragrance line. He is a passionate collector
of art, furniture, objects, pets and friends. In fact, he
told me he now has how many pets?
Speaker 1 (00:53):
I have nine dogs and two cats.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Congratulations, Thank you. You're a man after my own heart.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
A lot of emotional support, unconditional, exactly or conditional, you
might say.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
He designed a wildly eclectic, five story townhouse on the
Upper east Side that is so full of the things
he loves that he published a book showing them all
behind the blue door. He joins me here today at
Rockefeller Center to talk about that book and what it
takes to build a business in multi billion dollar beauty industry.
(01:25):
Welcome to my podcast, John Martha.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Thank you so much for inviting me.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
You are looking extremely dapper today. He is dressed in
a double breasted navy blue beautiful suit. What's the wool.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
It's a I think it's a light worsted role. It's
from Trifonili in Paris.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Oh, it's very beautiful. And he has a said this
is a navy blue suit. Yes, a little bright navy.
And then he has a brighter navy pocket handkerchief in
his breast pocket on the left side, and he has
a beautifully tailored pale blue button down shirt which is
made by whom.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
This is made by?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Oh, it is Sharve. I used to wear Sharvey's shirts.
And what kind of watch did you wear?
Speaker 1 (02:05):
I'm wearing an automar royal oak that my father gave
to me on my sixteenth birthday. I found that it
was I wasn't really wearing them the way I used
to wear them.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Yeah, I think we've all come to that point now
with our thought ubiquitous phone, right.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
I know. So it's just more of an ornament than
it is anything.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
And also the reason we're talking is silly talk is
because you know, John comes out of the high high
high fashion world, the world of skincare and makeup and
dealing with the finest designers and the most popular of brands.
So thank you for coming here today and taking time.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
I'm prilled to be here.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
So I love your book on my friend and your friend.
Of course, Douglas Friedman took all the pictures. This is
a tome. This is a big, heavy book. It's a
fifty oh wow. And it comes in a slipcase of leopard.
Now what's the saying about leopard? When the going gets tough,
the tough goal leopard. See, okay, that's it. And there
(03:03):
is a lion of no leverriy you should have a
leopard there?
Speaker 1 (03:07):
No, Well, that's the door knocker on the I know
it's the front cover.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Is the door with the door knocker of a beautiful,
really mean looking lion with a big ring in his mouth.
Is that a ruby there or an emerald?
Speaker 1 (03:19):
It's a fake one.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
It's fake, of of course.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
It's in New York City.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
And it was published by Von Dome Press, which makes
very beautiful art books, and it is treated like an
art book. Only I've never seen acid yellow and papers
in my life before this book.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Have you No, I've never seen it. Never it Steve Spress,
it is, it is. And the bright red, well, there's
end papers of bright red. And when you see the
house that John built, which is really what year was
that house built?
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Well, the house was built in eighteen ninety five, okay,
and it was under many renovations. When I got it,
it was in an eighties kIPS Bay innovation.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Oh, so you bought a Kipps Bay house?
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Was a Kipps Bay house that needed to be purged
of the nineteen eighties. Yes, there was a lot of
nineteen eighties stuff elements, but it was the plumbing good
or did you have to redo that too?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Or suit to redo everything everything?
Speaker 1 (04:16):
When they did the eighties renovation, they never really went
into the pipes.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
This is an East side of Manhattan townhouse, which looks
like all the other townhouses on the street until you
walk in the door and wow, you are absolutely shocked
at the volume of stuff in the house. You are
a real collector, John, I'm a collector. Yeah, you are
a college.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Some people call me a luxury order.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Oh is that that is so great. But you, I mean,
you grew up kind of in a normal home, normal
and not normal.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
I guess you know that you never know I've learned
anything in life. You don't judge a book by its coming.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Describe your Describe your growing up.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
I grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio, preppy town.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
My there wasn't there was no house that looked like
this Shaker Heights, Ohio.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
No, no, no, it looked very It looked very much
like the Rady bunch. And my father was in the
steel business. And love is he still He's no longer
with us. He passed away this past year.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Oh, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
And my mother, who's still with us, was a painter.
And I was lucky that growing up in this Midwestern city,
I had very glamorous parents. And my mother's father was
in the yarn business. And actually who was the father
was the supplier of Harmon knitwear and I'll actually help
launch Rudy Greenwright. So my mother and I had Rudy
(05:37):
Garnrake knitted dresses. My mother, my mother would she didn't
wear a mono bathing suit topless, but she would walk
around in hot pants and these Rudy green right numbers
in Prepstown and it was like the Harper Valley PTA.
So it's great.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
But you like you like Bold, I would say, you
like Bold, and you like lichten Scene, and you like Warhol,
and you like what are some who are some of
your other favorite artists?
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Well, I love pop culture. I'm inspired by every decade.
If I'm inspired by music, fashion, photography, celebrities, design objects,
I'm inspired by you.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Actually, I remember hunting down and two homes ago the
special color gray paint that you had done. So I
thought the gray color paint that you had done was
the best tope gray at it I had ever seen.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Somebody just asked me the other day for a can
of my paint. Isn't that great? That's a big compliment
because he wants to paint his houses that color. And
when I moved to Bedford, there were so many outbuildings
that I thought, gosh, if I don't use a cohesive color.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
That's where I saw it everywhere, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
And everywhere it all has to be cohesive. And it worked.
It worked. And I got that color from a piece
of Italian stationery. I had gotten a little box of
stationary in Florence it's one of those beautiful, old, old
stationary stores, and that color gray just spoke to me,
and I had it matched to paint and it worked.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
I left that well. Actually, that that sort of dovetails
into the inspiration of my color palette in my book,
because if you actually go to not this page, not
this page. So on this double spread on the left
hand side of the page is a photograph of Bridget Bardeaux,
a publicity still that I bought when I was eighteen
(07:28):
years old in the flea market in Paris, and.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
All men were madly in love with Bridget Bardeux.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Yes, and that was the first thing I ever bought.
And on the right side of the page is a
pair of Christian Lubhutan boots that my friend, model suzannevon Ashinger,
who is John Galliano's muse, was wearing. And I was
out to dinner with her in Paris, and when I
(07:53):
saw her boots, I was trying to determine, like what
I was going to do with the house. I said,
you have to give me your shoes. She said what
I said, No, you have to give me your shoes.
Idea is beautiful boots. This color combination of the navy
and the Evecline blue and the baby blue and the gold,
the pink and the red. And I went to start
carpets into the archives of David Hicks, and all the
(08:14):
carpets that we've throughout the house carried the.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Colors they were in that color. Isn't that crazy? It's
a crazy story. Well, you are unique and the house
is such a unique place. And the trouble with seeing
the house is that John is a very amazing party thrower,
and every time you go to his house it is
so packed that I don't think I've gotten past got
the first floor, second floor. I tried to get up
(08:38):
to the next floor, and I never got up there yet,
so I have to come back. Imitation's always open, Okay,
But the whole book is so who designed the book.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
The book was designed by Elisee Sozan, who's an art
director who works with Von Doom Press. She's based in
Los Angeles. But as you said, it really was the
collaboration with our dear friend Douglas Friedman. The house had
been photographed in a couple of interior design magazines and
he said to me, this doesn't capture what you're about
(09:06):
or what this house is about because I want to
do it my way and I believe I was.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
And he talked about it quite a bit while he
was doing.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
It, and I told him you could do whatever he
wanted to do and I would give no direction. And
we hired Mika Tanhae who is an amazing young stylist
from Amsterdam, and Alina Cho, our close friend, wrote the
book and it became sort of a project of introspection
and at the same time diving deep into where I
(09:37):
came from.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Whose eye is this ie that I is from? Rankin
the photographer. I mean, really and truly, when you get
your hands on a copy of this book, and it's
available at Amazon.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Amazon dot Com, art bookstores, art bookstores, find and Noble
find bookstores everywhere, yeap, when you get.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Your hands on this book, you will be incredibly amazed
at the the volume of things that John has collected
and the crazy artistry with which you display it. I mean,
it really is. It is hard to find a seat
in your house. I know, it's very hard. Where do
the cats? Where do those cats live?
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Two cats live on the fifth floor because they hate
the golden doodles, Oh golden doodles. Keep trying to eat
the cats. So it's a it's a it's actually.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
And they're not allowed up there. They're both.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
You would think in a home with so much stuff,
having a teenage daughter and nine dogs and two cats,
that nothing ever gets broken.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Does your daughter live in this house half the time?
Yet she does? A lucky girl, she must love it.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
The book was really a personal expression on my philosophy,
on what I've learned in life and the experiences I've had,
the people I've met, the things that I've seen. And
the overarching theme is that you should be you, and
you should live your life with empathy and kindness, but
(11:01):
boldly and expressively. It doesn't matter how much money you have,
it doesn't matter where you're from. Anybody can be their
authentic self and put themselves out there in a unique way.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
The book is called Behind the Blue Door, and that's
the color, a bright, bright, beautiful blue. That is the
color that he has painted his front door with the
lion knocker. And he's joining me today to talk about
the book, about what it takes to build this business
and live in New York City in a very personal way. Yes,
(11:45):
so there's been a big explosion. John in the beauty
space for sure, more companies, more product categories, more celebrity
entrance into the world of skincare and makeup, more SKUs altogether.
What do you attribute to this growth?
Speaker 1 (12:01):
To many things. Actually, this wave is enabled by the
new communication platforms. So when you think about the evolution
of beauty post war after World War Two, in the fifties,
you had the opening up of malls, You had the
transition from radio which was sponsored by Pond's Cold Cream
(12:23):
or whatever the case may be. To you arrived at
the game shows and Revlon was the sponsor of the
sixty four thousand dollars question which when did you work
for Revlin? I worked for Revlin in the early eighties.
But I'm just from an historical perspective.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
I missed you, y, I just made I was on
the board.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
I did not know that.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Oh. I was on the board in the nineties and
that was the most fun board I have ever sat on.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Lower fun people.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
But what happened with Revlin? Because I knew Revlon in
the seventies.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Revlon was a great company, and Charles Revson was a
visionary and he was passionate. And I still think it's
a great brand name. I still think they have great
products with great performance. I think somehow it got lost
chang It didn't understand the change in the demographics, and
it didn't understand the change in the way that media
(13:14):
and aspiration works. So in my little story that I
started from the fifties with the shopping malls and game shows,
in the sixties with broadcast television and the importance of
glossy magazines and beauty editors and fashion editors and television
and people talking on the Today Show like Bobby Brown,
and so you had all these experts that built their
(13:36):
business up through the local newspaper and market town market marketing.
But every every town in America or in the world
had a local specialty store, a local magazine, a local
beauty editor, a local TV station, a local radio station,
and the business was built.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Bit by bit, community by community.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
The revolution that came first was cable, where you could
start to narrowcast and target an audience. And when MTV
came on, the infomercials, Yes, infomercials and new ways of
and home shopping, and MTV came on board, and all
of a sudden, music was about the video and how
you told the story about the video, and if you
(14:18):
didn't have the video on MTV, you didn't sell the music.
So all of a sudden, the media started mattering more,
and the content started mattering more, not just the paid
promotional element. And during the nineties with HSN and QVC,
there was this boom that took place with people actually
taking the show on the airwaves and going direct to
(14:40):
people's homes. And at the same time, the most important
change in our lifetime is the year of nineteen ninety eight,
because pre nineteen ninety eight, there was no Internet.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
It was accessible to everybody's home very well. There was
no Google, there was no sarch Board, there was no search.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
There there was no Amazon, there was no there were
no blogs, there was no Wikipedia.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
I mean, so the early does it seemed like yesterday?
Speaker 1 (15:08):
It seems like yesterday, yes, And you used to dial
it up on your phone and have that funny noise
no going. But that was the first or the beginning
of the democratization of access to content and information and
search and understanding about brands and going places that you
never had to leave your house. The first seismic change
(15:31):
came with Facebook. First of all, First was MySpace, then Facebook,
and then.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
My space was Rupert Murdock race then came Mark Zuckerberg,
and with Facebook.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
And then Instagram and YouTube, with Google and Google Search
and Yahoo and all these platforms. And what started happening
was the creators or the users actually became the media channels,
and people that had up per sana or could make
a connection with an audience all of a sudden became
(16:03):
stars and they started doing how to videos and tutorials
and doing crazy stories and crazy content. And that coupled
with the emergence of Alta and Sophara in the United
States and these sort of you know, category killer beauty
outlets all of a sudden cause gave an opportunity for
(16:25):
generations of brands to be Some brands that had been
around for a long time. Anastasia became an overnight success
story after many years in the business because of Instagram,
and then that evolution got turbo charged with the arrival
of TikTok and Snapchat. And the thing is that the
beauty business, like the film business or the music business,
(16:48):
had a lot of gatekeepers. So unless you could get
the right slotting in terms of presentation in the store
or the right counter.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
You're talking about the companies, the manufacturers themselves, the.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Manufacturers themselves, and the retailers and the publishers. There was
a system that was an ecosystem of mutual admiration and
economics that created the aspiration and the outlets to buy
brands and create products. And when you think back of
the great beauty entrepreneurs of the fifties, sixties, and seventies,
(17:19):
whether it was Lena Rubenstein, Elizabeth Arden, Charles Revson, Este Laud,
I mean, these women and men in today's world would
have been considered to be influencers. They had social media,
yet their social media was on television or in glossy
magazines or in a lifestyle dimension. So they were the
first first evolution of social media or social beings, but
(17:45):
bringing together a heritage or a lifestyle or a story.
The thing about Instagram and more so TikTok was that
anyone with a good idea can sell it, can sell something,
or become a star over an So there no longer
was a studio system. There no longer was a gatekeeper.
Now there's an algorithm that actually forces you actually to
(18:07):
play ball with the platforms exactly.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
But you set up an iPhone on a little stand
in your bathroom and you put on a pretty circle
light around your face, you put on mascara, you can
sell it.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
A young girl from Tampa, Florida can go from being
a beauty advisor in a department store to having twenty
five million followers and having our own brand or being
a channel to sell products. So this democratization of content
and the ability of people to connect with content that
they relate to opened up huge opportunities for people to
(18:42):
express themselves and to actually start to create products and
to create brands. And so you have the success of
Chris Jenner's entire ecosystem of children.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
You know there, You imagine having five daughters like that
that create the product that we all devour.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
It's a pretty amazing when you think that there are
probably more eyeballs on those social media channels of her
family than in the three legacy television networks of this country.
But that could not have happened. So the change in
media and the change in people's expectations about beauty and
(19:23):
self expression opened up a much wider canvas to pain
because in the earlier years, there was sort of a
standardized way that you were supposed to look. There was
a universal code or standard of beauty that was imposed
on men and women, and the opportunity to be whoever
you wanted to be was less free, And also the
(19:47):
concept that being whoever you wanted to be might depend
on the hour of the day. And the fact of
the matter is you may be glamorous one moment and
effortless the next, and bare face the next and hampering
yourself in the with Martha Stewart products. But the idea
is that there are people have many personalities and many personas,
and that beauty is the ultimate expression of oneself. And
(20:12):
the reason why beauty companies will never go out of
business is that beauty is the one thing that is
a universal aspiration. The definition of it may change from
country to country, or culture to culture, or generation to generation.
But I don't know anyone who thinks they look too good.
I don't know anybody who doesn't want to feel good
in their skin and look better and look better or
(20:33):
feel better about themselves or project a better self. And
that eternal quest to do better and be better fears fees.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Is fed by the beauty industry.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
It's fed by the beauty industry and the media empire
and everything else. That goes behind it because it's a
universal quest.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
So the celebrity beauty brands that have evolved over just
the last few years, it's not a long time that
except for the great econs like Helena Rubinstein and Essay Laughter,
who were the most successful of these new celebrity start to.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Put it in perspective, the celebrity beauty phenomenon. After it
went from the founders or the creators of these brands
who were beauty experts, you had the celebrity action actually
in the nineteen seventies and eighties in Fragrance.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Remember Ralph l my brother in law, did Ralph Lauren Perfume,
I remember? Or George Friedman, George Friedman, goodness, yeah, he
did Poloma Picasso.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
I did.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
I did the opening night party, the big party at
the UH At that party, oh you were, yes. And
it was up on Fifth Avenue in that beautiful mansion
across from the Cooper Hewitt.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
And I did all the food, and I did all
those red table claws and it was fabulous, and Paloma
was there.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
But the idea of a celebrity that was Elizabeth Taylor
White Diamonds, which this to this very day still ranks
in the top twenty five to thirty frames in this country.
Nice So celebrity became very, very important in the fragrance business,
and it was one of the main drivers of QVC
and HSN, which created new celebrities and new celebrities finding
(22:12):
a new life on TV. Right. Ernest Borgnine's wife Tova
created a fragrance that sold hundreds of millions of dollars.
Fred Hayman and Gail created Georgia of Beverly Hills in
the Scruple.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Years, So I remember when that was launched.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
So these were like bigger than life ideas. Today we
have a lot of celebrities in life. Go back to Georgio.
What made that so popular? It was that pretty woman period.
It was rodeo drive, It was over the top Beverly Hills,
It was unabashed glamour. It was access into a club
that maybe you couldn't go into, but you could buy
(22:51):
a piece of the fragrance.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Who did the advertising for that, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Who did the advertising, but it was it was a
firminiche fragrance and it was the bright yellow and white
awning and it had the crest and they were the
first people to use the scent strip.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
It was the first time in magazines.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
In magazines and that fragrance was during a period in
the eighties where the fragrance arrived before you did. So
it was about loud, unabashed, old, bold, fragrant expressions. And
today now you have a lot of celebrity brands. There
are some that carry a celebrity's name and others that
(23:28):
are backed by celebrities with varying degrees of success, but
ones that I would say have hit it out of
the ballpark Rihanna Infenti, which has been an extraordinary success
and changed the whole framing of what diversity represents. Selena
Gomez right now with Rare beauty.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Oh yeah, and she's coming out with uh I just
read something today she's doing not makeup, but is it
her fragrance.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
She has Fragrance makeup skincare. She is one of the
fastest growing brands.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
And she's such a cute girl. She's an amazing she's
so cute, she's so great in her TV with Steve Martin.
I love that show. The Building.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Yes, you have Hailey Beaver as a great brand called Road.
Right now, you have designers have become celebrities, and celebrities
have become designers. Mary Kate and Ashley to the row,
I mean, so you have a lot Actually, Lady Gaga,
she has a scent, but she actually is a beauty line.
(24:25):
And the first iteration was less successful, but the second
iteration of house Labs h A U S Labs, which
is all based on complexion with a bold sort of eye,
is incredibly successful. So you so celebrities who know a
lot about what it takes to look good and the
(24:45):
effort that goes into it and the professional glam squad
or beauty to Tom Ford was an amazing example of
a man who was a designer, a man who had
a vision and ideal, who also was so good looking,
(25:06):
so appealing, and had such star power himself that he
was a celebrity and he ticked all the boxes.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
And his and his makeup was beautiful.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Makeup spectacular of the spectacular, and he is listen. He
was the first successful designer brand of the two thousands
of the millennium. Before that, there were a lot of
designers that tried to do beauty brands, including Ralpha ren
the Outside of Fragrance that failed, but it was and now.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
I cannot see Ralph and makeup. But Tom there makeup,
I know, but I can't see him in it. But
you can see Tom Ford in it, Yes, and he
wore it, and he advertised himself in it for sure,
and he advertises fragrances on him.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
He was unbelievable star power there. You know, you can't
take away the effect of Kim and Kylie. They they've
done extraordinary things. And to look at the influence of
a Sofia Richie right now, or to look at the
younger generation. So these this younger generation of pop stars
and of designers and influencers are creative, and there's been
(26:15):
a mashup of creative product developers, suppliers and great merchants
in the stores that are discovering new ways of reaching
new customers with new ideas. Some of them may not
be new to you and I, but there are generations
that have never seen it before.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Now, of all the celebrity brands, I hate to pinpoint,
but I love to know of all the celebrity brands
that and the icons that you've worked with, who stands
out as like the most iconic to you?
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Well, I've worked with a lot of celebrities in brands.
I came from a school of thought that what was
most important was that the brand be the star, and
that the celebrity be in the context of the persona
or the values of what the brand was about. Sometimes
I think it gets a bit murky when you have
a very a very strong celebrity and a very strong brand,
(27:09):
and there's a bit of a confusion of where does
one start and what is one one end. But I
will tell you that in my work at MAC and
my Viva Glam campaigns over the years that I did
with James gajor I work I worked with every pop
star from Rue Paul and Katie Lang to Rihanna to
(27:30):
Fergie to Elton John to Ariana Grande to Mary J.
Brige and Little Kim and the list goes on and
on and on and on and on and on and
on and Lady Gaga and and I got to meet
a lot of these people before they were famous, and
I understood the power of community and what celebrity is
(27:52):
really about, which is a testament of the power of
Martha Stewart. Is the community that you activate connect with
is your power and the ability to connect to an audience,
and even if the audience is relatively small for some people,
connecting with a small audience in a big way is
sometimes more powerful than trying to connect with a big
(28:14):
audience in a small way. And that's the change. That's
the change that we're seeing in the world right now.
So I love I've loved working with all those celebrities.
I loved working with with with Tom Ford. I had
a great time at es Day Lauder, working with Aaron
at the same time working with Gwyneth Paltrow.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
I mean, so those were fun times. What's the biggest
makeup brand right now in terms of volume? Because it
is kind of confusing, there's there's so many, I think,
you know, you know the numbers.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
It depends how you measure the market. I would say
that between.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
Mac which is owned by sta Laughder, and Charlotte Tilbury,
which is owned by Pooche.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Charlotte Tilbury is actually become in under fifteen years one
of the top three beauty brands.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
What's the what's the third one?
Speaker 1 (29:03):
I would say that it's an ever changing universe, right
it was fenty at one point, whereas is up there
right now. And then of course you have the Diors,
the Chanel's, the Saint Laurents, the Georgia Armani's, you have
the Amazing. You know, you have these these incredible, great
low cost brands like Elf and you know, Nicks and
(29:23):
things that are very price point accessible. You have category killers.
So people who do like one thing really will like
people who get Elephant the Trunk, Elephant who did amazing.
You know, anti aging products that somehow teenagers are obsessed
with right now, you know, smash Box.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Day, like they're getting old fast whatever.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Everybody. To be successful, you need to have a product
that people love, that's good, that people come back and
buy over and over and over again.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Charlotte Tilbury, for example, it's not to me, it's not
a terribly well known brand, and yet you say it's
number two. It is very good product.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
She's probably not as well known because she's under distributed.
She basically has been in Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's and Sophara. She
just entered into alt in a big way. But I
will tell you I.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Don't even know who she is, but I like her stuff.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
You will love her. She is a over the top,
glamorous redhead. She's a professional makeup artist that I worked
with when I was working on Mac. We sponsor Charlotte
as backstage and.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Does anybody own her? Knowroach? What you said?
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Barcelona? And she actually worked with Tom Ford in the
origination of the original Tom Ford makeup brand and started
her own brand and she is She's a media star.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
So what happened to Laura Mercier?
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Laura Mercy still matters. Bobby Brown, her legacy brand still matters.
Yet Jones Road, Bobby's new brand matters a lot because
she's speaking to an audience over fifty five years old
that people forgot and the fact that she speaks to
them with great products in a straight up fashion is
very much well appreciated.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
So and she has some new stuff is actually very interesting.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
Very very very interesting. But but but what's what's interesting
is there's root. There's a seat at the table for
everyone now because the market has become it's not too crowded.
Some of this, some of the tables have gotten a
bit crowded, and some of the tables will probably thin
out a bit. But cream rises to the top, and
great products and great brands and great ideas stand the
(31:30):
test of time. Some things may be a fad or
maybe fleeting. How big is the beauty industry. Oh my goodness,
it's tens of billions of dollars.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
I mean, it's bigger than the automotive industry.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
I don't know on a unit basis, yes, but after all,
twenty one dollars lipstick and I thought eighty five thousand
dollars tesla. There's a lot of lipsticks that go in
between that. But I would I will say that consumption
of lipstick, mascara, eyeshadow, and facial moisturizers and cleansers are
(32:03):
the most commonly used products for women around the world.
And it's and it's never ending. And as each society
becomes more sophisticated and you have emerging middle classes, there
are billions of people ready to consume products and wanting
to improve their status in life.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
And I have a twelve well she's now thirteen year
old granddaughter who did beauty videos that were very professional
and very beautiful starting at age ten.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
I know my daughter does the same.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Yeah, And they filmed themselves doing all kinds of extraordinary
eye makeups and things. And it's not like she's spending
all her time. She's a straight A student. It's not
like she's wasting her time. You know my mother would
have said, put the makeup away, dear, and study, but
she does. She manages to find time to do it all.
But they are fascinated. But if she ever read a magazine,
read a magazine, she reads books.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
I think what you and I have in common being
north of thirty, how about that, yees nor to thirty
years old, is having young people in our lives.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Oh, it's so important.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
It's so important because in judge it keeps you current
because the framing of the culture and the framing of
how people consume and aspire and want, so it's curious.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
It's very curious. And you, you in business and I
in business, have to know who is the consumer who
is going to buy the products that you are working on?
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Right, It's so important, I mean, and ultimately we've gone
from a dictated media, brand dictated marketplace to a consumer
powered marketplace. The consumer actually votes. It's like being on
the voice every minute.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
I always quote Stu Leonard, you know his quote rule
number one. The customer is always right. Rule number two.
If the customer is wrong, see rule number one. Absolutely
and they're and they do. They set the tone. They
set the tone there, it's their want and their need
that you have to fill right, absolutely, and I applaud
(34:09):
you because you you have kept on top of that
your entire career, providing us with really spectacular products. I've tried.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
I mean, I have to tell you it's hard to
keep up and everything that goes around.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
How important is science in skincare? Yeah? Very important, all important.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Actually, you have so many different trends going on in
the beauty business right now. You have the whole clean, beauty, vegan, natural,
cruelty free zone. You have people who.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
A Anderson not wearing makeup ever again, ever again. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Well, actually I saw her some makeup on the other day.
But but good, she's being hypocritical. No, no, she's being
Pamela Anderson. Okay, she's being surprising and unexpected, which but
she looks good, she looks fantastic.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
We live in a world that is also powered by
the ability to use experts dermatologists, estheticians.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Yeah, how important doctors? How important are the dermatologists now?
Very beauty.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Well, they're very important in terms of people's personal maintenance
and how they project themselves. Going to a plastic surgeon
or going to a dermatologist was in the purview of
only the very privileged and the very rich. Now it's
available to everyone and at all levels of society, and
(35:28):
people use beauty services is part of their health and
beauty routine. There are customers that want medical grade products.
They want products that they want science and ingredients that
are going to give them dramatic effect.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Some of those products have sort of disappeared from the marketplace,
so I don't see them as often. Maybe I'm just
not aware, but there were a couple of dermatologists who
had a lot of products out a few years ago,
selling them very well on QVC. And now you see
less of that and more celebrity you do.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
But you see a re emergence of doctors again. So
it's actually.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
Who are the best best, who has the best products
right now?
Speaker 1 (36:10):
And it's so hard to say. I mean, there's so
many and there's so many great products. I mean, I
myself it's not a medical just an aestheticians brand called
the Algers. I mean I like that. I'm obsessed by it.
I love MBR. I think that Lamaire makes great products.
I think Barbara Sturm makes great products. The original formulations
of Clinique designed by doctor orange Shrike.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Still he was my original dermatolog I love Doctor orange Shrike.
But you know, do they still get a royalty? Does
the family get a royalty?
Speaker 1 (36:41):
And there's some sort of financial project?
Speaker 2 (36:43):
I hope, so I hate he was so good, but he.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
Understood the power of exfiliation. And there are so many
brands and so many interesting brands. And by the way,
as you travel around the world, because I'm traveling a
lot around the world these days and spending a lot
of time in Europe and a lot of time in
India and Korea, uh, and you see the most unbelievable
formulas and the most unbelievable packaging and the most unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Coatia India more than others.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Korea is one of the epicenters of creativity right now.
You see an incredible innovation in complexion and wait, like Tatcha.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Do you know Tacha? Tacha is a great brand. I
love some of those products, the great products.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
You see amazing products coming out of Japan, you see
products coming out of China. I think it's one of
the most beautiful brands on the market. I think their
their formulations are second to none. So I respect any
brand that ethically brings product to market that connects with
a consumer, that makes people feel good, and we all
make our own personal choices.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
Does it have to cost so much?
Speaker 1 (37:48):
No, there are amazing products that you can buy at
CVS Dwayne Reid really between sarah v or the Derma
brands like laroche Pose or Rock or Nutrient Gena. There
there are fabulous, fabulous options and access points.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
So you have to sort of experiment and try what
you think works the best on your own skin.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
That's basically there's a bit of do you.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Have to read the fine print?
Speaker 1 (38:14):
I can't read the fight print anymore, you see, I don't.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
But it's but it's crazy the amount of fine print
and every single product is so extensive.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
It's hard. The regulatory environment requires a lot of transparency
relative ingredients and what's actually in the products, and what
they say and what they say today it's a little
bit more restrictive than what they used to say before
because these things are regulated quite stringently.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
What are people tired of in the beauty space.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
We've been living in a period of time were effortless,
no makeup. Makeup was the standard of beauty around the world.
It will always be there. And it takes a lot
of makeup to look like you're not wearing any makeup indeed.
But the whole notion of the Mafia wife look, the
fact that people want to look like Dynasty with you know,
(39:14):
you know, it looked like John Collins.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
So everybody wants eyelashes.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
So you have this, this this trend culture that all
of a sudden, people want to be glamorous again. People
want to have gorgeous makeup looks, people want to wear
eyelash extensions. I mean, the eyelash extension thing is insane.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
It is, it really is. I mean, my favorite line,
eyebrows shapers get like three hundred dollars.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
Now, my favorite line was when I was working in
the industry, we were talking about my friend Anastasia's success
and someone in the room said, well, you know, Anastasia
is the girl next door and I looked at them,
I said, I said, well, who do.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
You live next door to?
Speaker 1 (39:52):
And then I went back to Cleveland and I went
to the grocery store and I saw the girl at
the register was or contoured cheeks like Kim Cart and
her eyelash extensions, and.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
There did Brown.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
I thought like, oh my god, Metastasia is the girl
next door. He is, Yeah, we live in trends, trends
coming to go. We were in a huge eyeshadow palette
cycle about four or five years ago. The user rate
of an eyeshadow palate palette is about ten years. They've
re emerged again, but you know, it's it's a bit cyclical.
I mean, there is a skinnification taking place with people
(40:26):
wanting more hybrids. So makeup that does things that are
good for you and things that do good for you
that give you makeup effect. Because everybody wants instantaneous results
and sometimes it takes a lot of care to get
long term results, but they want they want to see
the money right away.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
What advice do you have for aspiring beauty founders.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
My advice is Gypsy rose Lea said it best. They
have to have a gimmick, and I'd say it in
a very uplifting, nice way, not in a way that
people would take a look at it as being tricky.
You need to have an angle, you have a strong
point of view. You have to stand for something. You'd
have a product that stands and performs at some level
(41:11):
that speaks to an audience that you actually have permission
or the authenticity to speak to because people today can
sniff out when something's not real, and that's why things
some things fade so fast, they're fads.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
Yeah, and you've seen that in the last ten years.
I've seen a lot of makeup. The lines come and go.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
There are a lot of ones that should have gone,
and some that are quite sad to see go. Every
single time I see a great brand that was created
by an entrepreneur or somebody who had great passion go away,
it's like a little bit of myself dies. I mean,
I understand how much people put themselves forward. They mortgage
(41:57):
their homes, they take their life savings. I mean so
much respect for the hard working entrepreneurs. And honestly, the
celebrities didn't just become celebrities without working hard either. Oh no,
they were so so people, you know, don't give the respect.
What does the celebrity know about makeup and skincare? I
(42:17):
hell of a lot.
Speaker 2 (42:18):
They wear it every day and they.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
Do their own makeup, and they know more about light
than maybe the best makeup artists in the world. So
it depends what your angle is.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
Well, you've always been known for having the your finger
on the pulse of where people are, of pop culture.
Your book shows that of music, of fashion trends. How
has it changed as you get older? Not that he's
very old. I don't know. I have no idea. I
have no idea. How old you are? How old are you?
Speaker 1 (42:48):
I am sixty eight years old.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
Oh you're young, okay, but old enough, old enough to
have an AARP card. So that's which I know's But
that's such a great organization.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
It is a great organization.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
That is an organizations get your medical that's right, and
you have to also pay attention to them because they
have a lot of money.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
I believe that everybody should live their best life and
their best age every day, every day the way they
want to and not being judged for it. And so
I think the ability to be more expansive and inclusive
and diverse and a motive. Actually the trend is to
(43:29):
be more individualistic and less conformist, and I think that
that's exciting. It's incredibly creative. It's a great period of
time to be alive.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
Let's talk about some things we have in common. You
have the abundant Pitt family, as I do.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
I have a very big takes.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
Care of your dogs in the daytime when you're at work.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
I have a I have a housekeeper, and I have
somebody that comes in and watch the dogs in a pack.
They go in groups. Okay, they go in groups. Sounds
like I'm I should become the global spokesperson for Nature's miracle. Actually,
I think I was inspired by your French bulldogs to
get a French bulldog.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
Originally, there's so I think I am one of I
think I'm one of the.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
You're one of the first. You were the first mover
of the French.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
Ship with no with a pair. We had a brindle
and a cream and that they became the paars walking
around the city. And now I still have the pair,
but with the additional additional brindle, the new one Luna Muna.
He's adorable. And you have cats and no that's it.
But you don't have chickens and peacocks and turkeys like
I have.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
No the New York City. I think that's against the law. Actually,
I think having eleven animals in the house is borderline
being a kennel. So I'm not exactly sure.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
We both wear the hats a business executive and creators
to which is which role is more important to you.
It's hard.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
They always say that I'm a creative that's perceived as
a suit to other creatives and as a suit that's
perceived as a suit of to creative.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
So that's a good place to be. I think I.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
Like to be in the middle. Actually, I like to
have a head for business. I like to understand what
it is that I'm doing and not doing at the
same time. I like if I can to push boundaries
and to explore what's possible. The worst thing in the
world to deal with is can't, no, never will happen.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
And yet you had how many years at estay Order?
Speaker 1 (45:30):
I was an stay order for thirty two beautiful.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
So like like your career, your big career is a staylader.
Now you are with Catterson, I'm with all.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
Cattered in Partners, and I'm a senior advisor working in
the beauty space and traveling a lot, traveling all over
the world and.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
Doing what what are you doing?
Speaker 1 (45:45):
Looking at businesses to buy, so you know, meeting new
beauty entrepreneurs, looking at new distribution channels. And I'm doing
some brand consulting work with some leading beauty brands now
as well.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
So it's that's fun.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
It's fun, but it's a private relationship between myself and
those individuals. I still need the ability to work with
creative people and to see and do things that.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
Are But you're doing it, You're thriving. You look great,
by the way, Thank you, and I just want to
mention we're almost out of time and we've been chatting
it for a long time. You talk beautifully and you
really are expressive about your interests. I love it so much.
Your book Behind the Blue Door is a maximalist mantra, yes,
and it describes beautifully the home you have created. In
(46:32):
a couple of sentences, just tell our listeners a little
bit more about the book.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
Well, the core philosophy, it's about creativity without boundaries and
you BEU and to have the courage to follow your
dreams and your passions and that anything is possible. From
growing up in a suburb in Ohio to having met
(46:59):
and done the thing things that I've been able to
do over the course of my career and the opportunities
that have been given to me is a blessing. It
was not an overnight sensation. It was years and years
and years and years of not being visible and hard work.
Yet and the same person I was when I was
sixteen years old. I am now you think so I do.
(47:21):
Actually I never lost I never lost that part.
Speaker 2 (47:24):
So nice.
Speaker 1 (47:25):
I think that's why I understand the business so well,
because I understand the real world and I understand what
the real wood looks too.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
Well, it's nice to meet someone who thinks more is more.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
More is more, and less is born. Unless my friend
Donald Robertson would say yes.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
And well, please all of you look up the book,
go to Amazon right now behind the blue door. Well
you are fantastic. Thank you so much for spending time
with me and our listeners a glimpse into the world
of John Devc. This is amazing, John.
Speaker 1 (47:58):
Thanks you, Martha. You're an icon and someone that I've
looked up to my entire career, and it's an honor
to be asked by you even to have a fireside chat.
Thank you. M
Host
Martha Stewart
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