Rouge

by Richard Kirshenbaum

  That this dependence might be more emotional than professional occasionally occurred to Constance, but she was loath to admit this to anyone, most of all herself. It had not escaped her that she might harbor an attraction to strong and independent women. Indeed, she ran in a circle that embraced the value and modernity of such an arrangement. But the world was far from wholeheartedly embracing such a lifestyle. Rather, hers was a sort of secret society, inhabited by a special few who considered such inclinations acceptable.

  The patrician, modern society girl emerged on the silver screen at the same time, from the liberated Claudette Colbert in the hit movie It Happened One Night to the modern woman wearing the smart androgynous trousers and the stately square-shouldered blouses of their patron saint, Katharine Hepburn. Women like Constance and Katharine cultivated an attitude of intellectual confidence, professional ambition, subtle androgyny, and sexual openness. But just because this new brand of woman was embraced in certain circles did not mean the general population was ready for it. The world was decades away from embracing same-sex couples as mainstream, much less as well-known society fixtures, and businesswomen, which was controversial enough, and the country was arguably almost a century away from embracing a relationship between a Caucasian and an African American or mulatto woman.

  As she looked back, Constance could not pinpoint the moment she knew she was “open to” openness. As a girl, she had always favored activities more typical to the other sex. Growing up in the Canadian countryside, she ran; she played rugby; she climbed trees. But it was not until she was admitted to a Seven Sisters school that she began to meet like-minded girls and to find in those like-minded girls a culture that favored exploration. At Smith, Constance learned not only that her penchant for boys’ activities was acceptable, but that the tendency to call sports a “boys’ activity” was a fallacy in the first place, a fallacy that must be righted over time.

  It was still decades before this notion would grow into a movement. She could attend for only one year and left as the First World War called upon her. The war had done its part to melt the glacier of public perception. In college, Constance studied the history of the women’s rights movements, starting with those first brave millworkers, then moving on to the long-suffering temperance groups and from there into the sewing circles that would spawn those first feisty, unstoppable suffragettes. (For later: Rosie the Riveter barely needed to pump her fist to a generation already emboldened by freedom, a generation of women who had earned income while their husbands were at war.) But it was not just wartime necessity and postwar exuberance that fueled Constance; something else was lighting her interest.

  She could not deny, if only to herself, that her attraction to other women was more personal than political.

  So did Constance find herself in a sort of sorority at school, a ladies’ group that did everything from studying, to socializing, to sleeping together. These pastimes were accepted among them within the ivied walls of their Seven Sisters enclave, but it was well known that such activities were not to be discussed or flaunted outside them. If anything, the tacit secrecy of their pact added to the experience, lending the fun of the forbidden to an already pleasurable act. It did occur to Constance that there was some irony in forming a business that promoted a cult of femininity even as she embraced a version of femininity that resisted being the focus of the male gaze. But the two were not mutually exclusive, being a modern heterosexual woman, eventually a wife and a mother, even a professional, and being Constance. Would she call herself a lesbian? Certainly not. A modern woman? Yes. That Katharine Hepburn and her acolytes wore a different shade of lipstick from those of the more old-fashioned glamour girls only meant there were more shades to produce and sell.

  All of this combined to create explosive energy between Constance and CeeCee: the openness, the secrecy, the shared professional goals, the common ambition, and, of course—Constance, the very respected, rising socialite Mrs. Van Wyke, would be lying to deny it—the added intrigue of loving a woman with a different-color skin.

  18

  NEW YORK, NEW YORK

  New York City, 1935

  Josephine sat in her capacious drawing room, gazing at her collection of art. Sometimes, she marveled at the simple fact that she had a collection of art, let alone that she owned an apartment with a drawing room. She would not have even thought to imagine this life as a child, growing up in a Polish shtetl, nor would she have believed it had someone told her at that time. And yet here she was, sitting in a lavish apartment in one of the best buildings in Manhattan, not only the owner of the drawing room and apartment in which she was lounging, but the owner of the building itself. The art—her Matisses and Picassos—collected during trips to Paris, Vienna, and Berlin, was a reward she had bought for herself at landmark moments in the formation of her business. The paintings gave her as much pleasure as the jewels on her hands, which were conciliatory gifts from Jon over the years … and, most important, the famed emeralds to herself from herself.

  The purchase of the apartment would always be a point of pride for Josephine after the London years. London had eventually made her rich and famous. Richer than she could have ever imagined. And everything was going according to plan, if not sooner. Once she had conquered London society, although she knew the royals sniffed a bit at her, with the revenue from Australia, London, Paris, and her fragrance, she set her sights on New York. While she still did not trust Jon, they played off each other as a formidable team. Not that she had any patience or much respect for him, but he had worked hard to get back in her good graces and little Miles loved spending time with his father when he was not playing cards or inebriated. He had agreed to leave his job in journalism to oversee Miles and the vast group of nannies while Josephine worked. While this new job entailed very little, Jon did bring him to school by limousine each morning and was there at pickup.

  After expanding into fragrance, Josephine decided they would move lock, stock, and barrel to the New World, to conquer the biggest market of all, America. The launch of her Parfum Empress Josephine, with its trademark scent of tuberose, jasmine, and gardenia, was as intoxicating as it was successful; women in the know in Europe dabbing it on their wrists and necks made a lasting impression on the men they desired and who desired them. With its distinctive frosted-glass packaging and clever atomizer, Parfum Empress Josephine was a sensation. She had cleverly added the French spelling of parfum rather than “perfume” to the package to give it a more European and luxurious feel. Not to mention the nod to the original empress Josephine and the positive association with royalty. While the lingering scent proved a bit too cloying for Josephine personally, it not only made her famous but printed money—and she could now do whatever she pleased whenever she pleased to do it.

  And the first thing she did after disembarking onto American soil was to plant her flag on Fifth Avenue, creating a state-of-the-art store and treatment salon. After taking over two contiguous Mayfair shops and combining them, and her Paris salon, she decided that the Fifth Avenue location would be her biggest and best yet. And when she opened the store to lines around the corner, it was instantly profitable. Spending most days and nights at the store, she soon realized that she needed a residence that was within walking distance to work so she could see little Miles and, most important, oversee Jon, who was overseeing the army of nannies who were overseeing him and keeping him on a tight schedule.

  “Why are you feeding him hamburger?” she would grouse. “I vant him to have a sirloin. Cut it up into small pieces. Give him green beans and liver. I vant him to have spinach. It puts hair on the chest.” She would decry every decision, give Miles a quick peck, and go back to the office. Nothing was ever good enough or right when it came to the care and feeding of her son. And yet she spent so much time in the New York store, she even kept a few additional outfits in her office. After all, she had to ensure the consistent quality of the products, perfect the presentation, and greet her important clients. Everyo
ne joked, even in the press, that she hardly left her eponymous shop. Due to the success of the store and her bold-faced fragrance, which had become so fashionable she could barely keep it in stock, she set out to find her new home. She was certainly at a point where she could command an apartment on Park or even Fifth. She hired the leading broker Frank Morgan Jr., who found her ideal home in the storied 635 Fifth Avenue, a duplex comprising two classic-six apartments stacked one above the other, with an elevator that opened directly onto the apartment into a majestic black-and-white checkerboard marble entrance hall. An opulent spiral staircase would draw her guests’ eyes to the second floor when Josephine descended from above. She rushed to make an offer minutes after viewing the listing.

  But the treatment she received by the co-op board defied her expectations, even though Frank had secretly anticipated such a reaction. A long review of her board package ended in their rejection of her application. Outraged and certain of the reason—the anti-Semitic sentiment in New York was hardly a surprise—she debated the appropriate response. She could have Jon, her former journalist husband, write a nasty letter to the editors of The New York Times, she could tell all the art houses and clubs, or she could do something that would bring her much more satisfaction. Without delay, Josephine made a second offer through a corporate shell, this time not for the apartment itself, but for the entire building. The price was almost two times greater than the value of the building and land, and this time the board had no choice but to accept. When the board found out that the buyer of the building was not a Delaware-based corporation headed by a Mr. Sheridan Sloane, Josephine’s corporate lawyer, but in fact Madame Josephine Herz, they were forced to accept her, which they did politely, though through clenched greetings of “Good morning” when they passed her in the lobby.

  The sentiment toward Jews in New York was no surprise to Josephine. Of course, she had fled her own childhood home due to the same sentiment. But here, in New York, Josephine found a more subtle opposition toward Jews. At first she thought that she would be accepted by the New York elite if she could match or surpass them on their terms, such as through the accumulation of wealth, homes, art, memberships at important clubs, and affiliations with politicians or other powerful friends. She knew she would not be accepted in all the same places as a gentile with lesser assets, but she had expected to be tolerated by these people. What she had not expected was a more subtle form of discrimination from a small group of prosperous old-money German and Swiss Jews, who referred to themselves as “our crowd.” They were the Lehmans and the Guggenheims, the bankers and financiers who had immigrated to the United States in the 1800s, amassed a fortune, and had become socially prominent. They were already ensconced uptown in their mansions and many in their group turned up their noses at the new wave of Eastern European Jews flocking to their shores, viewing the new group as crass and loud. So Josephine would find a need to embrace and be embraced by other outsiders: famous musicians, artists, show people, or more liberal-minded successful members of the old guard.

  This was all true, but it was still unsatisfactory to Josephine. Unacceptable. She had come too far and achieved too much to settle for mere acceptance in a club. Rather, she strove to create her own group of like-minded, forward-thinking artists, intellectuals, and titans of business. And so, rather than aspire to membership in clubs where she was not welcome, she simply formed her own. A different sort of salon.

  In a sense, the Herz Beauty salons were a product of this idea. Josephine loved a salon in the traditional sense: a regular, informal gathering of like-minded people, the purpose of which was to socialize, to educate, and also to elevate one another through community. She and Jon would become part of the fabric of New York life by hosting these weekly events, inviting the best and the brightest into their glamorous home. Artists, poets, singers, painters, socialites, visiting foreign royalty, actors, actresses, directors, politicians. Society people soon followed. That was the trick … and no luminary was too bright.

  The salons proved to be not only great fun, but one of Josephine’s best inventions, because the salons soon earned a central spot in New York City social life. Over time, to be invited to a salon at the home of Josephine Herz, the Mr. and Mrs. Jon Blakes, was a great honor and a coveted prize. And for Josephine, these weekly events increased her social circle and social currency exponentially.

  Notable guests came from every realm. Salvador Dalí was often present, chatting with a new muse. Robert Benchley was often telling an amusing story to a starlet. Gloria Swanson stopped by once—with her rumored boyfriend Joseph Kennedy—as did the playwright George S. Kaufman and the novelist Dashiell Hammett. And when Mrs. Vanderbilt came, Josephine knew she had done the impossible.

  “Everybody vants a good party. A good drink, a good view, and some caviar,” she would say, shrugging. But she knew better. The rich, she would later say, were “bored and boring.” When she cleverly provided interesting people, the rich and bored became interested. Because she viewed this as a new business tool and the business paid for it, no expense was spared for these fetes. Guests buzzed about with bubbling drinks. Waiters roamed with crowded silver trays, passing blinis heaped with caviar and crème fraîche. A jazz band from the Cotton Club played the latest Broadway musical hits. Vaunted conversation usually devolved by nine or ten o’clock. Debauchery followed. The drunken dalliances—and ill-advised jaunts to Josephine’s roof and sometimes to nearby Central Park—were always kept very discreet, with the guests abiding by a tacit rule: What happened at Josephine’s stayed at Josephine’s. But Josephine meanwhile accumulated a vault of secrets that she guarded fiercely should she ever need to extort an enemy or prove a point.

  But the best thing about these salons was the most obvious: they inspired her. They inspired her with respect to the most important thing in her life. For no sooner had she established herself at the highest level of New York society and perfected her best-selling skin salve and signature fragrance than it dawned on her that the next move for her business was a concept she had already invented. The products she made were excellent, yes, and they did seem to sell at ever faster rates thanks to the advertising and latent marketing power of her own customers—which is to say word of mouth and their own need for refills. But these social events, which Josephine loved so well, and which enriched her mind, her marriage, and her social status, would be the key to her success in business as well.

  Yes, her salon had yielded the beauty and fitness salon. Then came the next big idea. It came to her like many other eureka moments: in the bath. And she laughed at the absurdity of its obviousness before she emerged, wrapped in a towel, to tell the news to Jon.

  “What is it?” he asked, as he knew that look she had when she had an idea.

  “I know what to do next,” she exclaimed, laughing with delight.

  “What to do next with what?” he asked nonchalantly.

  “A salon … in the salon,” she said.

  “We just had one last night,” he said.

  “Not here,” she explained. “At the store as well. We vill not only have a gym, a sauna, and massage rooms. But a real salon for our customers. Once a week we vill host a guest lecturer and invite our best clients.…” She drummed her perfectly lacquered nails on the marble-topped table. “I vill replicate our own social events for our everyday clients!” she declared.

  Josephine’s Fifth Avenue salon, a four-story palace of beauty that spanned an entire city block, invited a woman to come for a day of beauty, to clean, to exfoliate, to massage, to steam, to refresh and renew. Here she could attend lessons in how to apply Herz products, she could learn the techniques of a true Herz woman, she could view the shiny lacquered color of every single Herz product lined up like sugary tarts in a Parisian patisserie, she could purchase every one of the products she used in this salon, she could return for monthly, even weekly, treatments to maintain this level of beauty—and she could become reliant on a product she did not even know she needed before sh
e walked in the door. Like a high priestess in a vaulted church, Josephine built herself a temple in which she could preach the gospel of beauty and then sell indulgences one product at a time.

  Despite the obvious ironies, it was not a stretch to compare Josephine’s salon with a house of worship. In many ways, the salons—and the industry she formed—had much in common with a temple or church. Not to be compared with missionaries, who defined certain religions as a disease and then offered the cure, Josephine saw herself as an educator rather than an instrument of salvation.

  “If you vant to be pretty, it takes vork,” Josie commanded.

  Any woman could have, could attain, beauty if she put in the effort and time. And paid the price. Yes, there was a small price. But nothing good came for free.

  The salon was an experience. A day trip. A trip in a day. A woman would come into the Herz salon and book appointments from nine to five. She might begin with a facial, continue to a massage, take a class in technique, and, of course, enjoy a tour of the products. She could indulge in a lavish and healthy lunch, share the camaraderie of other women, and soak in the gentle tutelage of Herz Beauty technicians.

  These beauty technicians, dressed in neat beige uniforms with white collars, their hair pulled back tightly, had the cool proficiency of Red Cross nurses, the welcoming smiles of sorority girls, and the firm tones of English governesses. They came; they cleaned; they conquered. They tweezed; they plucked; they pruned. They steamed; they squeezed; they moisturized; they patted dry; they scrubbed; they toned; they tweaked; they trimmed; they tugged. They analyzed the imperfections and told their clients how to minimize them and maximize the positive: the motto of their fearless leader, Madame Herz. And then, once a woman was buffed and preened, they sold her every single one of the products she’d used. A woman left the Herz salon refreshed, looking ten years younger and feeling ten pounds lighter, not only because of the day of reprieve, but because she had shed so many dollars from her pocketbook. And then once they were stripped of their blemishes, blackheads, and cash, they were offered a gift. Her new and innovative gift to them, her clients. A Thursday evening to meet a great artist, hear a great violinist, and munch on seductive and exotic Russian blinis and frigid vodka. And meet other like-minded clients in a cosseted atmosphere. It was ingenious and over time became an empire, and the Herz empire was best understood in phases. The education phase. The evaluation phase. The cleansing phase. The lotion phase. The foundation phase. The rouge phase. The lipstick phase. The powder phase. The eye phase (which the great cosmetic scholars might separate into the era of eye shadow and the era of mascara). The product-selling phase. The fragrance and finish phase. The evening salon phase. It was this progression that would define the evolution of both Josephine’s beauty empire and the American beauty industry. While Constance bristled at the Polish Jewish upstart, she had to hand it to her. While she was an insider and Josephine was an outsider, Josephine had cleverly found a way into her world, and as with the best competitors, it was driving her to be better, more innovative … and, also, insane.