Dramatic Contention of Early Beauty Titans Receives Brought to Life Onstage in ‘War Paint’

Lengthy earlier than Emily Weiss, Bobbi Brown, and even Estée Lauder burst onto the cosmetics scene and took it by a hurricane, there were Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein, the founding mothers of what might finally turn out to be today’s $265 billion global industry. They were visionaries, pioneers, and intense opponents — and this week, their story might be Brought to Life onstage with a sparkling dose of drama in Battle Paint, a brand new musical starring Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersole, starting July 18 in Chicago.

The arena finest, directed through Michael Greif and written by librettist Doug Wright, composer Scott Frankel, and lyricist Michael Korie, tells the tale of cosmetics titans Rubinstein (LuPone) and Arden (Ebersole).

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Consistent with press notes, “described Beauty requirements for the primary half of the 20th Century. First-rate innovators with humble roots, each lady has been a master of self-invention who sacrificed the entirety to end the usa’s first, foremost girl entrepreneurs. They have been additionally fierce competitors, whose 50-yr tug-of-Battle would give start to an enterprise. From Fifth Road society to the halls of Congress, their fantastic Rivalry turned into ruthless, relentless and mythical — pushing both women to build international empires in a world ruled through guys.”

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In a recent interview with the Chicago Tribune, Korie cited, “Makeup become a brand new enterprise while these two ladies arrived. those absolutely had been the top of the line.” He introduced, “Estée Lauder, in reality, become a right away a copy of Ms. Rubinstein. Max Aspect turned into only a Hollywood guy who positioned out a cheap line. Truely, absolutely everyone else got here after them.”

That consists of Revlon, founded by way of Charles Revson, which recently introduced it became shopping for rival Elizabeth Arden for greater than $419 million, to the entertainment of the War Paint creative skills. In the end, lower back inside the days when Rubinstein and Arden ruled, Korie stated, Revson changed into “a little man who they squashed under their ft.”

Even though each tough-as-nails marketers were brilliant success in a person’s world, the two ladies have been vastly exceptional. Arden opened her first spa on Fifth Avenue in 1910 — while it turned into rare for women to wear Make-up, not to mention run a commercial enterprise, in step with the business enterprise website.

From there, she commenced to construct one of the first global Beauty brands. She soon became a suffragette, as soon as marching past her very own salon with 15,000 fellow girls’ rights advocates, all carrying pink lipstick to expose their ambitious power. Arden created cosmetics for women who served inside the navy all through international Battle II and have become one of the first ladies to grace the duvet of Time magazine in 1946. Way beforehand of her time, the Beauty maven become additionally regarded for her holistic technique — encouraging women to live hydrated, keep out of the sun, and to exercise yoga, a long time earlier than such notions have been famous.