Latest news with #Zen-like
Time Out
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Time Out
NY Kimchi
When Sam Yoo of Golden Diner took over his parents' lease across from Rockefeller Center, he decided his next act would pay homage to them and their heritage. Inside the 6,500-square-foot space sits two concepts of his own making: Korean pub Golden Hof and Korean raw bar and steakhouse NY Kimchi. Compared to the lively drinking den up above, NY Kimchi acts as a calming sanctuary. Upon descending the stairs, the eye is immediately drawn to the massive rock wall that lines the back wall, with tufts of green and yellow moss sprouting from the edges and cracks. Successfully evoking the idea of a rock garden, the sound structure is softened with rows of bamboo and round paper lanterns that hang from the ceiling. And yet, among such Zen-like interiors, each table houses a fire. With barbecues built right into wooden tables, incredibly friendly staff come around to converse, take your order and expertly cook your food right in front of you. Yes, of course, you can go for the 30-day, dry-aged porterhouse for $140, but Yoo has made it a point to keep affordability in mind, serving soy-marinated short rib priced at $44, while ssamjang-slicked lamb chops come in at $46. Served alongside are all manner of banchan—cubes of pickled radish, marinated cucumbers, and a round of potato salad, to name a few. You could easily eat like a purist, but the steaks do come with perilla-soy and kimchi-heavy dipping sauces, so we do recommend a quick dip. But before you go all in on steak, know that Yoo has taken just as much care to the steaks as he has the starters, serving a cooling black bass "Naengmyum" crudo so chilled that lemon zest-laden ice chips are a feature; and a jiggly Parmesan egg souffle that balances that right amount of cheese and airiness, making it ever so easy to spoon it from dish to mouth until done.
The Hindu
6 days ago
- Sport
- The Hindu
Rishabh Pant's fearless and entertaining style makes him a unique and exceptional player
It's the morning of the fourth day, India's lead decent without being intimidating. Off the seventh ball of the day, Shubman Gill trudges off disconsolately to the pavilion, chopping a lifting, incoming ball from Brydon Carse on to his stumps. India hadn't just lost their captain, but also one of three centurions from the first innings. At 92 for three, they were ahead by 98, and not too many wickets away from a collapse — as subsequent events would prove. Out walked a chunky, unprepossessing figure, triggering a frisson in the well-populated stands. In the first innings, he had uncorked a brilliant hundred of two parts — the first fifty came off 91 deliveries, his slowest to date. Between 50 and 100, he needed just 55 balls, keeping his tryst with his eighth Test ton with a six. It wasn't unexpected; like Virender Sehwag, he likes to herald a milestone with a flourish when almost everyone else will get there with a nurdled single, a scrambled brace. Then again, Rishabh Pant isn't 'everyone else'. Thank goodness for that. Back to day four, a regular Monday until Pant made sure it wasn't. Early blood to England, India under pressure. Really? Clearly, Pant hadn't been paying attention. There's something about very early in his innings and a charge down the track to the fastest bowler in the opposition that is quintessentially Pant. In the first dig, he came haring the pitch to hammer his second ball, from England captain Ben Stokes, back past the bowler's head for a searing, statement boundary. For a second, Stokes — himself of the free spirit — was startled. Needless evasive action was followed by an unchecked bout of laughter. Stokes couldn't believe what he had just been subjected to. What's this guy made of? Back again to day four. Carse, his tail up after cleaning up Gill, came bounding in, fresh as a daisy, determined to drive home the advantage. Ball two to Pant, who again embraced the charge-and-bash routine. Perhaps he needs to do that to get the circulation doing, perhaps he must do it because he is desperate to get off the dreaded duck, perhaps he just likes it. Whatever. He matched Carse for speed, waiting nearly till the ball left the bowler's hand before leaving his crease. Unlike in the first innings, there was neither shape nor control. As he threw his hands at the ball, it skewed off the outside edge and over the slips, down to vacant third man for four. Hello? ALSO READ | Spectacular success or promise less fulfilled... the first impression of India's GenNext Headingley woke up, if at all it had gone into a slumber after an early strike by a home bowler. The buzz was unmistakable. The revolving door was here, no one knew what was coming next. What came next was a manic passage of play, with Pant doing the most outrageous of things even by Pant standards. 'Harakiri' came to mind. K.L. Rahul, his Zen-like partner, was flummoxed. England were hopeful, optimistic, convinced that a wicket was but a ball away. In the dressing-room, Karun Nair, the next man in and playing his first Test in more than eight years, must have felt his heart thudding against his chest, knowing that he was on a pair, perhaps believing that the next ball would usher his presence into the middle. Pant heaved. He slogged. He charged. He went hard at the bowling. He walked across his stumps, attempting the most extravagant and ill-advised hoick to fine-leg, his stumps exposed, the stroke more suited to the final over of a T20 game than during an intense, potentially decisive passage of play. Pure theatre Then, in pure theatre that broadcasters salivate over and those watching on television can't get enough of, Pant admonished himself. He spoke to himself, calmly, as if transported from his body, advising himself to play straight. He questioned himself about the need for extravagance. He tried to get himself to understand the gravity of the situation. The stump microphone isn't everyone's favourite but in this case, it threw up gold. Absolute gold. It provided a window to the extraordinary mind of an exceptional cricketer. Self-admonishment and self-advice worked, Pant became a more selective version of himself without sacrificing flair or entertainment or the wow factor. It made for magnificent viewing – on television, sure, but 100x magnified at the venue. A second century of the match was almost inevitable once Pant spoke to Pant, once Pant heeded Pant. It was fascinating; every time Rahul was in his ears, Pant respectfully responded with 'haanji', then did what he wanted to do. It's not that he didn't respect his senior partner's inputs, it's just that he took them on board, fused them with his unique way of thinking and came up with solutions to questions England didn't even think they had posed. It takes guts and courage and bravery and self-belief and a certain bullheadedness to embrace the Pant way of thinking. It comes with the attendant risk of failure, of looking silly — 'stupid, stupid, stupid', anyone? — of being taken to the cleaners by even those who revel in his success when he pulls off a reverse ramp in a Test match against James Anderson, or who clubs a Mitchell Starc screamer over mid-wicket as if having a friendly net against a wannabe left-arm spinner. But Pant is not about bravado alone; he does have eight Test hundreds, the most by an Indian wicketkeeper, and averages in the mid-40s. There is great method to his inimitable madness, so to question his methodology, however exasperating it might appear at times, is a little out of place. You just have to focus on the reactions when you utter the name/word 'Pant' to see what he triggers in teammate and opponent alike. Rahul seemed almost in awe while speaking of the man with whom he shared a 195-run partnership. 'You just stand there and admire and sometimes scratch your head about the shot selection and the outrageous cricket that he plays,' Rahul, a stately Rolls Royce to the rollicking McLaren that Pant is, said the other day, trying his best to conceal the broad grin that reflected the joy in his heart. ALSO READ | 50 years later: how the World Cup launched cricket into mainstream consciousness 'He's a unique, unique player and you just let him be. I've had a few partnerships with him, (including during) his first hundred in Oval (2018). 'We've batted together for a long period of time and he enjoys his cricket and that's how he likes to express himself,' Rahul went on. 'I just let him be and try and keep him as calm as I can. He obviously has a method to his batting which none of us in this room understand, but it seems to work for him.' Pant, 27, is now the deputy to Gill, 25. A combined age of 52 makes this amongst the youngest leadership playing groups India have put out in recent memory but the good news is that these two men have played a lot of cricket together at various levels, are great friends off the field and share a terrific relationship which augurs well for the future. Pant has emphatically played his hand — he will respect the responsibility that comes with the vice-captaincy, but he won't try to be anything other than what he is, because then he won't be the Pant he can be. More than numbers Given cricket's propensity to judge individuals by numbers, Pant is on to a great thing already, less than halfway through his international career. He has more Test hundreds in England than any other Indian apart from Rahul Dravid. Notice something there — India's best technician and India's most mercurial middle-order bat bunched together in an elite, exclusive club of two? Just goes to show that there are numerous ways to skin a cat. He is one of only two stumpers, after Andy Flower, to smack a hundred in both innings of the same Test. He is, simply, Rishabh Pant. In the middle of all this, around the excitement and the hype and the encomiums, it's easy to forget that he is only 27. That he is still a very, very young man, not just in life but in cricketing life too. He has been through so much already, including the career-threatening, life-threatening single-car accident of December 2022. That he has managed to retain his joie de vivre, that he has still stayed equanimous and generous and grateful for a second chance, is clear for everyone to see. Pant knows that not everyone is as blessed as he is; therefore, he believes, he must make the most of benevolence of the higher power, make every second count, stand out as an inspiration for others. ALSO READ | Moneyball: IPL 2025 edition Occasionally, the petulant child in him surfaces, like in the first innings at Headingley when Paul Reiffel legitimately turned down his entreaty to change the ball and Pant reacted by churlishly backhanding the ball along the ground to the mid-wicket fielder, his annoyance all too obvious. It was the boiling over of a frustration merited, but which shouldn't have manifested in the way it did. For his indiscretion, he was slapped with a demerit point and given an official reprimand by Richie Richardson, the ICC match referee. Given that he is his best judge and his worst critic, Pant will tell himself, 'Rishabh, woh theek nahi tha, waisa nahi karna tha'. And then immediately put all that behind him and get on with the job. After all, that's what makes him what he is. At the conclusion of a match in which more than 1,650 runs were scored at more than four an over, Stokes spoke of the high rate of scoring without any batter trying anything fancy. 'Barring Rishabh,' he chuckled. That's what Gautam Gambhir must be saying in the dressing-room too when plans are being formulated. 'These apply to everyone,' could well be the head coach's message, 'barring Rishabh.' Or, at least, that's what he should be saying.
New York Post
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Post
Expert says there's a specific reason why toddlers love to say the word ‘no'
Most moms go above and beyond for their kids — but do the little tots actually appreciate it? Doesn't seem like it. A Florida mom pulled off a toddler-level miracle — shifting meetings and racing the nap clock for a fun day out — only to get a surprisingly deadpan review from her tiny critic. 'Did you have fun?' Samantha Afran asked her 21-month-old son, Ezra, after their trip to the children's museum, as seen in a TikTok video uploaded last week. Afran (@ a part-time content creator and work-from-home marketing pro, garnered attention on social media with the clip — with commenters pointing out that even pint-sized museumgoers have opinions. In the attention-grabbing video, the mom walked with her child in her arms in a parking lot with white text over the clip reading, 'POV: You arranged your entire day to take your toddler to that place they've been begging to go.' In her caption, Afran quipped, 'My bad for catering to your every whim.' Viewers chimed in with similar stories of their own children in the comments section. 'Literally, my daughter,' one wrote as another added, 'Spent two hours at the children's museum and I asked my 4 year old this when we got back in the car. He said, 'Fun doing what?'' An additional user joked, 'His little 'no' even tho he KNOWS he had so much fun.' One other replied, 'This is my toddler about everything ' with laugh-cry emojis. 'My toddler says no to everything. 'did u have a good day?' no. do u love mama? no. do u like the chips ur currently eating?' 'no' ok bud Before parents bond over having hard-to-please toddlers — there's a reason why toddlers love the two-letter word. Deborah Gilboa, a family doctor and resilience expert, weighed in, telling that toddlers 'don't have the same sense of time that adults do.' This means that 'they don't look backward — they're very existential, Zen-like little creatures.' Commenters rallied with tales of their own tiny tyrants — all saying 'no' for no reason at all, it seemed. volurol – Rather than zen meaning 'calm,' the expert stressed that this means toddlers feel 'however they feel right that second.' So ultimately, if you ask a toddler, 'Did you have fun?' in the parking lot — brace yourself for a response that makes zero sense. The expert explained to the outlet that grown-ups — and even kids over 5 — can size up past events and give a verdict. Toddlers? Not a chance. But if they're hungry, hot or hyped, you'll know right now, the pro said. As The Post previously reported, parenting may be personal — but a little expert advice never hurts, especially when you're trying to get your tiny tyrant to actually listen. Don't ask your toddler to hit rewind — their memory's on mute. One minute it's a meltdown, the next it's magical. Talk about a case of kiddie whiplash. fizkes – 'Because I said so' is out — and experts say it never really worked to begin with. When it comes to getting kids to behave, a few word swaps can go a long way. Child psychologist Reem Raouda dished on what phrases parents should ditch — and what to say instead if you want results without the meltdown. ''Because I said so' shuts down communication and teaches blind obedience,' she said in a recent CNBC article. Instead, she encouraged parents to say, 'I know you don't like this decision. I'll explain, and then we're moving forward.' 'You're not debating or negotiating — you're modeling respectful leadership,' she went on. 'This phrasing acknowledges their feelings and reinforces that you're in charge in a calm, grounded way.' Overall, she noted that no matter what a child tells you, when they feel heard, 'they calm down faster — and trust you more.' This means that 'dismissing' them in any way or invalidating their feelings (however illogical they may seem) is a no-no. Because at the end of the (very long, nap-delayed) day — parenting isn't about getting a 'yes,' it's about surviving the 'no' with your sanity intact.
Yahoo
24-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Surprising Reason Toddlers Always Say ‘No'
A mom who moved mountains to entertain her toddler got an adorably serious answer when she asked him, 'Did you have fun?' 'It was too stinking cute,' Samantha Afran, a mother in Florida, tells Afran, a part-time content creator, shared a TikTok clip of the conversation with her 21-month-old son, Ezra, after visiting the children's museum. The mom, who works at a marketing company from home, had restructured her meetings to squeeze in the bonding time before Ezra's nap. 'POV: You arranged your entire day to take your toddler to that place they've been begging to go,' Afran wrote on the video of her carrying Ezra from the museum to the parking lot. When she asked him the simple question, Ezra had an immediate response: 'No.' 'My bad for catering to your every whim,' Afran jokingly captioned the video. Commenters on Afran's video could relate: 'Literally, my daughter.' 'Went to the arcade and the movies and Build-A-Bear, unfazed. Meanwhile, I drove home from daycare with the windows down once and he screamed, 'Woo-hoo, best day ever!' the whole time.' 'Mine will say, 'Yes, but we didn't get to do this one thing and now it's ruined.' Went to Disney World but 'Mission: Space' was closed. It is the only thing my son would talk about.' 'Haha, that is so real.' 'Spent two hours at the children's museum and I asked my 4 year old this when we got back in the car. He said, 'Fun doing what?'' 'My toddler says 'No' to everything. 'Did you have a good day?' 'No.' 'Do you love Mama?' 'No.' 'Do you like the chips you're currently eating?' 'No.' OK, bud.' 'My kid does the opposite: 'I had so much fun camping, Mommy!' when in fact, she cried the entire time we were camping.' Afran tells that she loved her son's 'Deadpan delivery, lack of hesitation ... and comedic timing.' 'Toddlers don't have the same sense of time that adults do,' Deborah Gilboa, a family doctor and resilience expert, tells 'They don't look backward — they're very existential, Zen-like little creatures ... I don't mean 'calm,' but they feel however they feel right that second.' So, when you ask a toddler in the parking lot, 'Did you have fun?' don't expect a logical reply. 'We, as adults, and even children older than 4 or 5, can look back in time and compare experiences to come up with a qualitative judgment — but toddlers absolutely cannot,' says Gilboa. If toddlers are hungry, hot, cold, excited, you'll hear about it immediately. Adds Gilboa: 'You cannot ask them to go back, even 10 or 15 minutes, and expect a cogent answer about how they were feeling compared to other experiences they've had.' Sometimes toddlers complain about something in the moment only to rave about it later. 'What they're saying is, 'I liked spending time with you and I want to do it again,'' says Gilboa. Afran says her son is going through a 'no phase' (even when he means 'yes') and that next time, she'll point out the 'fun' as it happens. She is also not offended by her toddler's candor. 'If you're being a good parent,' says Afran, 'Your ego will probably get bruised!' This article was originally published on
Yahoo
16-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Leonard Lauder, Legendary Beauty Executive, Dies at 92
Beauty has lost its master builder. Leonard A. Lauder, arguably the most influential and respected architect of the prestige beauty business, died late Saturday at age 92. More from WWD Tender Store Owner Cheryl Daskas Dies at 71 How Last Year's Cherry Cola Hair Trend Is Unleashing Animal-inspired Coloring in 2025 The 16 Best Hair Styling Tools, Tested and Reviewed by Editors Lauder spent his career molding the Estée Lauder Companies Inc., into the global leader of prestige beauty. The company that his parents — the ever quotable Estée ('When sex goes out of business, so will we') and her husband Joseph — founded in 1946, their son shaped into a $15.61 billion giant in sales for the 2024 fiscal year. What drove this empire building was an unquenchable desire to create a gold standard for the industry. In June 1995, five months before the company went public, the then-president and chief executive officer unveiled his vision to become 'the preeminent supplier of upmarket cosmetics in the world.' Then Lauder reached out for that goal. Lauder once remarked, 'Money doesn't drive me. What drives me is to see that this great company continues its inexorable march to becoming the greatest company in the world. Not the largest, but the greatest.' In that pursuit, he brought a passion and drive that were seemingly inexhaustible. Younger employees would flag in his wake as Lauder would visit store after store almost from dawn to dark, speaking with retail executives and customers to find out what the latest trends were. As chairman, he could walk onto a store floor anywhere from Los Angeles to London and immediately spot that a counter for one of Lauder's brands was two inches smaller than a competitor's, or not positioned correctly for a store's new traffic pattern. Even as his company's success grew, Lauder would listen and question more than issue diktats. Throughout his life he retained a salty sense of humor – perhaps honed during his years in the Navy and Navy Reserve – and never lost his ear-to-ear grin or the twinkle in his eye, which immediately relaxed even the most intimidated person meeting him for the first time. He was in the forefront of leaders defining and establishing the doctrine of the modern global prestige beauty business, particularly in department and major specialty stores. He was among the first to recognize the transcendent reach of globalization in the beauty business, coining its language and recognizing fundamental doctrines. His vision was driven by the role of innovation, the power of new product introductions, the purity of distribution strategy and the sanctity of brand equity. He viewed brands as living, breathing beings. Those beliefs may have become thought of as old school as younger competitors came on the scene talking about triple-tier distribution, celebrity marketing, the power of influencers and their digital native brands. But Lauder's tenacity of vision and Zen-like surety of purpose never faltered and his passion never ceased to fuel the vitality of the business. Later in life, when asked how he kept his batteries charged, Lauder traced his deep reserves of energy to his practice of teaching his brand equity course to his young executives. He identified himself as Lauder's CTO, or 'chief teaching officer,' perhaps the title that made him the most proud. 'The thing that gives me the greatest pleasure and recharge is teaching,' he said once, noting that he had redone the syllabus 'to make it something far deeper than I have ever done. 'The other thing is that a lot of the people who were low-level merchants a long time ago when I was more deeply involved with individual buyers and merchandise managers are now store principals, and what gives me pleasure is meeting with them and understanding them and talking to them.' He added with a grin, 'I give them my advice, whether they like it or not.' At least one person who heeded Lauder's advice was Ralph Lauren. 'Leonard's life and mine have intersected for so many years and during that time I have called on him many times for advice,' the designer said in 2018. 'He was always there for me. He is a man of honor, a man of integrity, a man of great energy and passion and what I've really learned and respected was his love and support of his family,' Lauren continued. 'They always came first.' Lauder tended to view the people who worked with him and for him as much more than employees. When asked in 2018 what was his proudest achievement, he replied that it was 'the people we have brought up and who are running the company today…These are people who really started at a much lower level and they grew and grew and grew. These people are my proudest accomplishment. The wealth of a company is its people and we are a very wealthy company.' Throughout his career, long before Lauder started teaching his classes, he was known for his mentoring skills. On more than a few occasions, a rising industry star might be asked with whom they would like to work for next. The answer was often, 'Leonard.' When asked about his reputation, Lauder, who prided himself on his ability to read people, replied, 'Every time I'm meeting someone, I ask myself, 'Can they grow into a great leader?'' But the tricky part comes when giving someone a second and third chance, usually at the behest of their manager, when Lauder knew instinctively from the beginning that they wouldn't work out. 'I always regret that I didn't push harder,' Lauder recalled in 2018. 'I wanted to let the managers say, 'let's do it.' But if you wait three or four years and the person still hasn't produced, you've lost three or four years. 'I gave a speech some time ago to a group of people at Macy's in California, and I spoke to them about this and ended with the phrase—'Just remember this, dumb is forever,'' he recalled. But he never lost his voracious curiosity. It was not unusual for Lauder to be lunching with someone in a restaurant like Michael's in Midtown Manhattan and turn his questioning to his favorite subject —what promising start-ups are ripe for the plucking. His eyes would twinkle, he might borrow an order pad from a passing waiter to write on, then whip out a pen and furiously start jotting down names of companies. Even at age 92, he was still in the game, thinking about how to get the group – which has been struggling over the last few years – back onto the growth track. The word passion crops up often when associates reminisce about Lauder, particularly when his son, William P. Lauder, executive chairman, reflects about his days with his father. 'My father demonstrated that a hugely successful business can be built on this simple concept: A passion for product, a passion for the consumer, a passion for the retailer, a passion for the brand, a passion for quality, a passion for people, and a passion for leadership. His passion for every aspect of building a lasting, world-leading cosmetics company has made our company great. His passion for teaching everybody around him has made us all better as a result.' But that great passion was not limited to the beauty game. His other great love was collecting art, most famously the works of the Cubist painters. In 2013, Lauder sealed his artistic legacy by donating his world-renowned Cubist collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, then consisting of 81 works by Pablo Picasso (34), Georges Braque (17), Juan Gris (15) and Fernand Léger (15). The choice of the Met as the recipient of the donation came as a bit of a surprise since Lauder had long been associated with the Whitney Museum of American Art. But that museum was devoted to American art and Lauder had been quite generous there with money and painting. Lauder had considered many other museums, but he picked the Met partly because of the encyclopedic nature of its holdings — and its shortcomings. The Met had a sparse collection of 20th century art, a shortage he hoped to help remedy with the opening in the museum of the Leonard A. Lauder Research Center of Modern Art that might inspire other collectors to step forward. 'I wanted to transform the Met,' he said, adding that his generosity was motivated by 'my love of art and my love of New York.' Above all 'I wanted to make it a gift to New York,' said Lauder, who was born in the city and grew up on the Upper West Side. Lauder began his life of art collecting in a small way by buying Art Deco postcards at age 6. That fascination grew into a collection of 120,000 postcards, 700 of which were featured in a 2012 exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He first found a seat in the art establishment by joining the acquisition board of the Whitney in 1971, then became a trustee, rose to president in 1977 and finally the museum's chairman in 1994. His gift of $131 million to the Whitney's endowment was at the time the largest in the institution's history. This was in addition to his gift of works by Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Cy Twombly and Andy Warhol. Years before he announced his choice of the Met as a next home of his Cubist collection, Lauder discussed his approach to collecting and drew a parallel between building his business and art collection. 'I'm building my art collection not to possess it but to conserve it,' he said, because it's all going to go to a museum. 'Everything I buy, the question is where will it fit into my collection and into a museum.' The same philosophy applied to the company he helped grow. 'My passion for this [beauty] business is not to make more money, because I have more than enough money for the next five lifetimes [his net worth was estimated by Forbes Magazine at $9.7 billion as of this year]. The passion is to build something great that can be conserved. There is a parallel as to what I do with my art and what happens with our company.' This all-consuming passion was evident in every corner of his day, even when he was preoccupied with something else. He always had time to stop and talk shop, especially with retailers. Even into his 90s, he would still meet people regularly for lunch to talk business and trends. His eyes retained their sparkle and his grasp on their arm as firm as ever as he pulled them in close for a chat. His instinct for spotting quicksilver changes in fickle consumer tastes was second to none. Lauder read the twists and turns of the market like a weather map. He had a knack for perfecting in-store sell-through and promotional strategies. Not that the Lauders invented every promotional tactic. He freely acknowledged that the ubiquitous gift-with-purchase was invented elsewhere. 'Charles of the Ritz had been doing it for years.' But Estée Lauder put her spin on sampling by giving a gift without any purchase, according to Lauder's book, 'The Company I Keep. My Life in Beauty,' which was published by Harper Business in 2020. The Lauders took their entire $50,000 advertising budget and ordered huge quantities of full-sized products and mailed invitations to every woman listed on the charge account files of each store in the Lauder distribution. Drop by and get full sized box of face powder for free. That worked so well that the concept was expanded to include sending postcards — paid for by the stores — to customers whenever Lauder opened a store. The quality of the full-sized gift and the personal touch worked like catnip. 'In every case, eager shoppers mobbed our counters — then spread throughout the main floor in a relentless tide, increasing sales on the entire floor, increasing sales by well over 100 percent. It was a win/win for both of us,' he wrote, referring to both Lauder and the retailers. Gift-with-purchase and purchase-with-purchase became the engines for holiday selling, and the Lauders mastered the game. One of the more powerful promotional strategies was Lauder's holiday blockbuster. The idea hit with such impact that some department stores reportedly used the blockbuster to kick off their seasonal merchandising attack. In analyzing the dynamics of the department store market, Lauder put the consumer at the center of the question: Who owns the customer? Lauder cited the acceleration of the pace of business for the need to have a future vision. Another driver was the ongoing wave of consolidations of not only brands but especially distribution. '[That touched off] a new war that we have to understand and that is the war as to who owns the consumer. If the beauty industry understands that they are in that war, they will be able to thrive. If they don't, that's curtains.' He then explained, 'If the manufacturers of the products own the consumer, they can put as much money as they have available into giving great product, great service, great advice and the business will thrive. However, if they give up ownership of the consumer to the retailer, as happened in the '30s with Sears Roebuck and is happening today with many of the mass retailers both in the United States and in Europe, those mass retailers will demand greater and greater margin from you because they own the consumer, and you will not have the money to invest in the product.' As an example he pointed to 'the war' in Europe between perfumery chains that were then consolidating and growing larger, demanding more margin in the process. 'They are bleeding the product and the ability of the manufacturers to drive customers into their stores,' he said in 2010. 'Our key modus operandi is that we use our money to drive consumers into our retail outlets.' When asked eight years later, in 2018, if a peace treaty had been struck, Lauder firmly said no. 'When it comes to many retailers, they truly feel they own the customer [and the sales data] because they are paying the rent,' he said, adding, 'this is a battle that simply has never been settled, and it goes on to this day.' That acuity in spotting issues was a trait that Lauder long displayed and which was first honed in his youth at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. He later served as a lieutenant in the U.S Navy, and at age 25 joined the family business fulltime in 1958. The next year, he married Evelyn Hauser, who also went to work at the company and eventually rose to senior corporate vice president. Later she founded the world renowned Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Their marriage lasted 52 years, until her death in 2011. In 2015, Lauder remarried, to Judy Glickman, who survives him. The story of the beginnings of Lauder, the company, was entrepreneurial in nature and humble in origin. First-year sales in the late '40s amounted to $50,000, 'almost all of which was eaten up by expenses,' according to Lauder's memoir. Estée Lauder began — like many industry start-ups — at the kitchen sink. Lauder recalled as a little boy watching his mother cook up facial creams. He never stopped working alongside his mother — the legend — even as the company took flight. 'Mrs. Lauder was deeply involved in the choice of the fragrances,' he recalled, 'and I did the makeup and the treatment — and advertising.' His father handled the finances. His younger brother, Ronald S. Lauder, who survives him, joined the company in 1964 and remains involved as chairman of Clinique Laboratories LLC. He retired as a board director earlier this year. Decades later, Aerin Lauder, Leonard's niece who held a top job at Lauder then left to create her own brand, remarked, 'He knew just what makes an ad speak to a woman, what makes it beautiful and, most important, how it reflects and strengthens a brand.' Those were also the yeasty days when the American beauty industry was emerging with bare knuckles flying. Competition was warfare. 'I miss the intensity,' Lauder remarked in 2010. 'I miss the hostility. I miss the competition. I miss the love of product. In the old days, earlier on, you had Elizabeth Arden competing with Helena Rubinstein. Then you had Elizabeth Arden competing with Charles Revson. Then you had Charles Revson competing with Estée Lauder. Then you had Leonard Lauder competing against L'Oréal in some areas. It was a battle, really, of founders. As those founders have moved on, you now have professional companies, and the passion between an owner and a founder and a professional manager — as much as one would like to pump that passion in — that passion for competition is different. 'However, that doesn't mean that things aren't better, because there is far more professionalism in the products today — no product can come to market until it has been tested and retested and retested again and again and again. I see a great benefit to professional management. 'But that doesn't mean I don't mind the scrappiness of the old days.' Years later, Lauder fondly recalled telling a buyer that his ambition was to rank number one in the U.S. market — then dominated by Revlon, followed by Elizabeth Arden, Helena Rubinstein and Charles of the Ritz — only to be met by skepticism from the retailer. By 1960, he began making a mark. Lauder was running the daily operations as executive vice president. In that year, the Estée Lauder company opened at Harrods in London, its first step overseas. 'We were the first American luxury cosmetics brand to enter the post-war European market,' he recalled. Now Estée Lauder's brands are sold around the globe. 'In the early '60s, I had the vision for Estée Lauder of being a multinational and multi-branded company,' he told WWD in 2010. The first turning point came with the launch of Clinique in 1968. It was a more democratic upstart, compared to the glamour-driven Lauder brand, followed by the revolutionary MAC and a host of other upstart acquisitions, some of which have worked and others that did not. 'Clinique began the transformation of Estée Lauder into the multi-national, multi-brand company I envisioned,' he wrote in his book. In the '40s and '50s, most major cosmetics companies marketed their products under a single brand name, such as Revlon, Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein. Lauder had another vision: 'I hate to use the word today,' he remarked in 1995, 'but it was in my mind then — a General Motors of cosmetics.' He continued, 'The vision is to continue to expand our brand portfolio and our offering in our field, in our space, and to continue to try to take advantage of the changing world scene.' Lauder attributed his success, in part, to a strategy of creating his own competition, rather than waiting for challengers to appear. 'I created Clinique to compete against Estée Lauder,' he wrote in his memoir. 'When we began to acquire other companies, we started with MAC and quickly followed with its polar opposite, Bobbi Brown Cosmetics. Le Mer competes against Estée Lauder's premium product, Re-Nutriv. In the hair care area, we acquired Bumble and bumble to compete with Aveda. 'What I was trying to bring about was becoming the market leader, and we've done that: we are the largest supplier of prestige cosmetics in the world and we are the dominant player in almost every prestige market, largely because of that strategy,' he wrote at the time in his book. But there was an Achilles heel — keeping your distribution in synch with your brand equity and demand. And the company stumbled with its 1979 launch of Prescriptives, which Lauder described as a super-scientific version of the Lauder brand. 'The strategic mistake I most regret was not cutting Prescriptives' distribution,' he wrote, noting that the brand was overdistributed 'by far. I wanted to cut our distribution to focus on high-end stores. But we recently had gone public and we felt that cutting sales would hurt our share price. The decision led to short-term gain but a long-term loss since we had to eventually close all the Prescriptives counters.' Through it all, the company retained its original DNA, its prestige identity, its brand-driven nature and its affinity for creative innovation — all driven by a boost of adrenaline provided by a management change in March 2009. William Lauder, who was serving as CEO, moved to executive chairman and recruited Fabrizio Freda from Procter & Gamble to become the group's CEO and president. Leonard Lauder became chairman emeritus. In a subsequent WWD interview, Freda praised a long list of corporate attributes that characterized the company, but he made clear he wanted to instill more financial discipline. During much of Freda's tenure, the company soared, particularly as sales in China and the travel retail channel accelerated exponentially. The company's stock price hit an all-time high of 351.13 in January 2022. But during the pandemic, Estée Lauder struggled and is today in turnaround mode under CEO Stéphane de La Faverie, who took the reins this January. 'Leonard Lauder was beloved by many and will be missed tremendously. To our employees at The Estée Lauder Companies, he was an inspiration and a champion,' said de La Faverie. 'To the industry, he was an icon and pioneer, earning respect worldwide. His energy and vision helped shape our company and will continue to do so for generations to come. He was a deeply compassionate leader who cared profoundly about every person in the company. I feel privileged to have worked with Leonard, who has been the best mentor I could have dreamt to learn from. He will be remembered by all of us.' As for Freda, after a few years at the company, he said, 'The most lasting lesson I learned from Leonard Lauder is that even though we live in a world where products and consumers are more and more in control, the reality is brands and companies are defined by their distribution strategies and those strategies are built on trust and relationships.' Relationships, indeed. Leonard Lauder made hand-written thank-you notes on blue cards ubiquitous. Jane Lauder, who held numerous senior positions at the company during her time there and Lauder's other niece, pointed out that when he traveled, he left a trail of thank-you messages addressed to employees and acquaintances. 'His famous notes found their way all over the world,' she said. Lauder's influence has always remained palpable. Back in the '70s and '80s, when the company was locked in a market share war with L'Oréal, he was known for his vision and maintaining a long-range viewpoint. Lauder was long known as a lifelong innovator and ground breaker, overseeing the launch of one brand after another — such as Clinique, Aramis, Lab Series Skincare for Men, Prescriptives and Origins. He also had a knack for generally picking winners to buy. During the indie boom of the '90s, he led the company through a series of key acquisitions that later proved to be building blocks of the company's future. But the company was not always on the leading edge. The '70s and '80s was the heyday of designer fragrances, but Lauder seemed to sit out the licensing game. By the '90s, Lauder said he had wished he had entered the fray sooner. 'The only thing that I regret,' he said, 'is that when the designer movement came in, I didn't overrule the family and demand that we start taking up designer names.' Lauder didn't elaborate, but he later mentioned that the company had indeed signed a contract with a fashion designer, Emanuel Ungaro, in 1970. But there was a difference of opinion involving Ungaro and Estée, on fragrance direction. 'I decided that there wasn't enough room for two very, very strong points of view.' Lauder recalled in 1995. 'So we quietly gave up the contract.' Eventually, attitudes changed with a shift of winds. A deal was signed in 1994 with Tommy Hilfiger, ushering in a new era for the company, which by 2019 boasted seven designer nameplates, including Tom Ford, Michael Kors, Donna Karan, Ermenegildo Zegna and Tory Burch, all powerful brands. While most of those licenses are now owned by other companies, the Tom Ford brand has become integral to Lauder's growth. 'Leonard was a father figure to me. We were very close friends for almost 40 years,' said Hilfiger. He was an amazing mentor to me throughout the years. We built an incredible fragrance business over the years, beginning with Tommy and Tommy Girl. 'After the success of those two, many more fragrances and perfumes followed,' Hilfiger recalled. 'It was such an exciting opportunity to work with such a phenomenal family business. 'Leonard also taught me so much about art over the years,' the designer continued. 'He was the consummate gentleman, and Evelyn was an unforgettable friend. as well. Words cannot describe how much I will miss him.' But there were changes that ran deeper than nameplates. Lauder's devotion to the prestige market meant that a different business model had to be invented. Unlike some multichannel companies like L'Oréal, which can cascade down ingredient innovations from higher-priced products to economical mass brands, thus amortizing the R&D costs, Lauder's focus was strictly on the upper market. Thus the marketing attack was organized on a horizontal basis with sister and brother brands attacking competitors shoulder to shoulder as quickly as possible. 'Everything in the Lauder organization operates on cross-fertilization,' Lauder said. 'A duty-free idea winds up in [the Lauder store] in Las Vegas. The Vegas ideas wind up at Color on Three [Bloomingdale's cosmetics counter]. These ideas will wind up in Prague or Budapest and those ideas will perhaps wind up one day in China.' This strategy was fine-tuned when it came to product development. A star example shone brightly in the early '90s during the alpha-hydroxy and salicylic acid boom. Lauder launched one such product after another in one division after another as rapidly as the labs could churn them out. 'The Lauder corporation [got] extremely high marks for being fast on its feet with the alpha-hydroxy trend,' observed Allen Burke, then divisional merchandise manager of Dayton's, Hudson's and Marshall Field's in Minneapolis. 'It was the single biggest trend to hit the market in 10 years.' Leonard Lauder once reminisced about some of the defining moments for the company. 'If I had to choose one, it was probably about 1962, when the Estée Lauder brand started to really take off,' he said. 'To see our business go ahead 45 or 50 percent per month per year was incredible. It was exhausting but incredible. That was the first major pivotal moment. The second was seeing the success of our international expansions and ventures.' The third pivotal period came when Lauder's multibrand strategy began to click, and the fourth came with the acquisition of influential, dynamic brands like MAC and Bobbi Brown and 'seeing them hit a new stride and a new era of growth,' Lauder recalled. In later decades, around 2014, the acquisition of a new wave of indie brands— like Le Labo, Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle, Kilian, Too Faced, and Glamglow — brought a new Millennial audience. Earlier acquisitions, like Smashbox, gave the company a foothold in the newly booming direct-selling market. By 2019, Lauder listed a total portfolio of 29 brands on its website. His curiosity, however, extended beyond new brands. His passport was well-worn; he was a ceaseless traveler. Lauder could just as easily be found in Hong Kong haggling with a publisher over a magazine ad placement or calmly sitting in Moscow's Red Square studying shoppers bustling by. He was the grandmaster of the prestige game and reveled in the global nature of the competition. He often said the beauty business for him was like playing 'a multidimensional game of chess. You move along one plane, which is maybe your national plane. You deal in multiple other planes, which are different nations, different continents, different brands and different channels of distribution.' That was an apt description of the kaleidoscopic mental moves required to compete on a grand scale with powerhouses like L'Oréal in Europe and Shiseido in Japan, not to mention Unilever, LVMH and Procter & Gamble. Among the elements he mastered was the power of language and Lauder chose his words carefully in giving interviews. One of his favorite sayings was, 'If you can't see the future, you can't get there. It's as simple as that.' 'Leonard Lauder literally created the prestige cosmetics business,' remarked Jane Hertzmark Hudis, executive vice president and chief brand officer at Lauder, when asked what she learned from him. 'His lessons are as meaningful today as when I started,' she said in a 2010 interview. 'Brand equity is everything and without it, nothing else matters. Protect it, cherish it — never ever let it slip away. Leonard believe(d) strongly in the power of intuition, the power of creativity and the power of a woman,' she said. That view was held by many, not the least by John Demsey, Lauder's former executive group president. 'Leonard was unquestionably one of the greatest architects in prestige beauty and has established the entire business paradigm that we live in today. Aspiration, desire, creativity, product innovation, point of sale, style and effective advertising and communication were the cornerstones of Leonard's repertoire.' 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