Becoming Elizabeth Arden, Stacy A. Cordery
Becoming Elizabeth Arden, Stacy A. Cordery
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Becoming Elizabeth Arden
The Woman Behind the Global Beauty Empire

Author: Stacy A. Cordery

Narrator: Tavia Gilbert

Unabridged: 14 hr 57 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 09/03/2024


Synopsis

A sweeping biography of one of the most influential and successful business-women in American history, BECOMING ELIZABETH ARDEN opens the Red Door to a world of wealth, glamor, and the profitable business of beauty

Elizabeth Arden was a household name on six continents and a millionaire several times over before her death in 1966. Arden counted British royalty and social elites from the overlapping worlds of New York, Hollywood, London, and Paris among her clients. She revolutionized skin care and cosmetics, making it acceptable for all women to embrace glamour and wear makeup—not just actresses and prostitutes. She created a successful international business empire before women gained the vote and at a time when virtually no woman owned or ran a national company. She developed the first luxury spa and insisted on a holistic understanding of health and beauty. Unconventional and driven, Arden fervently believed that every woman could be beautiful.

Acclaimed biographer Stacy Cordery does full justice to one of America’s greatest entrepreneurs. Canadian-born Florence Nightingale Graham turned herself into Elizabeth Arden, using her uncanny sense of the possible to take full advantage of everything New York City offered, building her company and becoming one with her brand. In an astounding rags-to-riches tale, Elizabeth Arden came to personify sophistication and refinement. Her hard work and innovation made makeup, fitness, and style not only acceptable but de rigueur. Arden prospered throughout the Depression, reimagined women’s needs during two World Wars, and by pioneering new approaches to marketing and advertising, ushered beauty into the modern era. Cordery delivers a compelling picture of a modern CEO whose career provides a model for aspiring businesses to this day.

About The Author

Stacy A. Cordery, Ph.D., is the author of Alice: Alice Roosevelt Longworth, from White House Princess to Washington Power Broker, Juliette Gordon Low: The Remarkable Founder of the Girl Scouts, and two books about Theodore Roosevelt.  Cordery is a professor of History at Iowa State University in Ames.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Debbie on January 02, 2025

I learned more about the beauty and cosmetics industry of the twentieth century when reading Becoming Elizabeth Arden than about the woman herself. In fairness, the biography did delve quite deep into Arden’s life: how she was from a small town in Ontario, Canada, without formal education beyond mid......more

Goodreads review by Katie on December 18, 2024

I loved this book! Not much of a makeup wearer myself, I wasn’t sure id be super excited about this, but I was pleasantly surprised! Arden was a very influential woman, an entrepreneur when women weren’t supposed to be, and so very creative with both her makeup and her branding! I loved that the aut......more

Goodreads review by Andrea on November 25, 2024

What an incredible woman! The book is a little long and yet it was fun to take a ride through the decades from 1930 to current times, learning about the influence Arden had on our American culture. The book chronicles the changes in American women as they become more independent, especially after WW......more

Goodreads review by Dorothy on January 03, 2025

I picked this up at our local library imaging that it might have something to say about America's obsession with female beauty—and it did, but not what I hoped. Written and researched well but I came away wishing that the writer had told us a bit more about the person behind the personae. Maybe ther......more

Goodreads review by Chloe on December 02, 2024

A very interesting book and I learned so much. I didn’t know much about Elizabeth Arden but was intrigued by the title of the book and was amazed by how much she had transformed the beauty business. Her intricate attention to detail and ability to trend set was amazing. The book was quite dense but......more


Quotes

The detailed insight into [Arden’s] business practices—including how she framed her treatments as a gateway to the elite—intrigues. Beauty buffs will be rapt.
Publisher's Weekly

A lusciously long and lively biography . . . Cordery makes a convincing case that Arden was responsible for many of the innovations taken for granted in the beauty industry today. As beguiling as a day of luxury beauty treatments.
—Kirkus