Rouge: A Novel of Beauty and Rivalry. Richard Kirshenbaum. St. Martin’s Press. June, 2019; pb, 320 pp.; ISBN #: 9781250150950.
Two beauty industry icons
are at war in both personal and entrepreneur affairs. They are Josephine Herz and Constance
Gardiner. So what does it take to rise
to such a level of rivalry and glamor?
This is their story, which includes their amazing ideas about beauty
that went beyond popular ideas of how women could dress in the most attractive
style possible and wear a fragrance to enchant everyone around the wearer.
Josephine Herz is out to
offer beauty salons where one could get a full-day spa treatment that would
enhance one’s skin and hair appearance.
Her goal was to make women feel like royalty and to attract higher-end
customers in society’s eyes. She always
hired the most talented staff including the African-American assistant, CeeCee,
who stayed with her as brilliant aide and lover, until an ultimate betrayal
(since being homosexual was illegal during the 1930s in America). CeeCee then moved her talents to the
competition.
Constance Gardiner’s
business began with door-to-door saleswomen who were enabled to become their
own part-time businesswomen, earning up to 40% profit. They were highly skilled and trained sales
personnel who knew how to make every housewife gradually open up to exposing
what they had and what they needed.
Ultimately, they were convinced that the pretty colors and colorful
shades of makeup would give them that extra “something” that would enliven
their marriages or lovers.
Each woman was ashamed of
her origins and Josephine tortured by her failure to extract one sister from
war-torn Poland. Constance always wanted
to be more than she was and defied the era’s anti-Semitic tendencies. Pride and ego were everything and kept them
moving forward despite the weaknesses they displayed in their choice of aides,
friends and lovers.
Both women open salons
around the world and monitor their success and occasional flaws. After Josephine dies, the Gardiner business
sues for a stolen mascara product – a la CeeCee – but in the end, Constance has
to admit that their rivalry was actually a parallel journey to be toasted in
victory!!!!
Richard Kirshenbaum has
crafted an account of the best and worst in the lives of the beauty icons of
the early twentieth century, sparkling with descriptions of their virtues and
vices, their friends and rivals, their brilliant discoveries and their hatred
of the competition’s successful development.
It’s a grand read which would make a phenomenal movie. For those who love style, fashion, business,
makeup, salons, and more, enjoy the dramatic ride of Rouge….
