Items26The creator’s order
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Madam C. J. WalkerBorn 23 Dec 1867Born to formerly enslaved parents and orphaned young, Walker worked as a laundress before selling hair products for Annie Turnbo Malone. Her own company, based in Indianapolis from 1910, combined manufacturing with a sales force of trained agents and beauty schools, so growth came from thousands of…0i - 2
Helena RubinsteinBorn 25 Dec 1872Rubinstein left Kraków for Australia, where she began selling a face cream in Melbourne in the early 1900s, and went on to open salons in London, Paris and New York. Her model mixed treatment salons, which gave the products scientific authority, with department store distribution. Her rivalry with…0i - 3
Coco ChanelChanel's first millinery shop in Paris was funded by her lover Arthur "Boy" Capel, which is a reminder that capital often came from somewhere. She turned it into a couture house, and the business really scaled through perfume: Chanel No. 5, made and sold under a 1924 deal with the Wertheimer…0i - 4
Rose BlumkinBorn 3 Dec 1893Rose Blumkin arrived in the US from Russia with no English and opened Nebraska Furniture Mart in an Omaha basement in 1937 with 500 dollars. Her rule was to sell cheap and tell the truth, and when rival dealers took her to court for undercutting fixed prices, she won. Warren Buffett bought most of…0i - 5
Estée Lauder (businesswoman)The daughter of immigrants in Queens, Lauder learned skin creams from her chemist uncle and co-founded her company with her husband Joseph in 1946. Counters in prestige department stores, free samples and a gift with purchase were the model, and later brands such as Clinique and acquisitions such…0i - 6
Beate Uhse-RotermundBorn 25 Oct 1919A former Luftwaffe test pilot left widowed after the war, Uhse began by selling a leaflet on contraception to women in northern Germany in the late 1940s. That grew into a mail-order business for marital aids and then, in 1962 in Flensburg, what is often called the world's first sex shop. She…0i - 7
Ruth HandlerBorn 4 Nov 1916Handler co-founded Mattel with her husband Elliot and Harold Matson in a Los Angeles garage in 1945. She ran the business side, made the bold call to advertise toys on television year-round through the Mickey Mouse Club, and pushed through the Barbie doll in 1959 over objections from colleagues.…0i - 8
Mary Kay AshAfter decades in direct sales, Ash quit when a man she had trained was promoted over her, and in 1963 started Mary Kay Cosmetics in Dallas with 5,000 dollars of savings and her son Richard Rogers running the finances. The model was direct selling through independent beauty consultants, motivated by…0i - 9
Lillian Vernon (businesswoman)Born 18 Mar 1927Pregnant and working from her kitchen table in Mount Vernon, New York, Vernon placed a 495-dollar advertisement in Seventeen magazine in 1951 offering personalised handbags and belts, using money she had received as wedding gifts. Monogramming became the business's hook, the catalogue grew into one…0i - 10
Rosalía MeraBorn 28 Jan 1944Mera left school at eleven to work as a seamstress in A Coruña, met Amancio Ortega at a shirtmaker's and co-founded the business that became Zara with him in 1975, working on its early production and workshops. After their divorce she kept a stake in Inditex that made her Spain's richest woman, and…0i
