Maximum Beauty Overload:Estée Lauder Pulls OutAll The Stops At Bloomingdale's

"Who's coming? The Queen?" a typically jaded New Yorker asked nobody in particular in response to the growing crowd on Bloomingdale's cosmetics floor.
"Gwyneth Paltrow," was the swift response, and the blasé shopper suddenly perked up, immediately understanding that the impending crowd frenzy was perfectly justified, rendering Gwyneth more important than a fusty, old Monarch.
It would otherwise have been just another sleepy July evening at 59th & Lex if the PR folks at Estée Lauder hadn't decided to bump up their promotional efforts a notch or three to launch their new fragrance, Sensuous. "Why have just one of our models make a personal appearance when we can have all four at once?" some executive must have thought, which is no mean feat when your stable of famous faces is led by an Oscar Winner coming off the biggest box-office hit of her career.
A casual visitor to the store would have found an unusually heavy presence of fragrance models dressed in identical white and purple blouses eagerly distributing matching scented ribbons (the latest alternative to a spritz in the face), while campaign images of the models were placed in every available space in the cosmetics department. Shortly before the 6:30 showtime, eager visitors assembled around the front of the department, while other shoppers were alternately annoyed or intrigued, and Bloomingdale's many tourists were simply bewildered. Surely, activity would be centered around the jewelry balcony which had been set up for signings with a table and four stools. Of course, when La Paltrow, Elizabeth Hurley, Carolyn Murphy and Hilary Rhoda serenely but punctually glided through the main floor, looking as gorgeous as humanly possible amid cheers and flashbulbs, they settled on a press photo area next to the escalators, shielded from much of the floor, causing more crowd swooning and frenzied scrambling. Of course, they would have to make their way through the crowd again to the balcony, and yet somehow they magically reappeared in place on their stools as the press photographers aggressively shoved their ways through the mere fans to get prime spots on the unfortunately (for them) descending steps. Perhaps Supermodels really do have special powers.
Now seated, the quartet was introduced by a Lauder exec: Hilary, "our newest"; Gwyneth, "our Oscar winning superstar" (every cosmetics brand has one these days); Carolyn, "our Grace Kelly" and Elizabeth, "our longest standing model who has been with us for thirteen years, and whom we would love to have for thirteen more." Hurley quickly accepted the offer, no doubt calculating that it would bring her to her 56th year, a ripe age for a cosmetics spokesperson, especially when compared to the dewy 21 year old Hilary Rhoda. "I'll take it," she must have thought.
And so the tranquil team of beauties remained smiling but virtually silent and went about the business of autographing new perfume boxes for 200 early bird customers in line from the balcony to the upper reaches of the men's department downstairs as PR troops from Lauder and Bloomingdale's fluttered about, keeping a firm hand on the proceedings.
And an expert fragrance launch was completed, capping off a controversial 40 pages devoted to the four women in the July Harper's Bazaar. The four are estimated to have spurred $30,000 of perfume sales that evening. What does the fragrance smell like, after all?
We can't really remember. It seems so beside the point now.