EXECUTIVE REALNESS Mr. JOHN DEMSEY
Estée Lauder Companies Executive Group President on Career Longevity, Authentic Engagement & Being ‘Woke’ in the Beauty Industry.
© MICHAEL AVEDON
JOHN DEMSEY is one of the most venerable business leaders in the beauty industry. As a self-proclaimed 'Creative-among-Suits' or 'Suit-among-Creatives,' Demsey oversees a host of brands at The Estée Lauder Companies including M·A·C Cosmetics, TOM FORD Beauty, Frédéric Malle, and Jo Malone London. We met one rainy afternoon in Demsey’s 40TH floor office overlooking Central Park following an evening at Tony Bennett’s former West 57th St. apartment for the Jo Malone London x Huntsman fragrance launch in New York City.
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TINSON: What was the impetus of the Jo Malone London x Huntsman fragrance collaboration?
DEMSEY: I am a huge fan of Savile Row and have a long history of going to different to Savile Row tailors from my teen years. I had bought a blazer from Huntsman because I had heard the backstory that Alexander McQueen actually began his career as a cutter at Huntsman. It so happened a dear friend of mine, Priscilla Waters (the former wife of Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters)—one of my pals from the long-forgotten disco years of New York City—was friendly with Pierre Lagrange who actually saved Huntsman from bankruptcy about five or six years ago. I met Pierre through Priscilla and he told me he wanted to do something, but didn't know what to do or how to re-position the brand. I thought the only thing that was authentic was to tie-in with Jo Malone that, like Huntsman, is also based in London. We had a development team there, so we set up the entire product group and brand president with him and we did this very organic, quick Huntsman collection. At the time, we didn’t have the full trademark access beyond the U.K., so we launched it in the U.K.
TINSON: About a year ago, correct?
DEMSEY: Yes, about a year ago. And it was a very surprising success, super fast in all the London stores. Jo Malone is not a female or male fragrance house. It's a fragrance house; We've never called out a [specific] gender. So many of our customers, you know, fragrance combine and such. We always had the ambition to have more of a statement in men’s, but how to do a “men’s statement” without calling it out? And I know a lot of women I know wear men's blazers and wear hunting boots and different types of things. We thought it was a perfect, organic connect. That's how it happened. It literally happened from knowing the house [Huntsman], having a personal connection with the guy who bought the business, setting him up with the brand in London, developing a range of products, doing some groovy content. The content went out there, women actually liked the men's content. Some men who didn't know Jo Malone all of a sudden discovered it, and it goes forward. The best things, for me, always have happened sort of by “happy accidents” or grand design and make them look like happy accidents, but that's the truth. The truth always works. A lot of my career has been based on, I hate to use the word “personality muscle,” but based on my personal outreach, our involvement with a lot of things on the ground that had proven to be competitive advantages or big successes for the company and for things that I've worked on.
TINSON: You took a ‘ground-floor’ approach in building the TOM FORD Beauty business. What’s the origin of the TOM FORD and Estée Lauder Companies Partnership?
DEMSEY: Once again, a very authentic story for me. I met Tom Ford, my god, like 16 or 17 years ago because he tried to hire me to run Yves Saint Laurent Beauté. [Ed. Note: Tom Ford was Creative Director of Yves Saint Laurent from 2000-2003.] I was in Paris and I had lunch with him—and this was before he left the Gucci Group iteration [now Kering, parent company of YSL]—and we had a lot of people that we shared as common friends. Elizabeth Saltzman is a good friend of mine and she, then a couple of other people, said that the two of us would get along. We met, and when he left Gucci Group but before he began TOM FORD…actually it was Aerin Lauder who ran into him and said, “You know, you really should talk to John.” And we had the notion at the time—this was just after the recent passing of Estée Lauder herself, a brand that was driven by a strong personality and epic eponymous brand—how to recast the story or tell the story to another generation. And we brought Tom Ford in as a collaboration model. In Those years, collaboration models weren't as widespread as they are right now. His grandmother and mother used [Estée Lauder fragrance] Youth Dew so he was inspired by the brand and created all these products. The “quid pro quo” at the time was that after the Estée Lauder chapter that we would establish Tom Ford in the beauty space. And I will tell you in those years, there weren't a lot of people who were believers that Tom Ford was going to be able to be successful as TOM FORD. There were a lot of naysayers, but it really was Leonard Lauder and William Lauder who supported me and Tom in taking that first step. And then we created Black Orchid, which was 12 years ago, and this was at the time and Tom did basically a sunglass line and basically the fragrance lineup. In full credit, when Fabrizio Freda arrived 11 years ago, you know, the amazing CEO of Estée Lauder Companies, he also saw that this was something unique and special. It was something that would solidify the company's position in the higher end, more aspirational, luxury aspect. And he moved mountains to ensure that we could get this moving. And it was a risk! It was a risk on TOM FORD’s part, it was a risk on our part. And when we started the business, which was super interesting…if I had to think about it all over again or did this by scratch, I would be probably afraid to actually even do what it is that we did.
TINSON: What was the revolutionary aspect of that particular launch that might scare you today?
DEMSEY: I thought at the time that the only way that we would be successful was to establish credibility in the category by saying something different than everybody else, day one. I was very much inspired by, actually Frédéric Malle, which is now part of our company; Le Labo, which is now part of our company; Kilian, which is now part of our company; Guerlain, you know, Maison Dior, I was very much inspired by a lot of the heritage French maisons. We began with the creation of Private Blend very much early in the development game and the idea was to invert the pyramid and to put the money in the juice and not in the marketing campaign and to focus on the service at point of sale. We talk very broad, disruptive, some would say, “polarizing,” decisions of creating some fragrances that were unique in the marketplace. So we were the first brand to make Oud a global luxury gesture; Leather; Tobacco Vanille. So, the surprise to us, we had conceived of the business when we bought it that it would be primarily a Black Orchid or eventually Tom Ford Noir business that basically was a prestige fragrance business. In reality, the size of the luxury segment was bigger in value then the more Prêt-à-Porter side. We were able to strike a flame in understanding the aspirational luxury customer in places that people don't think about: in the Middle East, Russia, Nigeria, eventually in Shanghai, places that were not the traditional market. TOM FORD revolutionized and brought back to life “designer fragrance.”
TINSON: The designer fragrance business had mostly shifted to licensing models almost exclusively, correct?
DEMSEY: Even the licensing models were less effective. And basically TOM FORD was the first [designer] fragrance brand created in the 21st century and it had an astronomical success and Tom always had the ambition also to be in beauty. We started with 12 lipsticks, done super niche, super rolled-on, and the same dynamic took place in lip, then eye, and now it’s happening in foundation and in skincare.
TINSON: Tell me about the newly launched TOM FORD Research skincare line.
DEMSEY: TOM FORD Research is truly Tom Ford's vision. He wanted to do a line of products that was backed by real ingredients, real research, and real facts. It was something that he personally worked on with the labs and the scientists actually conceiving the ingredients, and he was passionate about it. It took a non-conventional, unique point of view on it, and we're just in month three of it — we started with 2 SKUs — it was planned very conservatively and the product, I know that something successful when my phone rings and people ask me for free stuff! So I got calls from Los Angeles or London, “So, well, what is this like…cream? Like, tell me about the Ceramic Cacao. Can I have one? Can you get me one?” You know, so the swag requests started coming in…When the swag requests start coming in, you know that something more is going on.
TINSON: Do you answer those calls? Do you respond?
DEMSEY: It depends. Sometimes the wealthiest people are the cheapest people when it comes to buying for themselves. But I'm a big believer of building word of mouth and that's the way that Estée Lauder built her business…by putting the right product in the right person's hands to get the right word of mouth. And I still think in a ‘paid or influencer’ world, the old school way still stands the test of time.
TINSON: So on the topic of influencers, what does a legacy entity like Estée Lauder make of all of the seemingly never ending drops that we see on Instagram from upstart brands?
DEMSEY: My “overnight success” story in this company didn't begin until I was 42 years old. So I actually it took a long time for me to become an "overnight sensation.” It really was my M·A·C experience in the early days of that brand, in my embracing and understanding popular culture and fashion.
TINSON: And that was around ’98?
DEMSEY: Yes, 1998 to be specific. And that was really my first time to be able to drive and run the full mix in terms of what the brand is about. And once again, there were personalities behind the brand. One of the founders had passed away and the other founder had actually chosen to disengage. So arriving in a brand that was founded by the famous “two Franks” and arriving at an inflection point in 1998 where the market was inundated with a lot of makeup artistry brands. So it's not like we haven't seen this disruption before. We have seen this disruption before. And being able to conceive of and drive M·A·C . forward in terms of a cultural icon and a catalyst in the culture, which is what made the brand super successful. So going back to 1998, the brand was relatively small, relatively niche. It stopped growing. Nobody knew what to do. The number one song on the radio was TLC “Unpretty” and the line was, [“you can buy all the makeup that M·A·C can make...”] And there was the answer. I understood that the Black community was actually the pillar community and the real success of M·A·C from the early years. And that's where I went.”
TINSON: So many Black supermodels of the 1990s often remarked on how difficult it was to find a proper foundation shade backstage at runway shows, then they all had M·A·C
DEMSEY: Yes, there were many women, actually People of color because we were the first brand that actually was genderless. You know, there were many people who thought that Ru Paul was a woman.
TINSON: Yes, I remember seeing him as a kid and I thought he was just another supermodel.
DEMSEY: So, that moment and that understanding of Hip Hop culture and how that became The Culture of record for the white kids, the Spanish kids, the Black kids, the Japanese kids, the European kids, I was super lucky because that was the moment. So the late 1990s, there was an O-G hip hop moment and M·A·C was ground zero of all that activity. That was really super lucky and we expanded from that.
TINSON: You were at the forefront of including Lil Kim, Mary J, Missy Elliot, Eve in M·A·C Cosmetics campaigns…the list goes on and on, Lady Gaga, Rihanna before the creation of Fenty Beauty. Did you have any internal pushback or pushback from the market before their respective successes in the beauty space were proven since these were individuals typically ignored or not considered “traditionally beautiful” by the beauty industry writ large.
DEMSEY: If it had been happening to today, there would've been pushback because the business is so large that people get would be nervous. I never asked anybody's opinion. In general, I'm always respectful and I am zoned in the data and in the consumer insights and in the culture, but I still believe in taking risks. If you're not taking risks, you're not moving forward. And I guess in the past couple of years we didn't do the bold moves that should have taken place. Drew Elliott [newly appointed M·A·C Cosmetics Creative Director] Is the first bold move. It's a conversation starter, so watch that dial. And I have an amazing guy Philippe Pinatel who's the brand lead around the world. The hardest part, or the easiest part, is for much of my career I had to drive it myself and get people to believe myself. And when you get a more portfolio “corporate job” you have to work through and influence others who don't have the same…
TINSON: Foresight?
DEMSEY: Foresight, yes, or quite honestly sometimes they inform you to have a different foresight. I'm very open to having people that other people are uncomfortable with or would find challenging to their success or status quo. I want strong people who agree or don't agree with me because they're zoned in doing the right things, not by stone or what I want them to do. That's a unique characteristic of me and it's worked for me. Different things work for different people. For me, I believe if you're focused on the customer and know what your brand is and what your brand is not, if you focus on that, regardless of what life or the competition brings, for the long haul you'll be successful.
TINSON: So what's different about today than even five years ago?
DEMSEY: There was an article that was written in The New York Times a couple of months ago that basically talks about the world before the internet, AOL dial up days on the phone, and how the iPhone is 10 years old. And Instagram didn't exist! Fundamentally, connectivity and the digitization of content, and retail, and branding, and influence started creeping into the general psyche or way that things are done in the last five years. It's gone into hyper-overdrive, and in the last 12 months it's gotten super-charged with highs and lows, and changes in terms of algorithms and monetization of influencer channels, and questions in terms of authenticity and generationally what's going on. So there's definitely a dramatic shift in terms of how people learn about things, how people consume media, how brands are built, how things are sold. And it's um, disruptive. There's no question about it. And either you adapt and change and see what's happening, or you'll be left behind. Even seeing what happened in the music industry this past summer with Lil Nas X and TikTok. I'm lucky that I have a built-in insurance policy in my 11 yr old daughter! She’s a VSCO girl, not a Euphoria girl…A VSCO girl, which is not great for the makeup business, but I'd rather she be a VSCO girl and jump into a Spice Girl later [laughs, end “dad joke”] or I don't know where it's going, we’ll see. And I have a 28 year old niece and I watch her and see and I see that it is really different. And the shopping is really different, and the branding is hyper-localized and the values are super polarizing and super influential. For me, a guy who used to love to travel around the world and try to turn on local MTV channels and look at celebrity tabloids and magazines, you could stay in bed all day and go down the rabbit hole.
TINSON: You're quite prolific on Instagram.
DEMSEY: Yes, I’m manic and compulsive on Instagram.
TINSON: With quite the sense of humor.
DEMSEY: Actually, I do it because I just find it therapeutic and fun. I never did it for anyone to follow me at all. And people tell me how much they enjoy it. I was told to clean it up a bit. I do have sort of a public persona, so…so the dirty words don't show up very much. I don't use the F word even though that's the name of a Tom Ford fragrance
TINSON: Censored in a few markets…
DEMSEY: And I do now stop if I re-gram something and think, ‘will this hurt somebody's feelings’ or ‘will this be viewed in the wrong way to somebody?’ And I have canceled something or put it back. So I will, but I will because there is the tale of unintended consequences. Some things are blindly stupid that are done, some things are culturally indifferent or arrogant.
TINSON: And blindspots…
DEMSEY: But there are things that are a helluva lot funny, and I think in today's world people are afraid to say what they're thinking because they're afraid of being shamed or being wrong or being on the wrong side of the issue. And I never want to be on the wrong side of anything. But at the same time there are things that are funny and things that I would love. I like reposting dance videos. I think the dance videos are just super fun. But actually if you slow down and listen to the lyrics of the dance songs, there are many four letter words that are super inappropriate if taken out of context and can be viewed as sexist or racist…[redacted] Where do we draw the line? Where does a brand draw the line? And if you draw the line, are you opting out of the culture? And it's super tricky right now because you know, brands can't be sexy now because being sexy is not right, but Tom Ford [the brand] is overtly sexy. There is this very strange gaze that we're in right now because human aspirations remain the same. People want to feel good. People want to feel empowered and attractive and they want to belong and people want to laugh in and sometimes end in the tale of unintended consequences. SOmeone explained to me two weekends ago what it meant to be ‘woke.’ And they said to me, actually, that I was maybe the “O-G of Woke Beauty.” And I said, well, what do you mean by that? And they sort if started going through like, well what ‘woke’ meant in the culture and what does it mean to be ‘woke in fashion or in beauty’ and what does it mean when we were talking about the GQ issue with the whole thing of what's the new masculinity or what does it even ‘woke' in terms of gender, color, and the whole thing is just like everything is under a re-frame, everything is a different way of looking at it. I hadn't really thought about it, but in reality, in the culture what's ‘woke’ and ‘not woke’ some place and being an executive in a big Fortune 500 company where we're zoned in, you know, sophisticated marketing techniques and consumer insights and data and such, understanding that or understanding something that people don't say it's a huge thing. THE more people I started talking to, and I started going down on the age continuum, the more I understood that that's actually a huge issue, and that it's funny, generationally, up until about four or five years ago…Actually, back in the day, in the sixties and seventies you didn't want to be like your parents, right? We went through a period of time when everybody wanted to be the twin of their parents, so girls wanted to dress like their mother. They wore matching outfits, they had the same makeup, they had the same handbags, they had the same hairstyles. Everything was sort of like in this, “we're all the same generation or just an attitude, not a demographic” and now all of this sudden people don't want to be like their parents.
TINSON: Or the parents want to look like the children!
DEMSEY: Also true. So there’s a reference point shifts. There's a lot of disruption. There are a lot of influencers. What's a brand? What's a channel?What's content? How do you see it? How do you get seen? How do you break through the clutter? What's American? What's global? What is niche? Is mass the new niche? Is niche the new mass? Ask all of these big questions and for every thing that's successful, there's something that's 180 degrees the opposite of what that is that will be successful, not being that! What you don't want to be is caught in the middle. I think today standing for something or some where or some purpose matters because consumption for consumption sake has been commoditized. One thing that the internet does on very good job of is matching buyers and sellers and products and search terms and aggregating price. And in a world where all the disintermediation is taking, how do you exist in the prestige luxury business where people feel you're worth the price? It's not just strictly about, ‘I'm only in this magazine, or sold in that store…’ because the digital space is ubiquitous and everybody can see or not see. So it's fundamentally challenged the old paradigm. So in the age of influence, which has become the age of influencer, I guess, what's the post, what's the post and state of the new influencer reality that's still being written?
TINSON: Who influences John, let's say from a style or grooming perspective?
DEMSEY: My style icon died yesterday. Robert Evans was my style icon.
TINSON: Any particular moment?
DEMSEY: ‘The Kid Stays in the Picture,’ the Hollywood legacy piece, the Ali MacGraw years. You know, everybody's defined by the decade where you grew up. I grew up in my late teens in the 70s, so it will forever be my reference point the same way my parents' point was the forties, the same way that my daughter's reference point will be the 2010s, or my niece the 1990s. So every era, what do you, listen to in music, and what you watch, you see it through that lens. So I will forever have that lens. I can't, and what I, you never really realize is that every generation is kind of our reboot of another generation, right? So the miniskirt of the 60s came from the flappers of the 20s in the 30s. The disco era of the 70s was a bit rooted in the 40s, Zoot suits and the flamboyance of another era; The denim thing came from the worker, industrialization, but every era comes from something else. Or today, now people talk about Missy Elliott in 1997 as if it's from the history books. Or people talk about those, and it’s inappropriate today to talk about, the…“Ghetto Fabulous” years…
TINSON: The nomenclature has moved away from…
DEMSEY: Yes, but that was the term that was used in the late nineties with that squad, right? All those inappropriate fur coats, and all that jewelry, and all that unadulterated glam…
TINSON: Maybe with a M·A·C “Spice” lip liner.
DEMSEY: And Lip Glass…a supper glossy lip! People are interested again. So, yes, the terminologies are wrong and have since changed, but the mood is the same. Everything old is new again. There is something in the culture that switches. Even going to the Tommy Hilfiger show this year and sitting there and just thinking 'this is totally what I remember.’ I remember going up to Harlem, this is totally like all those…I want to see the new Eddie Murphy movie, by the way…
TINSON: Dolemite is My Name.
DEMSEY: Yes, it’s one of my reference points, so I’m very much influenced by The Culture™. In my youth I was also inspired by Andy Warhol and The Factory.
TINSON: What were you listening to then? And dancing to?
DEMSEY: I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and in those years the radio signal from Detroit which was the Motown sound was what I listened to. And those were the years that people still participated in payola, they paid off the disc jockeys. So certain cities had certain music and other cities didn't have the music. So I always liked the Motown sound and the Philadelphia sound. Cleveland was WMMS, which was where Rock & Roll started, that's why the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is there. So I listened to David Bowie's first American performance in Cleveland. And I was listening to The Stones, The Temptations, The Supremes. I was never a [Grateful] “Dead Head.” I sort of defined my definition of what fits or doesn't fit is, either you're a dead head or you're not. I'm not a dead head. So, I don't get it. I just, I get it, but I don't get it. and I grew up with a bunch of “dead heads” and I didn't really…so, I don't know if a dead head would be as successful at doing what I do because THE dead head just goes to a different place.
TINSON: You mentioned becoming an “overnight success” at 42. What advice would you give your 30 to 40 year old self today?
DEMSEY: Take it easy. Focus on what you love and what you're passionate about and don't get sidelined by what other people think, or people telling you what you should be doing. Sometimes the “conventional path” is the wrong path. If I ended up with the job that I thought I should have at 25 years old, I wouldn't have had the life experience or the series of events that made me more successful because I ended up having to do it from the ground up and doing it in a different way. Especially when you're fortunate to have a good education or have access to things, sometimes that's a gift, and sometimes that's a curse because sometimes you don't understand the hustle and what it takes. And I believe that I didn't really fully understand how important the hustle is growing up and actually having to put your all into it rather than just your career plan that goes step, by step, by step…so, that’s the advice I give everyone, it doesn't matter where you start, it matters that you get the right experience.
FIN.
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DEMSEY’S FASHION CREDITS AT THE TIME OF OUR INTERVIEW:
SUIT: Michael Brown Bespoke (formerly of Savile Row’s Chittleborough & Morgan)
SHIRT: TOM FORD Bespoke
TIMEPIECE: Omega Speedmaster 50th ANNIVERSARY Apollo Moon Landing
POCKET SQUARE: “Fresh out of the box from Charvet”
SHOES: “Custom Berluti”
SOCKS: [Kelly Green] “Also Berluti”
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DEMSEY oversees Estée Lauder Companies brands including Clinique, M·A·C Cosmetics, TOM FORD Beauty, Jo Malone London, Smashbox, Prescriptives, Lab Series Skincare for Men, Ermenegildo Zegna, Michael Kors, Tommy Hilfiger, Donna Karan, and Kiton, as well as the Company’s recently acquired brands, Too Faced Cosmetics, BECCA, By Kilian, GLAMGLOW, Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle, Le Labo, and RODIN Olio Lusso.