By day, Florence Graham ran a fashionable Fifth Avenue salon. By night, she worked as a manicurist to pay for it.
None of that was supposed to happen. With $1,000 and a business partner, Elizabeth Hubbard, Graham opened her first salon in 1910 as reported by the Library of Congress. Not long after the doors opened, the two fell out and Hubbard walked away, which left Graham responsible for the rent.
According to Encyclopedia.com, she kept her dream alive by taking out a $6,000 loan from her brother and booking after-hours manicure appointments. Life in the big city was uncharted territory for the Ontario native, who was born the youngest of five children in 1884. Still, her drive to succeed far outweighed her fear, keeping her focused on expanding her enterprise.
Before she tried her hand at the beauty industry, Graham was a nursing student who found herself drawn to learning about the lotions used to treat burns, according to Biography. She followed up her schooling with a secretarial job before moving to the Big Apple where she met Hubbard.
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Cosmetics entrepreneur Elizabeth Arden in a make-up testing laboratory, 25th August 1965. (Photo by Potter/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)Graham and Hubbard entered the beauty business together and named their new partnership Elizabeth Arden, strategically branding their business as a “salon” to appeal to Fifth Avenue’s high-society clientele. The sophisticated positioning worked, helping the red door brand quickly gain traction among influential local women.
After the dissolution of her partnership with Hubbard in 1914, Graham adopted the same name as her business as its face. The strategy paid off.
She opened a second salon in Washington, D.C. According to Biography, her products had expanded into international markets by 1915. Salon locations in London and Paris followed in 1921 and 1922, respectively, while shipments of her beauty line reached customers as far as South America and Australia.
View this post on InstagramThe flagship was the first to offer travel-sized products, and in 1930, her Eight Hour® Cream was introduced to the world, according to the brand’s official website. In 1946, Arden was the first businesswoman to be featured on the cover of TIME Magazine.
Additionally, Elizabeth Arden aligned her growing brand with women’s empowerment. She joined thousands of women demanding the right to vote. To create a striking visual statement of unity, Arden gave marchers bright red lipstick to wear. Decades later, her commitment to women in uniform endured, leading her to formulate custom cosmetic collections designed specifically for female military personnel, per Biography.
Elizabeth Arden- receives Arlington Futurity trophy from Benjamin Lindheimer, Bettman/Getty ImagesThe LOC reported that, beyond building a beauty empire, Arden lived a colorful personal life marked by high-society romance and a passion for thoroughbred racing. Though her marriages to Thomas Jenkins Lewis and Prince Michael Evlanoff both ultimately ended in divorce, Arden found an enduring love on the racetrack. An accomplished horsewoman and racing enthusiast, she took the equestrian world by storm in 1947 when her prized thoroughbred, Jet Pilot, won the Kentucky Derby.
Graham died in 1966 at age 81. In 1971, five years after her death, pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Company acquired the business for $38 million. It resold the brand to Fabergé in 1987 for $657 million, and the company has changed hands several times since, landing in 2016 as a Revlon subsidiary.
The name Graham adopted for a struggling salon still appears on skincare, makeup, and fragrance products today. All of it began with $1,000 and the determination to make it on her own.
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