THE PROSPECT of receiving a sack full of goodies is sometimes enough of a reason to attend a Hong Kong PR event. Scoring a designer leather passport holder is almost worth enduring 60 minutes of excruciating talk about grades of Italian leather over lunch. Showing up at a cocktail party is not too soul-destroying a chore if you come away with a 50 ml bottle of the latest must-smell perfume, compliments of your host.
A couple of weeks ago, a jewel-toned invitation arrived bearing the marketing haiku: 'Splendour. Opulence. Brilliance. Estee Lauder.' Instead of a bag brimming with freebies, this particular PR luncheon was using live bait: an appearance by one Aerin Lauder.
For readers not addicted to American Vogue, allow me to explain. Aerin Lauder is the 28-year-old granddaughter of Estee Lauder (the founder of the prestigious US cosmetics line), the niece of Leonard Lauder (company CEO) and daughter of Ronald Lauder (company chairman and former Austrian ambassador). In the two years since she became Estee Lauder's director of creative product development, hardly a month has passed without her impressively manicured image gracing the glossy, perfumed pages of Vogue, Elle or Harper's Bazaar: 'Aerin in a fairy-tale de la Renta gown marrying Erin Zinterhofer at her parents' Long Island estate!' 'Aerin in a Bill Blass evening dress at a party at the Met!' Along with the flawlessly turned-out Miller sisters and rich girl-turned-novelist Marina Rust, Lauder is a fixture on the young New York society scene, a proud member of the Prada-razzi and a regular on the annual best-dressed, best-tressed and most-seriously trust-funded lists.
And yet unlike a certain tribe of Manhattan rich that lives for lunches at La Goulue or its thrice-weekly Pilates class at AB, Lauder is a dedicated career girl, or so her company bio says. It hardly matters that she manoeuvred seamlessly from lowly communications undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania into a top-level position at the family biz - or even that she conveniently created the executive job for herself. It's not as though she snatched a job away from a more qualified candidate, say, a Harvard MBA or someone with a decade of relevant experience. Lauder, you see, is not just another cosmetics industry executive churning out 'make-up stories' with names like 'First Blush' and 'Wild Lilacs'. She's a much rarer commodity: a company spokes-heiress.
The first thing you learn when you meet Lauder is that her 'natural look' takes a suspiciously long time to finesse. We've just feasted on duck and candied pears at a Grand Hyatt lunch thrown in her honour, and now she has retreated to a private suite for a fresh coat of paint before interviews begin. After some 20 minutes, the assembled fashion editors - all dressed in black, courtesy of the Joyce sale - and I are starting to tap our feet. Finally one of the slick, New York marketing suits emerges to announce that Lauder is ready for her close-ups.
For all the attention by a local make-up artist, Lauder looks exactly as she looked 20 minutes ago - her pretty, aristocratic face a subtle palette of pinks and browns. 'Usually, I like to do my make-up myself,' she says. 'I hate it when some one gives me a strong lip.' Fortunately, her lip today is weak and she's beautifully put together in a white Ralph Lauren trouser-suit and lilac suede mules from Manolo Blahnik ('My one weakness,' Lauder coos).
