Karen Graham - The "Estee Lauder Woman" (1970-1985)

The "Estee Lauder Woman" (1970-1985)

Her status as a legendary model was set, however, with the Estee Lauder advertising campaign. The company began employing her intermittently in 1970 and 1971 to appear in their print ads, and she worked with Chicago photographer Victor Skrebneski. She was employed so frequently that by 1973, she became Estee Lauder's exclusive spokesmodel. It was a job she would do for the rest of the decade, appearing in print and television ads that presented her in tasteful, elegant, generously appointed tableaux - a parlor, a drawing room, a veranda - to represent the high-class image the Estee Lauder company created for itself.

In these ads, Graham was never identified by name, which Estee Lauder herself frankly admitted was deliberate. Mrs. Lauder did not want to dilute attention on the product by focusing more attention on the model in the ads. Many people, unfamiliar with the fashion and modeling world, thought Graham was, in fact, Mrs. Lauder. Ironically, the ads were a reflection of Mrs. Lauder's own idea of a woman of taste and sophistication. Skrebneski was happy to oblige, decorating his sets with Chinese vases, Pablo Picasso ceramics, and well-stocked bookshelves. Because the Lauder company aimed its products at upper-income women, at expensive prices, the ads had to project luxury. Various props were used - dolls, horses, and, curiously, a framed photograph of Nicholas II, the last czar of Russia, in a 1981 ad. The ad campaigns were mainly meant to project traditional, Old World elegance. A stunning exception was an ad campaign for the Lauder company's "Swiss age-controlling skincare program," in which Skrebneski photographed Graham standing among edged cylinders in a futuristic tableau and wearing her hair back, adorned with what looked like a plastic stereo headset and worn as if it were a space-age tiara.