Over the Top: Helena Rubinstein, , Extraordinary Style, Beauty, Art, Fashion, and Design

This lavishly illustrated volume opens a window into the world of one of the most extravagant and wide-ranging stylemakers of the last century, a pioneer of the cosmetics industry who was also celebrated for the daring and prescience of her art collecting, her home decoration, and her personal couture. Four hundred glorious images—many never-published before—and a meticulously researched text, including 16 essays by renowned experts in the fields of art and interior design, authoritatively trace the public and private life of Helena Rubinstein.

Rubinstein’s bold and influential flair for decor—sleekly modern at times, and at other times a wildly eclectic sampling from different eras—was showcased globally in her beauty salons and in her glamorous residences in New York, Paris, and the South of France. On these projects, “Madame” worked with prominent architects and designers such as Donald Deskey, Paul Frankl, Erno Goldfinger, David Hicks, and Louis Süe. An astute patron, she invested in artworks by the luminaries of Parisian bohemia just as they began their ascent; her vast collection included African art, tapestries by Picasso and Rouault, paintings by Degas, Dufy, Matisse, Miró, Modigliani, and Monet, murals by Dalí, sculptures by Nadelman and Brancusi. Her striking instinct for fashion (she wore Worth and Poiret at first, and Balenciaga and St. Laurent 60 years later) and her famous overscaled jewelry kept her in the public eye, decade after decade. 

Suzanne Slesin is the author of over 20 books on style and home furnishings, and has been published in numerous international design magazines. She is the founder, publisher, and editorial director of Pointed Leaf Press.