Inside ELLE's Biggest Beauty Moments, According to 2 Former Editors

Elle

18-07-2025

Over the decades, ELLE has always celebrated beauty in all its forms, from groundbreaking cover moments like Rihanna's heart-shaped makeup in October 2017, marking the debut of Fenty Beauty, to viral stories like 'The Truth About Crème de la Mer.' As we reminisce about some of our favorites, we also wanted to go behind the scenes of how it all happened. So we spoke with two previous beauty directors: Jean Godfrey-June, who worked at the magazine from 1994–2000, and Emily Dougherty, who served as beauty director for close to 20 years, beginning in 2002. Along with a selection of memorable covers from each decade, here's what they remember about working at ELLE, including sharing offices with a Kennedy, lunches with French movie stars, hiking African mountains, and the haircut that made people steal the cover of the magazine right off the newsstand. What was your most memorable beauty event?
Jean Godfrey-June: Hermès once invited us out to New Jersey, and everybody was like, 'New Jersey?!' A car brought us to a forest, and we got in carriages draped with Hermès Rocabar blankets, which brought us up through the hills. It was late fall, smelled like fire, and the sun was setting behind the trees. Actors in costume jumped out of the darkness to whisper to us about the different ingredients in the Rocabar scent.
At the top of the hill, there were ancient stables from God knows when, all beautifully tiled. Hermès had made a table that ran the length of the stables, and they had hand-carved, not just the plates and platters and saucers for the dinner, but every fork and knife, too—all out of wood.
The other one I really remember was when Gucci (during the Tom Ford era) came out with [the] Rush [perfume], and we were invited to an event at the Carlyle. I was directed up to a room, where I assumed there would be lots of PR people and a presentation—the usual fragrance event. Instead, I walk in, and there was just Tom Ford, sitting there on the bed. He patted it and said, 'Come sit next to me.' We talked about perfume, the feeling of a rush, and sex, of course. It was definitely one of the sexiest experiences I've had that didn't involve actual sex.
Emily Dougherty: Oh, there have been so many pinch-me moments. My stories would be re-published in ELLEs around the world, so I was often the only U.S. editor invited to global launches.
For the launch of Alien, Mugler flew us on military transport from Cairo to the Siwa Oasis. We stayed at the base Adrère Amellal, a mountain where, at the very top, according to the brand, Alexander the Great was rumored to have been buried, and where one could find mysterious runes that inspired the letters cut into each bottle of Alien. We were given small silver amphoras filled with orange flower water to splash on our dusty hands and feet, and stayed in buildings made of translucent salt bricks that, lit only by candlelight, would flicker like fireflies.
On the last day, I climbed to the top of the mountain before the sun rose. I didn't find Alexander's tomb or any runes, but I did find a petrified sand dollar the size of a salad plate, a reminder of the ancient Miocene sea, dry for seven million years. And rather than ship back the giant perfume factices—each over a foot tall—Mugler gave them to whomever would bring one home. So I carried the enormous purple crystal under my arm, like a model in a perfume ad, all the way back to the states. What were some of your favorite covers?
ED: There are so many! But the first one I remember that really made an impact was a 2005 Heidi Klum cover. She has bleached hair and blunt bangs. People were ripping the cover off of ELLE in drugstores across the country to take to their hairstylist. They weren't even buying the issue. It really showed how powerful a haircut can be. What were the ELLE offices like?
JGJ: [They had] unbelievable views, and JFK Jr. popping up from George downstairs to gossip. The scent of vetiver, Gilles Bensimon's [the former International Creative Director of ELLE] signature fragrance, that I could smell the second he got off the elevator. I'd be like, 'He's here, guys.' Le Bernardin was a block away, so that was the very glamorous cafeteria. I once had lunch there with Gilles and Catherine Deneuve—I don't know why he included me, but he did—and I just about died. But I was once complaining about my dark circles to Bobbi Brown, and she was like, 'Oh, you're looking at yourself in those ELLE bathroom mirrors! That's the worst lighting in the city!'
ED: It was such a hodgepodge of incredibly luxurious things in a building that was so run-down. This was before we moved into the Hearst Tower. After a pipe broke, they were worried about mold, so they chopped the bottom of the drywall off across the entire floor. You could look down and see all the way over to ELLE Girl on the other side of the building. One ELLE Girl editor would bring her bunny to work, and it would hop through the drywall gaps. You'd be working at your desk, and the bunny would pop by for a visit.
Every day, I got to wake up and go to a magical place where everybody was so in love with the subject that they were working on, whether it was beauty, fashion, books, or film. That's also what made ELLE so different—we had departments that focused on all aspects of culture. It was really about the full scope of what the reader was interested in, not necessarily just fashion and beauty. 1980s Open Gallery How would you describe what the ELLE beauty ethos was for you at the time?
JGJ: It was healthy and glowing—pre-Gwyneth, pre-Goop. It was women in neon bikinis on the beach with big hair and glowing skin. Gilles loved this healthy, Amazon sort of look: Glamorous, healthy, and not so much makeup.
ED: Even from the very beginning, Gilles was amazing at including a more diverse pool of models, including more body shapes. If we could put a model of color on our beauty opener, that's what we would do. Was it perfect? No. But at the time, in that landscape, it was different and revolutionary.
Jean, I don't know if this was similar in your time, but I remember Gilles would shoot in Tahiti or Cabo and would always come back with a beautiful photo of a body part, specifically cleavage, a bottom or a 'front bottom,' as they say in the U.K.
JGJ: Every couple of months, Gilles would be like [French accent], 'You know, we should do a butt issue.' ELLE France at one point had a butt issue. All I could say was, 'Yes, definitely.' Of course we never did it. We redirected that male-gaze perspective and used it to focus on women's health, being strong, and being well, both physically and mentally.
ED: My early days at ELLE were really an exercise in how to take a body part photo and say something interesting about it. This is the big challenge in beauty historically–how do you say something new and interesting about red lipstick when it's already been written about a million times. Jean showed firsthand that you can write about a red lipstick a million ways and surprise each time. That's what she established at ELLE—that smart, poetic writing about something that could feel very quotidian. 1990s Open Gallery What pre-existing beauty or magazine standards did you want to challenge?
JGJ: When I started in beauty, it was very much about 'fixing' the reader, talking down to them, assuming that they're feeling flawed and terrible. I wanted to address people as if they felt great about themselves—that they were cool, chic, and beautiful. Initially, people would say, 'But that doesn't sell things,' but it did sell things.
ED: I've always asked writers to avoid the second person: You've got this problem, here's how you can fix it. You can only use second person if you're celebrating the chicness of the reader. Remember when you were at Le Club 55 and Kate Moss stole your sunscreen? My philosophy at ELLE, and in life: The reader is never flawed. The reader is never broken. We are all perfect just the way we are. Here are just some interesting things to make your life more fun. Or here's an interesting read about a technology that's absolutely kooky but also incredibly promising. So many publications had the assumption that the reader is lesser. I remember working at other places where you would use a word like 'molecule,' and they would say, 'Do we need to explain what a molecule is?'
At ELLE, we would take six to nine months to research a story, even just a short 500-word piece—I had a network of researchers at universities, cosmetic chemists, and dermatologists on call. At no time, would someone say, 'Do they know what a molecule is?' The criticism I got, which was also the biggest compliment, was 'Oh, it's too brainy. It goes too much into the research.' ELLE is about science. If you don't want that depth, that's okay—there are tons of other places you can go.
JGJ: Men's magazines at the time always spoke to a smart reader; GQ was never like, 'Oh, will this truck driver get it?' But those were the questions people asked about women reading magazines. 'Oh, maybe this is too big of a word for the little ladies!' 2000s Open Gallery
ED: ELLE has also always been about personal style. That word is overused nowadays, but back then, it wasn't a thing. Gilles would deconstruct a fashion look, combine it with a bikini on a beach. I promoted the same ethos for beauty. There's no such thing as an in-and-out list. If you want to get a perm, get a perm. If you want to shave your head, do it. If you want to wear black lipstick, do it.
JGJ: You didn't need to be in the club, on the inside, to be glamorous. My first-person column, Godfrey's Guide, was from an outsider's perspective, and the idea was, oh, you can come with me to this crazy fashion show . 2010s Open Gallery What was a story you remember fighting for?
JGJ: I wanted to do one on people snooping in medicine cabinets at parties, and I was challenged. [Someone asked], 'Is that even interesting?' But [our editor-in-chief] got it and was just like, 'Call Fran Lebowitz, Nan Kempner.' Of course, everybody looks in the medicine cabinet at a party: They're looking for drugs, beauty products and God knows what else. That was a fun one—that got at the fascination around what someone actually has in their cabinet—which is just perennially interesting. Look at Into the Gloss , years later! What made ELLE Beauty feel special to you?
ED: When I started at ELLE, there were only two types of magazines. There were those that looked at beauty through a filter of service, very problem-and-solution. Beauty didn't feel fun; it felt more like a job to do. Your face cleanser was as exciting as your dish soap. Then the other group of magazines was 100-percent style-focused, with the editor-as-dictator and in-and-out lists. I would take the best of both: I would use fashion-world access to celebrate everyday products and real-world beauty. Today, this is table stakes for beauty, but at the time, nobody else was combining things in that way.
It was about always pushing to offer a contrasting narrative. Never judgmental, but rather about creating a more empowering narrative for women. In the early 2000s, mainstream culture said that women had to be tiny and perfect, like little dolls. There were plastic-surgery makeover TV shows like The Swan . We had the beginning of the Kardashians. HD cameras. Beauty culture was obsessed with the micro—every square inch of skin, tiny millimeters mattered. The challenge was, How do we stay with readers who are looking for that kind of information, but provide them something that maybe is empowering and positive? There was a constant beat of, How do we do better for our readers? How do we do better for women? For the world?
JGJ: Science certainly powers a lot of beauty, and a lot of the innovation in beauty. But there's also a big part of beauty and certainly fashion that is fun, silly, and just for pleasure. The combination of those two things—the science and the fun—is really interesting.
ED It's still what makes ELLE such a great read today. Outside of ELLE, I feel like we have lost a bit of the pleasure of beauty in the past couple of years, and we've gone back to more of beauty feeling like a job or just another thing on a to-do list. ELLE gives us the permission to enjoy the beauty of a red nail polish or a new fragrance, and says that it's okay to indulge, to feel pleasure, to enjoy life through beauty. 2020s Open Gallery