Notes

It was the early 1950’s. India had just won her freedom and the economy was shaky. Upper middle class women were spending valuable foreign exchange on western cosmetics while the more middle class women had no access to quality makeup because of non-availability in the Indian market. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru approached JRD Tata to come up with a solution.

Tata, the always hungry entrepreneur, took on the challenge ecstatically. The biggest difficulty was coming up with a brand identity that appealed to both classes of women. He settled on Lakmé, taking the name from the French opera of the same name. Funnily the name is a western take on the Indian goddess of wealth Lakshmi. But, as this article puts it, Lakshmi lipstick or Lakshmi kajal would never have worked with the Indian ladies who were used to buying foreign cosmetics. This being the first time an Indian cosmetic company was being founded, extensive market research went into determining the needs of the Indian skin and colour. Experts were hired from every field. In 1952 Lakmé started as a 100 per cent subsidiary of Tata Oil Mills. Simone Tata, the French wife of Naval H. Tata, joined as managing director in 1961 and rose to become its chairman in 1982. Being a western born woman who had made India her home, she understood the core formula of the brand and was instrumental in shaping Lakmé into the household name that it became. She was appointed to the board of Tata Industries in 1989.Observing the rapid growth in the retail sector, Tata sold Lakmé to Hindustan Unilever in 1996 for 200 crores. They imagined that a dedicated FMGC company would be able to do better justice to the brand.