Aerin Lauder Teams up with Kohler to Add Dutch Florals to Powder-Room Classics

When Estée Lauder was launching her beauty brand back in 1946, she would often scope out people’s powder rooms to see what color schemes they preferred. “That’s why she went with her blue-and-white packaging,” explains Aerin Lauder, speaking from the Hamptons house she inherited from her grandmother, its living room still dressed head-to-toe in the classic combo. “Blue and white are part of my DNA,” adds the contemporary tastemaker, who founded her own eponymous lifestyle brand, Aerin, in 2012.

Now she has revisited that time-tested color pairing in the Artist Editions Fleurette Collection: a line of fanciful sinks and toilets for Kohler. Working closely with the venerable kitchen and bath brand’s team of expert artisans in Wisconsin, Lauder conceived classic ceramic designs hand-embellished with royal-blue blossoms. In the case of the Memoirs Stately pedestal sink, those flowers creep from base to basin. (A rectangular undermount sink is also available.) The same all-over botanical treatment applies to the Memoirs Stately toilet.

Inspiration came from the Delft plates and bowls (among other treasures) passed down by her grandmother as well as a selection of 17th-century Dutch tiles. But while the series was developed around a blue-and-white palette, green-and-white versions are also available—their hue matched to Kohler’s delightfully retro Heritage Aspen Green pieces and reminiscent of the second-place color combo from Estée’s powder-room reconnaissance.

“Some of my earliest memories were of Estée’s colored sinks—especially her turquoise bathtub in Palm Beach,” Lauder recalls. They were all made by Kohler. Following in her grandmother’s footsteps, she plans to install the collection’s blue-and-white fixtures at her Hamptons home and their green-and-white counterparts in Florida. And why shouldn’t bathroom staples have a bit of pizzazz? “As Estée used to say, ‘Everything can be beautiful if you take the time.’ ”

Preview the collection now at Kohler’s site.

This story appears in the November issue. Never miss a story when you subscribe to AD.