Estée was a “terrific host,” says her granddaughter and Estée Lauder Style and Image Director Aerin Lauder, and she readily welcomed a coterie of international friends and dignitaries into her home and offices, always giving them a parting product gift.

In 1988, she notably hosted Russia’s First Lady Raisa Gorbachev at the Estée Lauder headquarters in New York City, one of the most prominent female visitors to the U.S. at the time. To mark the occasion, she clasped Mrs. Gorbachev’s hand in a victorious wave, a moment that was captured in a photograph that Estée treasured and kept in her office.