Aerin Lauder views the tranquil beach and low-key bustle of Main Street in Southampton as a home away from home, so it’s not surprising she chose the spot to host her first seasonal store, AERIN Southampton, opening Memorial Day weekend through December. “We’ve been going there every summer since I was two,” recalls the style and image director for Esteé Lauder and founder and creative director of her own lifestyle line, AERIN, who inherited her grandmother Estée’s nearby country home in Wainscott more than twelve years ago. “The ease of it, the fresh air, the bike rides . . . it’s a place that really defines summer paradise.”
The same could be said of the carefully curated products that are housed in Lauder’s temporary boutique, which also reflect her regularly updated Tumblr page of favorite things: jewelry crafted in collaboration with Erickson Beamon, summer sandals, fragrant candles, gilt compacts and lip glosses from her namesake collection. But there’s also a selection of other brands—Parasol’s sun shirts, Irving & Fine’s Caftans, and Rolex watches for instance—which are all tried and tested by Lauder herself.
It’s her vibrant activity on social media that Lauder attributes to understanding the value in launching such a store: “We’re on Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr—the list goes on,” she says. “From that, we’ve picked up that women are as interested in environment as much as a piece of jewelry and a pair of shoes.” But while she’s digitally inclined, she’s also drawn to long-forgotten discoveries from the past. That explains the vintage straw hats, a charming, rustic bamboo bike, and the beautiful wooden farm tables, placed in the center of the store, that she picked up in Paris, and which are similar in feel to some of the furnishings in her Wainscott abode. “I’ve always loved vintage elements,” she says. “Antiques are an important part of my life and inspiration.”