Grace Ong Yan will be presenting her research at the 2022 College Art Association Annual Conference on March 5. Her paper is entitled “Designing Women: Avon Ladies, Entrepreneurship, and Constructing Media,” part of the session entitled Incorporating Design: Institutions, Markets, and Mediation in the History of Design, co-chaired by Anne Hilker and Colin Fanning. Ong Yan’s archival research was supported by a Hagley Exploratory Grant.
Paper Abstract: In contrast with the “organization men” of Trachtenberg’s The Incorporation of America, Avon Ladies engaged in an entrepreneurial capitalism. As a direct selling organization, Avon Products, Inc. eluded a male-dominated bureaucracy as well as fixed places of business, operating instead out of the commercialization of social relations. In this paper, I cast the Avon Lady as the entrepreneurial hinge between producers and consumers and shows how Avon constructed a mediated identity and presence in which design, gender, and race played a major role. My study spans the post-war era to the 1970s when throwaway culture, civil rights, and the feminine mystique collided. In this context, Avon choreographed production and consumption—feeding a desire for popular design in dialogue with changing attitudes in advertising and branding strategies to racially diverse audiences. For my presentation, I unpack materials from the Avon Products Inc. archives that engage design history, intersectionality, and business history, including intra-company marketing from sales booklets to prize contests as well as external advertising from product catalogs to ad campaigns. Also important are architectural designs of Avon labs and headquarters which conjured a de facto corporate culture for the far-flung reps. Viewed through a postmodern lens, I posit that Avon’s body of designs and business logistics comprised a necessary constructed reality for Avon Ladies and their customers. As a prescient model, Avon strategized and developed their identity virtually. Design was both conspicuous and absent, allowing for consumer participation within an alternative business structure.