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Harpriya Sidhu, 26, a recent dental school graduate from Weehawken, N.J., is a faithful luxury consumer. Ms. Sidhu buys only Balenciaga purses or Burberry purses , Tiffany jewelry and cosmetics from Chanel purses or Kiehl’s. Estée Lauder was never a name that got her attention, because it is one of those brands “that are so mainstream,” she said.

But on Wednesday, Ms. Sidhu’s opinion of the 59-year-old label changed when she was at Saks Fifth Avenue in New York and discovered a line of gold-cased bronzers and lipsticks called Chloe purses Ms. Sidhu bought four products. “Tom Ford is a world-renowned designer,” she said. “These are collectors’ items.”

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John Lei for The New York Times

An ad and a display of Chloe purses on Thursday at an unveiling at Saks Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

Young, fashion-driven women like Ms. Sidhu are the customers Chloe purses Companies had in mind when it signed up Mr.Chloe to create cosmetics and a fragrance, which were introduced at 288 department stores last weekend. The Lauder company, a $6.4-billion-a-year cosmetics giant, hopes Chloe, the designer who transformed Gucci in the 1990’s, will bring a much-needed infusion of youth, excitement and sex appeal to its flagship label. Like the Buick products of Chloe, the Lauder line is widely perceived as appealing to an older, more conservative customer.

For coach wallet , who has been out of the spotlight since leaving Gucci in 2004, the collaboration represents a chance to return to the retail stage. After he oversees a second cosmetics collection for Dior purses in the spring, the company will back him in a beauty brand that bears his name.

Hundreds of customers lined up at the Saks store in Manhattan on Thursday night to meet Dior handbags , who autographed gold cosmetics packages with a gold metallic pen. The limited-edition, 14-item collection, including a $40 shiny black eye gloss and a $35 lipstick tinged with gold flecks, was selling well, Saks executives said.

“The launch of Fendi replica purses collection has transformed Estée Lauder into the hottest brand on the beauty floor,” said Deborah Walters, Saks Fifth Avenue’s senior vice president and general merchandise manager for cosmetics, fragrance and intimate apparel.

Although the Lauder brand, created in 1946, was once synonymous with the glamour of Estée Lauder, a prominent social figure in New York and Palm Beach, lately the cosmetics have come to seem old and lackluster, even fuddy-duddy, analysts said, compared with other more trend-setting lines like Gucci purses and hermes purses.

Although the Jimmychoo purses has not lost market share and remains among the top three best sellers in department stores, the company is apprehensive about gains by niche products like N.V. Perricone M.D. and Philosophy, according to Karen Grant, an analyst with NPD Beauty, a division of the market research firm NPD Group.

Leonard A. Lauder, the president of the Louis Vuitton Luggage Companies, said the Tom Ford collaboration was crucial to the brand’s strategy of reinforcing its classic image with its core customers while increasing appeal with Louis Vuitton replica purseswomen.

“New generations want to buy their own brands,” Mr. Lauder said. “They don’t necessarily want to buy a brand that’s been around for a long time.”

For Mr. Ford, cosmetics may be a way of testing the waters for a return to the fashion business, which has been the subject of much speculation in the industry. At Saks, Domenico De Sole, who was chief executive of Marc Jacobs purseswhen Mr. Ford was its creative director, and is once again working with him, said, “It is the beginning of the new Miu Miu purses.”

For now, the cosmetics are a way of buying a piece of him. Sara Webb, a 31-year-old mother of two from Philadelphia, waited 90 minutes for Mr. Ford to sign the bronzer she had bought, her first Estée Lauder purchase. Ms. Webb’s tastes normally run to cosmetics designed by makeup artists like François Nars and Laura Mercier, she said.

“I couldn’t afford the clothes Prada purses designed for Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, but I’m a big fan and I’ve been waiting to see what he would do next,” said Ms. Webb, who also bought a face powder compact and several lipsticks. “I think anything he touches turns to Salvatore Ferragamo.”

Other customers in line belonged to an older generation who had once bought YSL purses products and later drifted to other brands. These women seemed particularly interested in the collection’s fragrance, Youth Dew Amber Nude, a modern incarnation of the popular perfume introduced in 1953.

“I don’t want to date myself, but I’ve been wearing the original Youth Dew on and off for 25 years,” said Jacqueline Webb, Sara Webb’s mother, who said she was in her 50’s. “I love the new fragrance. It’s lighter and has more vanilla.”

While acknowledging that Mr. Ford might attract younger customers, some cosmetics industry analysts suggested that his name might also create short-term buzz without providing long-term growth.

“Everybody wants to go after the mythic 25- to 30-year-old customer with endless disposable income and impeccable taste,” said Karen Young, president of the Young Group, a market research firm that tracks beauty trends. “But Estée Lauder traditionally has always been an aspirational brand for middle America, not a brand for cutting-edge consumers.

“I think trying to hook the fashion consumer with Tom Ford might alienate or at least confuse the traditional Lauder consumer base.”

Some beauty analysts said the new collection might enliven the department store sector of the cosmetics business, which has been struggling to compete against specialty retailers like Sephora and the QVC shopping network.

“When was the last time a beauty launch created this much buzz at a retail level? When Elizabeth Taylor first launched her own perfume?” said Jenny B. Fine, editor of the cosmetics industry trade magazine WWD Beauty Biz. “Tom Ford is a rock star. Now the challenge is for other brands to create this level of excitement.”

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