Jeanne Paquin

Who was Jeanne Paquin?

Jeanne Paquin was a leading French fashion designer, known for her resolutely modern and innovative designs.

Born in Saint-Denis in 1869, Paquin trained as a dressmaker at Rouff and later opened her own fashion house in 1891. The Maison Paquin quickly became known for its eighteenth century-inspired pastel evening dresses and tailored day dresses, as well as for its numerous publicity stunts, including organizing fashion parades to promote her new models and sending her models to operas and races in order to show off her designs. Paquin also frequently collaborated with the illustrators and architects Léon Bakst, George Barbier, Robert Mallet-Stevens, and Louis Süe for the creation of stage costumes, the publication of dress albums and the decoration of her private residences, reinforcing her reputation as a thoroughly modern designer. Beginning in 1912, the her fashions were attractively illustrated in the fashion magazine La Gazette du Bon Ton with six other leading Paris designers of the day – Louise Chéruit, Georges Doeuillet, Jacques Doucet, Paul Poiret, Redfern & Sons, and the House of Worth.