Paris Between the Wars - "L" is for Jeanne Lanvin

Between 1919 and 1939, Paris experienced a cultural and intellectual boom. This blog will feature artists, writers, composers, musicians, and designers. Paris was at its cultural peak.The woman whose name is synonymous with French haute couteur was born in Paris in 1867, the eldest of eleven children. She trained as a milliner (hatmaker) and dressmaker before establishing herself as a milliner at the age of 22.Lanvin made dresses for her young daughter and caught the eye of some of Paris' wealthiest individuals, who requested that Lanvin make similar dresses for their children. Soon, she was making dresses for their mothers, who became clients of her new boutique. By the 1920s, Lanvin had opened a dye factory, and shops devoted to lingerie, menswear, and furs. Her most significant creation, however, and that for which she is so widely known, was the introduction of her signature fragrance, Arpège.Here you see the design of mother and daughter, so appropriate as Jeanne Lanvin perfected the concept of 'mother-daughter dressing' in her work."The name Lanvin for me," wrote Christian Dior, "was bound up with the memory of girls in robes de style whom I danced my first foxtrots, Charlestons, and shimmies with."