Rose Bertin

Marie-Jeanne Rose Bertin (2 July 1747, Abbeville, Picardy, France – 22 September 1813, Épinay-sur-Seine) was a French milliner and dressmaker to Queen Marie Antoinette. She was the first celebrated French fashion designer and is widely credited with having brought fashion and haute couture to the forefront of popular culture.

Bertin came from a family of small means, her mother was a sick nurse. She and her brother Jean-Laurent received a modest education but a higher level of ambition. Rose Bertin moved to Paris, where she was apprenticed to a milliner, Mademoiselle Pagelle, and eventually became her business partner. Bertin’s early success can be attributed to her good relations with the Princesse de Conti, the Duchesse de Chartres and the Princesse de Lamballe, who would one day arrange her fateful meeting with Marie Antoinette.

In 1770 Bertin opened her own dress shop, Le Grand Mogol, on the Rue Saint-Honoré and quickly found customers among influential noble ladies at Versailles, many of whom followed her from Mademoiselle Pagelle’s, including many ladies-in-waiting to the new Dauphine, Marie Antoinette.

Before Marie Antoinette even arrived in France from Austria, she had been schooled in the nuances of galant spoken French and French fashions. She was introduced to Bertin in 1772. Twice a week, soon after Louis XVI’s coronation, Bertin would present her newest creations to the young queen and spend hours discussing them. The Queen adored her wardrobe and was passionate about every detail, and Bertin, as her milliner, became her confidante and friend.

In the mid-18th century, French women had begun to "pouf" (raise) their hair with pads and pomade and wore oversized luxurious gowns. Bertin used and exaggerated the leading modes of the day, and created poufs for Marie Antoinette with heights up to three feet. The pouf fashion reached such extremes that it became a period trademark, along with decorating the hair with ornaments and objects which showcased current events. Working with Léonard Autié, the Queen's hairdresser, Bertin created a coiffure that became the rage all over Europe: hair would be accessorized, stylized, cut into defining scenes, and modeled into shapes and objects—ranging from recent gossip to nativities to husbands' infidelities, to French naval vessels such as the Belle Poule, to the pouf aux insurgents in honor of the American Revolutionary War. The Queen's most famous coif was the "inoculation" pouf that she wore to publicize her success in persuading the King to be vaccinated against smallpox.

...
Wikipedia