Madame Paulette

Madame Paulette (1900-1984) was one of the most influential milliners of the last century and her work was worn by celebrities, shown by couture fashion houses and captured by some of the greatest photographers of all time.

Early Career

Madame Paulette, whose name was originally Pauline Adam de la Bruyère, was born and raised in Paris. She entered the world of fashion as a millinery model and went on to become a salesperson. In 1921, with no formal millinery training or fashion education, she opened a small salon and started selling her first handmade hats. She changed her name to Madame Paulette in 1929 and moved into a larger salon with eight employees. Film stars such as Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich were soon loyal customers.

Austerity and Millinery Style

In 1939, Madame Paulette moved her business operations to what is now the Avenue Franklin D. Roosevelt, near the Champs-Élysées, occupying multiple floors with a spacious, luxurious salon and workroom. However, when war was declared six months later she had to leave Paris for a year. When she returned to the occupied French capital at the end of 1940, she found that hat making supplies and materials had become very scarce.

As was the case with so many of the great milliners of this era, the restrictions and austerity ended up sparking Madame Paulette’s creativity and resourcefulness. She is credited with bringing women’s turbans into fashion in Europe in 1941. The style proved ideal for the difficult war years, as turbans were easy to wear and store and could be made with just a small remnant of fabric. Lilly Daché was famously popularizing the turban in America at the same time, but their styles were quite different as Daché designed for the glamour of Hollywood while Paulette stuck to smart, practical looks.

When World War II ended, Madame Paulette’s designs were sought after by haute couture fashion houses. With the return of fashion buyers and agents, her workrooms were soon employing 120 people. Her staff could make 800 hats a month, by hand, for the elite of Paris and discerning foreign fashionistas. Her clientele included celebrities and royalty and top fashion photographers like Richard Avedon, Horst P. Horst, and William Klein used to vie for the chance to shoot Madame Paulette’s new collections for magazines like Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. In the 1948 Richard Avendon photo above, Elise Daniels wears a signature Paulette turban.

Madame Paulette Exclusives

Madame Paulette never worked from illustrations; she designed her shapes directly on a block and would let inspiration guide her. A mold of each design would then be made from sparterie. In a highly competitive market, this allowed her to protect her original designs without making permanent hat blocks which could be copied. Madame Paulette’s large scale lines were made on wooden blocks, but these were all created in close collaboration with her personal block maker.

In the photo below, French supermodel Bettina Graziani wears one of Madame Paulette’s exquisite veiled headpieces.

International Acclaim and Hollywood Credits

By the 1950s society was back in full swing, with galas, balls and evenings out at the theatre. Paulette was regularly commissioned to make headdresses for extravagant soirees, giving free reign to her imagination. Now famous internationally, the French milliner was invited to open boutiques around the world. Her hats could be found in Buenos Aires, inside Harrods in London, in New York, Chicago and Boston. She was close friends with celebrated costume designer Cecil Beaton and he commissioned her to make all of the hats for the films My Fair Lady and Gigi. She also created the hats for Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Leslie Caron is pictured above in an extravagant pink Madame Paulette hat in Gigi and while Audrey Hepburn models her instantly recognizable Ascot hat in My Fair Lady. At the top of the page, Hepburn wears a black Paulette hat with a downturned brim to complete one of her iconic Breakfast at Tiffany’s looks.

End of an Era

Even when hats became less popular in the 1960s, Madame Paulette continued to create collections of 60 millinery designs twice a year for another twenty years and to make hats for high end clients and royalty like Princess Grace of Monaco and the Duchess of Windsor. Some of the last designers she worked with were Thierry Mugler and Claude Montana in the 1980s. She was unable to attend the presentation of her final collection due to her sudden death in September 1984, at 84 years of age.

Many samples of Madame Paulette’s exquisite work have been preserved. In Paris, the Musée Galleria and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs each house about 100 of her pieces. In New York City, smaller collections can be found at the Met Museum of Art and The Museum of the City of New York.

The 2014 book Hats by Madame Paulette: Paris Milliner Extraordinaire is a great resource for anyone wanting to learn more about this influential hat maker. Written in by her daughter-in-law, Annie Schneider, the book is a comprehensive guide to Madame Paulette’s work with 150 illustrations and photographs and a foreword by Stephen Jones OBE. James Sherwood’s article on Madame Paulette is also a fascinating read.

About the Author

Amy Fowler is the creator of the bespoke, California-based Millinery by Amy Fowler label. She also runs Humboldt Haberdashery, an online millinery supplier.

See Amy’s full bio HERE.