Custom Corsets and Luxury Lingerie
Cadolle's Satin Seduction Offers Women a Lacy Touch of Perfection
Bras inspired by the Eiffel Tower? Satin Corsets custom-made for the Crazy Horse dancers? A small Paris shop is the "secret address" of the world's most seductive women.
Ever wonder who invented the brassiere? No surprise, it happened in Paris.
Tucked discreetly away in the heart of the elegant Faubourg Saint-Honoré shopping district, a modest little shop called Cadolle has provided custom corsets to the rich, the royal and the simply robust for more than a century.
Among the few remaining custom lingerie boutiques in the world, Cadolle was founded in 1889 by Herminie Cadolle, who claimed to have inventing the brassiere, basing her design on the engineering of the Eiffel Tower.
Scandal and Success
When her extraordinary undergarment was unveiled at Paris' Universal Exposition, it was considered a revolutionary contribution to female progress. Not incidentally, it also caused quite a scandale.
Today, Herminie's great-great granddaughter, Poupie, runs the show. She’s quick to point out that hers is no mere supporting act.
Poupie is particularly proud of her own invention, an easy-to-lace corset. "It is very practical," she explains. "In five minutes, a woman can lace herself up." Assuming she wants to, of course.
Apparently, quite a few women do want to lace themselves. Cadolle's underthings have their fans all over the world. For the real item, made to your very own measurements from Lyons silk and trimmed in the finest Calais lace, you have to visit Paris. About 500 clients a year are custom-undergirded by Cadolle, including the showgirls of the famous Crazy Horse Saloon.
The workshops now employ 10 full-time, specialized ouvrières, a far cry from the glory days of the 1920s, when 600 employees worked to assemble a range of creations that ran the gamut from old-fashioned boned corsets to the modern elastic girdles (another Cadolle invention) that were de rigueur for every self-respecting post-war flapper.
The Roaring Twenties
In the 1920s, Cadolle fitted out such ladies of beauty, wealth, mystery and intrigue as Marlene Dietrich, Mata Hari and the Duchess of Windsor. Later, "poor little rich girl" Barbara Hutton and Christina Onassis became faithful clients.
Today's international clientele can choose from among temptations ranging from silky almost-nothings that run about $30 to elegant full-length silk nightgowns that cost every euro you could ever dream of spending, and would do Garbo proud.
And, then, of course, there are those famous corsets, to which women for some reason keep returning a century after great-great grandmère Herminie's bra "liberated" them from tight-lacing. Thank (or curse) Madonna, or Jean Paul Gaultier, the hourglass figure still appeals to many "modern" men and women.
Happily for them, they’ll always have Paris… and Cadolle.
