Rose Bertin French milliner and dressmaker Date of Birth: 02.07.1747 Country: France

1. Rose Bertin: The First Famous French Designer
2. Early Life and Career
3. The Queen's Trusted Fashion Advisor
4. Later Life and Legacy

Rose Bertin: The First Famous French Designer

Rose Bertin was a French milliner and dressmaker who created outfits for Queen Marie Antoinette. She is considered the first famous French designer, and her creations can still be seen in portraits of the queen, including the remarkable portrait of Marie Antoinette with her children by French artist Louise Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun. The queen is dressed in a simple yet elegant red velvet dress adorned with delicate lace.

Early Life and Career

Rose Bertin was born on July 2, 1747, in Abbeville, Picardie, France, to a modest family. Her mother worked as a midwife and caretaker for the sick, while her father served in the police force. Rose received a humble education but possessed great ambition. At the age of 16, she moved to Paris and became an apprentice to milliner Mademoiselle Pagelle. Eventually, she became a partner in Pagelle's business.

Rose's success was largely due to her excellent relationships with aristocratic clients such as Princesse de Conti, Duchesse de Chartres, and Princesse de Lamballe. These influential ladies arranged a fateful meeting between Rose and Marie Antoinette. In 1770, Rose opened her own clothing store, 'Le Grand Mogol,' on Rue Saint-Honoré, which still houses luxurious and expensive shops to this day. She quickly gained influential clients among the ladies who shone at Versailles, many of whom were ladies-in-waiting to Marie Antoinette.

The Queen's Trusted Fashion Advisor

Rose dressed Marie Antoinette from 1772 until her downfall in 1792, becoming an influential figure at the French court. Thanks to Rose's creativity, France became the world's fashion capital, and the concept of French elegance emerged. The exquisite creations of Parisian masters flew all over the world, eagerly awaited by fashionable women in London, Saint Petersburg, Venice, Vienna, and even Constantinople.

During the French Revolution, when many of Rose's aristocratic clients were executed or fled the country, she also faced danger. She was accused of indulging the former queen's expensive tastes, as her dresses or hats were 20-30 times more expensive than what a skilled worker could earn in a year. Even when the queen was imprisoned, Rose continued to fulfill her orders, albeit with simpler modifications to her previous dresses. She also sewed a simple mourning dress for Marie Antoinette after the execution of Louis XVI.

During the Reign of Terror, Rose destroyed all her accounting books and invoices. At the last moment, she managed to move her business to London. For a while, she continued to serve her old emigrant clients, and her fashionable dolls, dressed in the latest fashion, continued to travel to European capitals, even reaching Saint Petersburg. In 1795, she returned to France, where her client became Josephine de Beauharnais, allowing Rose to regain all her property, including a house in Épinay-sur-Seine near Paris.

Later Life and Legacy

However, Rose soon discovered that the era of excessive fashion and unprecedented luxury, which had somewhat diminished after the revolution, had come to an end. She gradually withdrew from the business and handed over her enterprise to her nephews at the beginning of the 19th century. Rose Bertin passed away on September 22, 1813, at the age of 66, in her home in Épinay-sur-Seine.

Bertin is often credited with the quote, "Everything new is well-forgotten old," supposedly commenting on an incident with the queen's old dress that she had renewed. However, the true author of these immortal words was French lawyer and writer Jacques Peuchet, who wrote and published "Memoirs" from the perspective of Rose Bertin.