Jeanne Margaine-Lacroix

The House Margaine-Lacroix is mainly known today for having revolutionized the world of fashion by creating the so-called Sylphide or Tanagréenne dress, cut to be worn without a corset.

Jeanne Margaine-Lacroix "worked closely with manufacturers to develop modernized soft knit and front-lacing undergarments that enabled greater freedom of motion".

"[1][5] On 10 May 1908 three of her models caused a sensation during The Prix du Prince de Galles at Longchamp Racecourse by presenting a new slim and free line which press called "the directoire gown".

The New York Times reported that, "Pictures of the young women who displayed their charming persons in so-called directoire gowns, are printed in both capitals [London and Paris] and artists and moralists, men of the world, police officers and dressmakers have been interviewed in bewildering numbers."

[7] The 1919 silent film La Cigarette, directed by Germaine Dulac, a female French film-maker, starred Andrée Brabant dressed by Jeanne Margaine-Lacroix.

The scandal of Jeanne Margaine-Lacroix's dresses was on the front page of L'Illustration in May 1908
Employees of the Margaine-Lacroix house posing in front of 19 boulevard Haussman in 1906
The Lacroix family grave in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris