CADOLLE : The Book

Celebrating its 130th anniversary in 2019, Maison Alice Cadolle keeps on praising women's body and pays tribute to it with the publication of the first Collector book dedicated to the Cadolle family saga.

If ever there is a founding myth within the Cadolle family, it sure is the Paris World Exhibition of 1889 celebrating the centenary of the French Revolution. A theme that Herminie Cadolle, active militant of the Paris Uprising, cannot shake since this is here she presents the patent of the very first bra…at the feet of the Eiffel Tower.

With her invention, she revolutionizes the codes of femininity by freeing women from the corset 17 years before… Coco Chanel, for whom Maison Cadolle created the "boyish" bra in 1925.

From 1889 to 2018, the book not only tells the everlasting family story of the House that six generations of Cadolle women have already passed on to each other, but also recounts the History of French lingerie, completely intertwined with the personality of each of its directors. Six generations of women, entirely dedicated to the female body, who have always known how to be part and to foresee all the fashion revolutions, with one motto : well-being and seduction !

From the original store rue de la Chaussée d'Antin to today's rue Cambon and rue Saint-Honoré, Paris Haute Couture heartbeat, where Maison Cadolle - as one of the very few remaining - still has its made-to-measure lingerie workshop, the book also reveals the enduring example of a feminine success story and of what a company run by women at the service of women can be.