Did you know that the bra was invented by a woman? Created in 1889 by Herminie Cadolle, a communard close to Louise Michel, she was the first to transform the decried corset into a "corselet-gorge" and her lingerie house, managed by her descendants for 6 generations, still exists. Back on this revolutionary woman and invention.
Born in August 1842 in the Loiret, Herminie Cadolle befriended Louise Michel in the Committee of vigilance of the women of the 18th district of Paris during the Commune (1871). Imbued with the emancipatory ideas of this short revolutionary period, she decided to free women from their corsets... by cutting in two the - very - constraining accessory! Created in the 16th century to sculpt women's bodies, without any consideration of comfort, the corset perfectly illustrated the expression "suffer to be beautiful".
Herminie Cadolle invented the "corselet-gorge" which she patented in 1889 after presenting it at the Paris World Fair (at the same time as the Eiffel Tower). But it is first in Argentina that her invention will know success because the former worker corsetière preferred to be exiled in this Latin American country after having been imprisoned 6 months at the end, tragic, of the Commune.
In her feminist impulse, to liberate the body of the woman,
it was also to liberate the mental one.
After Louise Michel, another great female figure entered Herminie Cadolle's life and helped popularize her invention: tennis player Suzanne Lenglen, for whom she created the first flattening bra (the boyish form) and who, in the 1920s, was the advertising ambassador for the Cadolle perfume line.
The success brings famous customers, like the Duchess of Windsor, to use this bra which has deeply marked the female silhouette and fashion.
Herminie Cadolle never ceased to create bridges between corsetry and haute couture by creating refined lingerie collections that went with vertiginous necklines or ultra-moulded dresses, depending on the fashion.
And it is also from her Parisian boutique on rue Cambon, opened in 1911, that the corset gravedigger was a pioneer in catalog sales.
Since then, the Cadolle company, still located at the same address, is managed by its direct descendants who, by perpetuating this century-old know-how, have obtained the Living Heritage Company label.
Faithful to the spirit of their ancestor, they also surround themselves with a team of 90% women to always be at the service of women's comfort.
Valérie from Comme des Français
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